How to show a disabled link?

[Barbara de Zoete]

I have a set of html pages that under certain conditions,

Conditions? Conditions? What on earth can that conditions bee?

the link
will be invalid. I'm wondering what is the best method to display to
the user that the link is invalid so that they can change the
condition so that it is valid.

Change the conditions? If you are not able to provide me valid links in my
browsing situation, I just press the back-button and go to a rival site.

Here's the methods I've thought of to accomplish the task, any
suggestions or opinions? Is there a standard method to handle what I'm
trying to accomplish?

1. Overlay the link with a "No" symbol (circle with a slash)
2. Change the link so that it is disabled
3. Remove the link
4. Any others?

That must be #4 definitely. Change your page so it works in everybody's
browser without any hassle for the visitor.

 

[Neal]

I have a set of html pages that under certain conditions, the link
will be invalid. I'm wondering what is the best method to display to
the user that the link is invalid so that they can change the
condition so that it is valid.

Don't display the link. Use PHP to echo one or the other line of HTML
depending on whatever conditions you have. I've used this in navigation
lists, where if you're on the page the link points to, the link is
replaced with non-clickable text with a class for styling.

Whether or not it's confusing, that depends on why you need to do this.

 

[Jeffrey Silverman]

I have a set of html pages that under certain conditions, the link
will be invalid. I'm wondering what is the best method to display to
the user that the link is invalid so that they can change the
condition so that it is valid.

Please post an example of what you currently have. Your description is
too vague to really anwser.

 

[Neal]

erikd:

I'm using this for a disc menu (not on the web)

Ah, should have said. BTW, your post is time-stamped 2 hours in the
future...

 

[erikd]

I have a set of html pages that under certain conditions, the link
will be invalid. I'm wondering what is the best method to display to
the user that the link is invalid so that they can change the
condition so that it is valid.

Here's the methods I've thought of to accomplish the task, any
suggestions or opinions? Is there a standard method to handle what I'm
trying to accomplish?

1. Overlay the link with a "No" symbol (circle with a slash)
2. Change the link so that it is disabled
3. Remove the link
4. Any others?

#1 has a problem in that the link is still active which would allow
the user to still select it, even if it will give an error after
selecting it. #2 will show that under certain conditions the link
could be active, but I don't know how to disable the link. Also, would
the users find this confusing? #3 I think is the worst choice since
the user won't be aware that they need to change the condition to
activate the link. They won't know the link is there.

 

[Noozer]

I'm building an html menu for a set of optical discs (dvd & cdrom). I
am using the same menu for all the discs so that the user doesn't need
to know which disc the application is on in advance, but the proper
disc is indicated on the menu. They can place any disc in the drive to
begin. At the moment the same menu runs from each disc, but in the
future I want to copy the menu to the users hard drive and then
depending on which disc is in the drive, make the proper link active.

Wrong tool for the job. HTML won't be adequate for your task.

 

[erikd]

Don't display the link. Use PHP to echo one or the other line of HTML
depending on whatever conditions you have. I've used this in navigation
lists, where if you're on the page the link points to, the link is
replaced with non-clickable text with a class for styling.

Whether or not it's confusing, that depends on why you need to do this.

I'm using this for a disc menu (not on the web), so I was thinking
about using css to do what ever was needed. My thought was I could use
a different css file located on the disc to control the display. The
file name on each disc would be the same, but the content of the css
file would be different.

The final decision on what I do rests with the group in the company
who decides on how applications should work, but I was looking for any
other inputs before I ask them for their opinions. If I make a
recommendation, they usually follow it.

 

[erikd]

Conditions? Conditions? What on earth can that conditions bee?

I'm building an html menu for a set of optical discs (dvd & cdrom). I
am using the same menu for all the discs so that the user doesn't need
to know which disc the application is on in advance, but the proper
disc is indicated on the menu. They can place any disc in the drive to
begin. At the moment the same menu runs from each disc, but in the
future I want to copy the menu to the users hard drive and then
depending on which disc is in the drive, make the proper link active.

I envision that the user will launch the menu on their hard drive and
then depending on which application or data that they need to use,
they will need to place that disc in the drive. At the moment if they
click on the link with the wrong disc in the drive, I prompt them with
the proper disc number to place in the drive. I think it's more user
friendly to disable the link so that the only valid links are for the
disc which is currently in the drive. I think displaying the error
message after they click on an invalid link isn't a good interface.

Change the conditions? If you are not able to provide me valid links in my
browsing situation, I just press the back-button and go to a rival site.

Although I'm using this as an interface for discs, I can think of a
couple of situations where it could be used on the web. For instance
it could be used on a site where you pay for access to different
features. That's why I phrased my original post the way I did, to
allow multiple uses. Another way I could see it used on an intranet is
only being able to access something after going through appropriate
training for the material being linked to.

That must be #4 definitely. Change your page so it works in everybody's
browser without any hassle for the visitor.

The menu these discs are for is only for employees so I don't need to
worry about visitors. I tried to word my initial post so that my
methodology wasn't the focus of the message, I'm sorry that I didn't
succeed.

 

[erikd]

erikd:


Ah, should have said. BTW, your post is time-stamped 2 hours in the
future...

Sorry for being incomplete the first time around, I was trying to keep
the focus away from the methodology of my setup so that only the link
question was the topic.

Thanks for letting me know about the time stamp. My system was set to
Pacific time and I'm located in Central. It should be correct now. (a
little embarrassing...)

 

[erikd]

Wrong tool for the job. HTML won't be adequate for your task.

OK, I'm open to suggestions. But I don't see why it won't work. For
displaying the data, most of the documents are in PDF format and they
seem to launch ok, whether from the web or from disc. All I need to do
is ensure that the file links are relative and not absolute.

The MS Office items all seem to launch OK from the html menu and the
applications all have their own installers which can be launched.

What am I missing? What do you see that I don't? I really thought it
was coming together well.

 

[Starshine Moonbeam]

(e-mail address removed) ([email protected]) dropped a +5 bundle of
words...

OK, I'm open to suggestions. But I don't see why it won't work.

Becuse you need an actual programming language.

take in input
write input to drive on dvd
if future disk equals the disk number then make the proper link active.

HTML won't handle any of that (except for the display of the link,
maybe). It's just a markup language. You need a by gawd programming
language for that kind of interactivity. HTML just displays the elements
on an .html document.

For
displaying the data, most of the documents are in PDF format and they
seem to launch ok, whether from the web or from disc. All I need to do
is ensure that the file links are relative and not absolute.

PDF is not dependent on HTML. PDF is a different extension altogether
for adobe acrobat documents.

 

[Andy Dingley]

I have a set of html pages that under certain conditions, the link
will be invalid. I'm wondering what is the best method to display to
the user that the link is invalid so that they can change the
condition so that it is valid.

I've done this. With server-generated code, I produced this:

<menu>
<li><a ... >Yes</a></li>
<li><strike><a ... >No</a></strike></li>
</menu>

The relevant CSS removed the underline from a disabled link inside
<strike> and used the strike-through instead, along with a grey color
and font-style: oblique;. As it was a regularly-visited menu, the
normal link styling (colours, underline) was suppressed for all the
links anyway. Work out the hrefs etc. for yourself.

For client-side switching, I'd probably dynamically change a class
attribute instead of using <strike>. Some doctype disciplinarians
might prefer this anyway.