Supported browsers
Plugboard runs in the browser. There is nothing to install on a staff machine, a student device or a kiosk tablet.
Supported
Section titled “Supported”The current and previous major version of:
| Browser | Platforms |
|---|---|
| Google Chrome | Windows, macOS, Linux, ChromeOS, Android |
| Microsoft Edge | Windows, macOS |
| Mozilla Firefox | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| Apple Safari | macOS, iOS, iPadOS |
Chromium browsers built on the same engine (Brave, Vivaldi, Opera, and the Chromium builds some school images ship) behave as Chrome does. We do not test each one separately, and problems unique to one are worth reporting.
Supported means we test on it and we will fix what breaks on it.
The floor
Section titled “The floor”Older than the above may still work, but it is not something we check. The hard floor is set by the framework the console is built on:
| Browser | Minimum |
|---|---|
| Chrome | 64 |
| Edge | 79 |
| Firefox | 67 |
| Safari | 12 |
| Opera | 51 |
Below that, the console will not load usefully, and no configuration changes it.
Internet Explorer is not supported in any version. It is out of support at Microsoft, and Edge in IE mode does not change the answer.
What that means in a school
Section titled “What that means in a school”Staff and technician machines. Any managed Windows or macOS image from the last few years is comfortably above the floor. Edge and Chrome on a current Windows image are both fine.
Student devices. Chromebooks are on evergreen Chrome. Managed iPads are on whatever iPadOS you have approved, and Safari moves with it.
Kiosk tablets. The service desk kiosk and the induction kiosk are ordinary pages, so any supported browser in its own kiosk or guided-access mode works. If you are tapping cards, the reader matters more than the browser: it presents as a keyboard, so the browser does not need to support anything special.
Parents. The parent portal and repair tracking are used on personal phones you do not control. Both are built for that, and both stay within the floor above.
JavaScript and cookies
Section titled “JavaScript and cookies”Both are required, and there is no version of the console that works without them.
The console uses a cookie for the session and one for your theme preference. There is no third-party tracking, so a browser blocking third-party cookies, as most now do, changes nothing here. See what we process.
Live updating
Section titled “Live updating”Screens that update without a refresh use a long-lived connection to the server. Every browser above supports it.
If screens load but never update, the browser is almost never the cause. It is usually a proxy buffering the event stream. See live updates and when it will not start.
Screen sizes
Section titled “Screen sizes”The console is built for a desk: a laptop or a desktop monitor. It works on a tablet held in landscape. The pages a student or parent touches (the kiosk, tracking, the parent portal and the help centre) are built for a phone.
Running the full technician console on a phone is not something we design for.