Javscript bug in 'top' object

Wed Mar 14 11:36:03 PST 2001

	Sorry if this has been mentioned before, I just joined this list, and did not see anything obvious in a quick overview of the archives. I have found an interesting bug in OmniWeb 4b9's JavaScript DOM. Script written into web pages cannot see the 'top' object, but the JavaScript console can! Here is a sample of this error:

-------------------file: base.html--------------------
<html>
<head>
        <title>nothing important</title>
        <script language="JavaScript">
        <!--
        myTestValue = " Yes it worked!";
        //-->
        </script>
</head>
<frameset>
        <frame src="frame.html" />
</frameset>
</html>
-------------------file: frame.html--------------------
<html>
<head>   
        <title>another something unimportant</title>
</head>
<body onLoad="alert('Did it work?' + top.myTestValue);">
        A little text
</body>
</html>
----------------------------------------------------------

	What this should do is set a variable (top.myTestValue) that can be read from any frame within the window, and then when the frame loads, you should get an alert window that says "Did it work? Yes it worked!". But instead OmniWeb complains (in the JavaScript error log) that 'top' is not a object ('[onload handler]:0: top has no properties').
	This setup works fine in Netscape, IE, and iCab, and conforms to the standards.. I think this one counts as a bug. Oh.. and same behavior in OmniWeb 4b8 I have just realized (never tracked down the error before).

	Karl Kuehn
		larkost at softhome.net

PS... I hope that later versions of OmniWeb will allow scripts to re-write frames... a couple of my nicer scripts do that to limit bandwidth on downloads...