Pop up technique

[DU]

Dispite all these arguments, it still doesn't address the issue at
hand. As if it's being avoided.

Every average user I speak of about web issues *prefer* pop ups in the
type of implemation that I use them for (larger images, and outside
links), to the point of requesting their implementation.

Are you saying that slideshow can not be faster, more efficient and
better than popups from an accessibility and usability perspectives in
many cases?

The reason why there are "pop up blockers" is because users don't want
ads, or extra drivel when they are surfing. That is also why the
Google blocker is considered a "smart blocker" because it allows user
initiated pop ups.

Browser manufacturers and popup killer softwares are well aware of the
difference between a requested popup and an unrequested popup.

Thats what I have in my site - user initiated pop ups. The back
button isn't "broken" because the pop ups are smaller than the screen
size. Even if the user is browsing non-full screen, any pop ups will
be offset from the original location. Thusly, it's known it's a pop
up, and only causing minimal cases of "broken back button" confusion.

"(...) Users often don't notice that a new window has opened, especially
if they are using a small monitor where the windows are maximized to
fill up the screen. So a user who tries to return to the origin will be
confused by a grayed out Back button." Jakob Nielsen, The Top Ten New
Mistakes of Web Design: 2. Opening New Browser Windows, May 30, 1999

My original request for a pop up simply was for a gallery of images.

Thank you for clarifying this. It would have been nice to say so from
the beginning though in your original post without multi-posting in
newsgroups.

Anyone who regularly peruses through galleries expects the larger
images to be popped up. It's not like I came up with this idea out of
the blue. I used many different presidences that were recomended,
weeding out ones with greater evils (frames), and choosing the most
popular, and slowly modifying things along with user requests.

Are you of the opinion that slideshows can not a defendable and
responsible website alternative decision to popups?

The "over whelming majority of the time is unnessisary" was
mentioned... but many are behaving as if it should never be done. A
pop up is not a f** nightmare, as being compared to. User initiated
pop ups are far from that to even those who are hyper sensitive to pop
ups on the web.

Modal popups are the worse and understandably upset users.
Destroying and then re-creating popup windows is very common in websites
and the poor coding involved just abuse and misuse user system resources
(cpu, RAM, time to render, et.c.)
Most of the time, popups coding assume that javascript support is
enabled when 8 - 12% of users have javascript turn off.
I would say that above 90% of all sites with a popup generator, popup
maker, copy-N-paste javascript sites have very bad code. I've said so in
the past and have given examples of this in comp.lang.javascript newsgroup.

DU
--
Javascript and Browser bugs:
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/
- Resources, help and tips for Netscape 7.x users and Composer
- Interactive demos on Popup windows, music (audio/midi) in Netscape 7.x
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/Netscape7/Netscape7Section.html

 

[DU]

Opening new windows is a snake's nest of usability and accessibility
problems.

I certainly agree with you on this. Overall it takes more care and
expertise to code popups.

E.g. in your own website, we can read this at your

http://www.karlcore.com/articles/article.php?id=7

<a href="file.html" onclick="window.open('file.html', 'window_name',
'toolbar=yes, location=yes, status=yes, menubar=yes, scrollbars=yes,
resizable=yes, width=xxx, height=xxx'); return false"> Open Window </a>

but the problem in NS 4.x and Mozilla-based browsers (17 browsers) is
that the blank spaces in the windowFeatures argument will disable, turn
off and neutralize everything after toolbar=yes. So, while trying to
turn on these accessibility and usability window features, these blank
spaces (a single one, in fact) turn them off!
"windowFeatures is an optional string containing a comma-separated list
of options for the new window (do not include any spaces in this list)."
http://devedge.netscape.com/library/manuals/2000/javascript/1.3/reference/window.html#1202731
IMO, resizable, scrollbars and status should always be turn on on
any/every popup. Fortunately, Mozilla users can add these in their
user.js file:

user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature.resizable", true);
user_pref("dom.disable_window_open_feature.scrollbars", true);

and UNcheck the checkbox
Edit/Preferences.../Advanced/Scripts & Plugins/Allow scripts to:/Hide
the status bar.

Why do you think AOL and Earthlink offer popup blockers? Why do Mozilla,
Opera, and Google Toolbar have settings to interrupt new windows opening?
Because they're a f&*%king nightmare to deal with and they *are not*
user-friendly.

In the overwhelming majority of the time, pop-up windows are unneccessary,
annoying, and inaccessible.

I entirely agree with you on this. OTOH, in some cases (minority),
popups can be a defendable and responsible website decision. In all
cases - that is 100% of the time -, there are valid alternatives to popups.

If you're opening pop-ups for supplemental content, you need to reassess the
information architecture of the site.


