John Salerno said:
I know a lot of you guys are hardcore about writing proper HTML/CSS, so
I'm curious what you feel Javascript should be used for specifically.
Everyone seems to say not to use it for anything necessary, since it can
be turned off. I know sometimes you can use CSS for certain effects
instead. So what are the real, valid uses of Javascript? Does anybody
think you just shouldn't use it? Or are there other, more advanced uses
of JS that I'm not thinking of?
Thanks.
A real valid use of it would be to create a pop up window, a drop
down menu, in short anything at all that might make the site easy
and pleasant to use. So there is no set of things that can be
defined to be real and valid. Much of the objection to it are
that some people have it off or not on auto for various reasons,
some to do with security.
To take the case of a drop down menu, if javascript is employed,
then at least the primary class "Sweets Recipes" (which drops
down to reveal the different types of sweet recipes) should be a
normal html link that takes you to a page that has, in turn, a
set of links to the different sweets, perhaps with the actual
first recipe there as well and a sub menu to the rest.
The point is that it is not always essential that someone on a
home page should be able - at the click or hover of a mouse and
without leaving the page - be able to see every single little
detail about the rest of the site. If you want people to have
this sort of power, be the judge, but do not suppose it is
necessarily a good thing to do. In fact it can cause mental
confusion to people. "Too many choices".
One can go on and on... I am saying there is no essential answer
to what you are asking. There are all sorts of interesting uses
of javascript. For that, just go and see the javascript
available! The important point is understanding how not to be
reliant on it. I have given one example.
