N
NeverLift
I've searched around and don't find the following incident discussed
specifically.
First, a comment from an experience programmer new to JavaScript:
While I am new to javascript, I've programmed in a dozen other
languages for decades, and now have been working in javascript
intensively for several weeks. My first comment -- which has nothing
to do with this problen -- is on how its richness makes it so
difficult to provide adequate reference material. After working only
with what I could discover through Google searches and actually
writing some nifty fast incremental select element populating code --
what I found on the Web, which has been cited in many locations, is
ugly code and sloooow when search a list of, say, 2000 possible
entries for inclusion in the box -- just with those hints.
I finally broke down, bought what the reveiws say are the two most
complete books -- Javascript Bible and Dynamic HTML, The Definitive
Reference (both by Goodman), and am aghast: With the "Bonus Chapters"
in the former, they total more than 3,000 pages! And with their
in-depth indexes, it's still very difficult to find what one needs.
(The HTML and CSS speification publications add another 400 pages . .
..) As a truly elementary example: I wanted to return from a function
as a result of a test, not by running it out: The "return" is not
indexed, nor are any of the words that might lead one to it. In fact,
it is shown in some examples about 980 pages into the book, but
nowhere is it actually documented. Yes, I know, every language has a
"return" statement, but its usage and syntax varies -- and on some
occasions, it's actually called something else.
So, to my current issue. For reasons that are valid -- please don't
ask, "Why do you want to do that?" -- I need to hide the page in its
entirety until the onload script has altered it based on certain
criteria. After doing a lot of brute force stuff -- setting font
color to "white", etc., etc. -- I discovered that one can put the
attribute style="visibility:hidden" directly in the <body> tag --
which itself is not easily discovered. But: Tables in the body that
have a non-zero "border" attribute still show -- just the borders!
Yes, I know I need to learn CSS as well; give me a break, guys! I do
have that spec as an HTML doc, and it was there I finally found this
out. You know, you can't look such things up by concept in the
indexes of either book, or the HTML spec, or the CSS book, unless you
already know the term that implements it; if I know the term, I don't
need to look it up! In any case, try looking up "hidden" in either
book; you get no hint that it can be applied via style to any element.
If you know it's available as a style attribute, then know the
attribute is "visibility", why than you can find it . . . and by that
time, you must know enough that you don't need to find it. (Again, a
Google Groups search on words associated with the concept told me what
terms to use, and then I didn't need to use the book . . .)
I apologize for the rant (Fortran was good enough for my grandfather,
it was good enough for my father, and it's good enough for me -- bah,
humbug!), but it's been a very frustrating couple of weeks.
The real question: What about them table borders? So far, I'm
defining their values as zero, then setting them to their final values
at the same point that I make the body visible. Should I need to do
all that? What should make that unnecessary?
specifically.
First, a comment from an experience programmer new to JavaScript:
While I am new to javascript, I've programmed in a dozen other
languages for decades, and now have been working in javascript
intensively for several weeks. My first comment -- which has nothing
to do with this problen -- is on how its richness makes it so
difficult to provide adequate reference material. After working only
with what I could discover through Google searches and actually
writing some nifty fast incremental select element populating code --
what I found on the Web, which has been cited in many locations, is
ugly code and sloooow when search a list of, say, 2000 possible
entries for inclusion in the box -- just with those hints.
I finally broke down, bought what the reveiws say are the two most
complete books -- Javascript Bible and Dynamic HTML, The Definitive
Reference (both by Goodman), and am aghast: With the "Bonus Chapters"
in the former, they total more than 3,000 pages! And with their
in-depth indexes, it's still very difficult to find what one needs.
(The HTML and CSS speification publications add another 400 pages . .
..) As a truly elementary example: I wanted to return from a function
as a result of a test, not by running it out: The "return" is not
indexed, nor are any of the words that might lead one to it. In fact,
it is shown in some examples about 980 pages into the book, but
nowhere is it actually documented. Yes, I know, every language has a
"return" statement, but its usage and syntax varies -- and on some
occasions, it's actually called something else.
So, to my current issue. For reasons that are valid -- please don't
ask, "Why do you want to do that?" -- I need to hide the page in its
entirety until the onload script has altered it based on certain
criteria. After doing a lot of brute force stuff -- setting font
color to "white", etc., etc. -- I discovered that one can put the
attribute style="visibility:hidden" directly in the <body> tag --
which itself is not easily discovered. But: Tables in the body that
have a non-zero "border" attribute still show -- just the borders!
Yes, I know I need to learn CSS as well; give me a break, guys! I do
have that spec as an HTML doc, and it was there I finally found this
out. You know, you can't look such things up by concept in the
indexes of either book, or the HTML spec, or the CSS book, unless you
already know the term that implements it; if I know the term, I don't
need to look it up! In any case, try looking up "hidden" in either
book; you get no hint that it can be applied via style to any element.
If you know it's available as a style attribute, then know the
attribute is "visibility", why than you can find it . . . and by that
time, you must know enough that you don't need to find it. (Again, a
Google Groups search on words associated with the concept told me what
terms to use, and then I didn't need to use the book . . .)
I apologize for the rant (Fortran was good enough for my grandfather,
it was good enough for my father, and it's good enough for me -- bah,
humbug!), but it's been a very frustrating couple of weeks.
The real question: What about them table borders? So far, I'm
defining their values as zero, then setting them to their final values
at the same point that I make the body visible. Should I need to do
all that? What should make that unnecessary?