Dive Into Accessibility - Day 16: Not opening new windows

http://diveintoaccessibility.org/day_16_not_opening_new_windows.html



Don't Use Frames or Navigational Popups

http://www.seankenney.com/publications/2001-04/



Top Ten New Mistakes of Web Design: (#2 Opening new windows)

http://www.useit.com/alertbox/990530.html

Closing popup windows - or, the user rebellion
http://www.structureinteractive.com/thought/white_popup.htm

DU
--
Javascript and Browser bugs:
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/
- Resources, help and tips for Netscape 7.x users and Composer
- Interactive demos on Popup windows, music (audio/midi) in Netscape 7.x
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/Netscape7/Netscape7Section.html

 

[Toby A Inkster]

My original request for a pop up simply was for a gallery of images.
Anyone who regularly peruses through galleries expects the larger
images to be popped up.

What about something like:
http://usenet.alt-html.org/brucies/butterflies/

 

[Matthias Gutfeldt]

Kathleen Coyne wrote:




What about something like:
http://usenet.alt-html.org/brucies/butterflies/

Wow. brucie did it again!


Matthias

 

[Mark Parnell]

Wow. brucie did it again!

Yep.

http://usenet.alt-html.org/brucies/balls

 

[brucie]

Wow. brucie did it again!

THEY MADE ME DO IT!
SHE SAID SHE WAS 16.
YOU CANT PROVE ANYTHING.
IT WAS HIM --->

sorry, ummmmmm wrong group

i prefer: http://usenet.alt-html.org/brucies/balls

 

[Samuël van Laere]

I use popups on a site i build last year, it is no longer
active but still there: http://www.komododragon.co.uk

Now if i was asked to rebuild it then i would use CSS over a tables only
layout.
I would use Dreamweaver over Frontpage (no longer own Frontpage anyway)
I would avoid setting font sizes.
There would be a lot of changes.

But i'm not sure about the popups.
Would i need to reconsider using them at all, or are the popups i used (in
this case) acceptable?

Note that i'm talking about http://www.komododragon.co.uk here.
There won't be any popups on my personal site.

 

[EightNineThree]

I certainly agree with you on this. Overall it takes more care and
expertise to code popups.

E.g. in your own website, we can read this at your

http://www.karlcore.com/articles/article.php?id=7

<a href="file.html" onclick="window.open('file.html', 'window_name',
'toolbar=yes, location=yes, status=yes, menubar=yes, scrollbars=yes,
resizable=yes, width=xxx, height=xxx'); return false"> Open Window </a>

but the problem in NS 4.x and Mozilla-based browsers (17 browsers) is
that the blank spaces in the windowFeatures argument will disable, turn
off and neutralize everything after toolbar=yes. So, while trying to
turn on these accessibility and usability window features, these blank
spaces (a single one, in fact) turn them off!

You're exactly right.
The reason I added the spaces (in the article) is because it did not wrap
without them and blew the page to about 2000 pixels wide! Ack!
So, I should mention the what you've said above.

 

[Adrienne]

Note that i'm talking about http://www.komododragon.co.uk here.

I love dragons.

 

[John C]

You're exactly right.
The reason I added the spaces (in the article) is because it did not wrap
without them and blew the page to about 2000 pixels wide! Ack!
So, I should mention the what you've said above.

I tried to access your article mentioned above, but got a "Can't connect
to local MySQL" warning. :-(

Have you looked at this:

http://www.accessify.com/tutorials/the-perfect-pop-up.asp

It's the best treatment I've found so far on the subject.

 

[DU]

Have you looked at this:

http://www.accessify.com/tutorials/the-perfect-pop-up.asp

It's the best treatment I've found so far on the subject.

It's far from a perfect treatment in my opinion.

1- Bypassing standards
dynamically applying a target attribute in a strict DTD document has
been widely condemned by readers of that tutorial (at least, the K. Yank
article). Either standards are there to serve a purpose or they don't.

2- Anti-accessibility carelessness, counter-usability
"Console mode" and "fixed mode" imply that statusbar and/or window
resizability and/or scrollbars (if needed) won't be present, won't
appear. In my opinion, there will never be a single reason why these 3
window features should not be always present. If your requested window
dimensions are correct, then, as a web developer, there should be no
problem, no hesitation in providing window resizability and scrollbars
(if content overflows requested window dimensions) as a safe
accessibility fallback precaution in case of Murphy's law. If your
calculations are correct, then there is no harm, no problem in providing
these, so why not allow these features? This is precisely what is needed
(resizability and scrollbars to access content, for usability purposes)
when calculations are wrong or other parameters are neglected: e.g. the
user needs to use MS-magnify which reduces browser window viewport or
needs to increase font-size to a point that content overflows window
dimensions (that happens often with users over 40 years old) or
calculations neglects document margins (that occurs often with enlarged
images), etc.,etc.

The inability to scroll or resize a window is the most frequent
annoyance on the web regarding requested and unrequested popups. Both
Opera 7 and Mozilla give now users ultimate veto power over these
features. That accessify.com tutorial could have helped here by
preaching the example for developers targeting MSIE.

Why remove statusbar? Statusbar should be the user's best toolbar-friend
as it provides reliable, unaltered info (coming directly from the
browser) about browser connections, download, progress, http connection,
secure connection via the padlock icon (SSL), etc.. so, why do you need
to remove this toolbar away from the user? Would you trust a site which
enjoys removing statusbar all the time? If a content deserves another
secondary window, then why do you need to degrade the browser window
functionalities like that?

3- Bad code
The window popup generator creates bad code: it offers to support under
100 values for height and width. Cpu, time, RAM, user resources will be
wasted to produce valid sized (and possibly re-positioned also) popup
windows.

4- Incomplete
Some window attributes are not listed in there: the popup generator is
not complete. outerWidth, outerHeight, and many more are supported by
Netscape 4+.

5- No explanation
The explanations regarding popup killer softwares are far from being
accurate, useful and relevant. How popup killer software work and what
they do is never addressed in conjonction with the issue of popup coding.

6- The popup generator allows you to choose width and height of popups
according to screen res.: this is absurd as all window-based browsers
will need to waste time, cpu, RAM in reducing such windows and
re-positioning them. No window covers the window taskbar (or any other
os-dependent semi-permanent applications like MS-magnify, Office
quicklaunch bar, winbar, etc..) and no window should open clipped,
masked, outside the viewable browser viewport.
Another issue is that by making these as wide as the viewport (and that
will be the case after error-correction mechanism), the user with a
maximized window never gets to know that he's now in another window: so,
several of them will be confused by a grayed, dimmed Back button. None
of these issues are addressed.

7- No scalability
It is never discussed that window sizes can upset users: fullscreen or
maximized popup windows are a major irritations to users with large
monitor screen. It's never proposed to set window sizes proportional and
relative to browser window viewport dimensions or available screen size
for applications. E.g.:
window.innerHeight * 0.66
or
screen.availWidth * 0.50
The tutorial and popup window generator only offers absolute values.


DU
--
Javascript and Browser bugs:
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/
- Resources, help and tips for Netscape 7.x users and Composer
- Interactive demos on Popup windows, music (audio/midi) in Netscape 7.x
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/Netscape7/Netscape7Section.html

 

[DU]

Kathleen Coyne wrote:




What about something like:
http://usenet.alt-html.org/brucies/butterflies/

Excellent point. In my reply, I had that page in mind. I wanted to give
that url as a good example of slideshow but couldn't find it anymore.
That page is a good example of very good and valid alternative to popup
windows.

DU
--
Javascript and Browser bugs:
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/
- Resources, help and tips for Netscape 7.x users and Composer
- Interactive demos on Popup windows, music (audio/midi) in Netscape 7.x
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/Netscape7/Netscape7Section.html

 

[EightNineThree]

I tried to access your article mentioned above, but got a "Can't connect
to local MySQL" warning. :-(

'tis known to happen at times.
My host's server apparently takes a shit about once a day.
I've been shopping around for months, but can't come up with much. :-(

 

[John C]

Have you looked at this:

http://www.accessify.com/tutorials/the-perfect-pop-up.asp

It's the best treatment I've found so far on the subject.

It's far from a perfect treatment in my opinion.
[tome snipped]

Holy cow! Did that just pour out, or is it something you keep handy for
such occasions?

I don't have the expertise to give it the same level of evaluation you
did, and I can't take exception to any of your remarks. If one is going
to take away all the window features, one might as well use an "alert"
box. As I said, it was the best I had *found so far*. It at least
presented the issues, sought to address them, concluded with an
admonition, and provided code that overcame shortcomings in the other
"how-to's" I'd found. Maybe a combination of links to that article,
Karl's article, your commentary, and Nielsen's stuff would make a good
standard FAQ reply to folks with "how do I do this popup" posts. Or maybe
you could put together the penultimate "how to" (the ultimate, as I
gather, being don't do it at all).

 

[John C]

'tis known to happen at times.
My host's server apparently takes a shit about once a day.
I've been shopping around for months, but can't come up with much. :-(

Have you checked with that guy who says your sig is fine as it is?
Bandwidth a little on the low side, but for personal sites should be
adequate.

 

[DU]

John C wrote:

Have you looked at this:

http://www.accessify.com/tutorials/the-perfect-pop-up.asp

It's the best treatment I've found so far on the subject.

It's far from a perfect treatment in my opinion.
[tome snipped]

Holy cow! Did that just pour out, or is it something you keep handy for
such occasions?

I don't have the expertise to give it the same level of evaluation you
did, and I can't take exception to any of your remarks. If one is going
to take away all the window features, one might as well use an "alert"
box. As I said, it was the best I had *found so far*.

I can document what I said. Many bugfiles at bugzilla show the level of
annoyance of users regarding sizes of popups, others about other issues.
I answered a lot of questions from users in netscape.netscape7.windows
and in programming newsgroups in the last 2 years. I assure you that
popups are a nightmare on both sides of the source code. The
accessify.com tutorial is not that good: sure, it should be considered a
lot better than some copy-N-paste javascript sites. But at several
points, it fails to be up to its accessibility commitment.

It at least

presented the issues, sought to address them, concluded with an
admonition, and provided code that overcame shortcomings in the other
"how-to's" I'd found. Maybe a combination of links to that article,
Karl's article, your commentary, and Nielsen's stuff would make a good
standard FAQ reply to folks with "how do I do this popup" posts. Or maybe
you could put together the penultimate "how to" (the ultimate, as I
gather, being don't do it at all).

The ultimate is, I think, don't rely too much popups; using popups can
be, yes, a defendable and responsible website decision. Nevertheless,
many fallbacks, precautions, usability guidelines, care must be
considered and implemented. And never use more than 1 popup: more than
one is too often a nightmare for users.

Here's what I "preach" for users:
Popup windows and Netscape 7: interactive demos
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/Netscape7/Popup/PopupAndNetscape7.html

Here's what I do myself:
Opera 7 bugs (that page uses popups)
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/BrowserBugsSection/Opera7Bugs/Opera7Bugs.html

DU
--
Javascript and Browser bugs:
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/
- Resources, help and tips for Netscape 7.x users and Composer
- Interactive demos on Popup windows, music (audio/midi) in Netscape 7.x
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/Netscape7/Netscape7Section.html

 

[Matthias Gutfeldt]

It's far from a perfect treatment in my opinion.

1- Bypassing standards
dynamically applying a target attribute in a strict DTD document has
been widely condemned by readers of that tutorial (at least, the K. Yank
article). Either standards are there to serve a purpose or they don't.

I couldn't find the reader comments you mention. And Kevin Yank argues
that Javascript/DOM and HTML are completely different standards, and I
can see his point. It's certainly true that one standard can limit the
use of another standard, but I can't find anything in the HTML
specification to support the opinion that this particular "trick" would
be illegal.

I appreciate your other arguments regarding pop-ups, though - very thorough!


Matthias

 

[John C]

Here's what I "preach" for users:
Popup windows and Netscape 7: interactive demos
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/Netscape7/Popup/
PopupAndNetscape7.html

Here's what I do myself:
Opera 7 bugs (that page uses popups)
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/BrowserBugsSection/
Opera7Bugs/Opera7Bugs.html

I saw those pages and my ineptitude prevented success when trying to
follow the code there. Specifically, regaining focus. The
PopupAndNetscape7 page was otherwise invaluable in its treatment of the
subject, and provided the link to "The Perfect PopUp" tutorial which got
me over whatever I missed at your pages. I should've included your page
in my nomination for "best treatment". Hopefully no offense was taken.

Um, please tell me that's not really you at the bottom of the page! ;-)

 

[DU]

I saw those pages and my ineptitude prevented success when trying to
follow the code there. Specifically, regaining focus.

I may need to rethink that page: for one, images are certainly long to
download. And it's not clear that people understand well what I'm trying
to explain.

The

PopupAndNetscape7 page was otherwise invaluable in its treatment of the
subject, and provided the link to "The Perfect PopUp" tutorial which got
me over whatever I missed at your pages. I should've included your page
in my nomination for "best treatment". Hopefully no offense was taken.

Um, please tell me that's not really you at the bottom of the page! ;-)

No but I could not resist putting it in there because the facial
expression, body language very well conveyed how I felt when I finally
finished that page

DU
--
Javascript and Browser bugs:
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/
- Resources, help and tips for Netscape 7.x users and Composer
- Interactive demos on Popup windows, music (audio/midi) in Netscape 7.x
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/Netscape7/Netscape7Section.html

 

[John C]

I may need to rethink that page: for one, images are certainly long to
download. And it's not clear that people understand well what I'm trying
to explain.

http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/
http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/Netscape7/Netscape7Section.html

Speaking of things that are not clear, I must've looked at "doctor
unclear" at least a dozen times in the last 24 hours, and just now after
watching the fingerprint barcode transform on your page I realized it's
"unclear" and not "nuclear". Coincidentally, I received the following in
an email today:

Aoccdrnig to rseearch at an Elingsh
uinervtisy, it deosn't mttaer in waht oredr
the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny
iprmoatnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat
ltteer is at the rghit pclae. The rset can
be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it
wouthit a porbelm. Tihs is becusae we do
not raed ervey lteter by itslef but the wrod
as a wlohe.

I kind of liked doctornuclear. I'm thinking of doctorpostal for myself.
My critics, however, would apply doctorverbose.