ok, I thank everyone for their comments/feedback... but I'd like to say
that where I work, we're an internet co. that mainly produces webcasts
for Fortune 500 cos., trade associations, some non-profits... we use
pop-ups for the video displays, we open a window that's approx 790x530,
on the left side is the video, on the right images that flip (or are
flipped by user) as video progresses.. this is a perfectly legitimate
use of pop-up windows.. there's no way we can do this in same window
where users register, login, etc (that has a nav frame on the left and
on main frame pgs for registration, login, etc..) if you go to
www.foxnews.com and scroll down to where it says "News 24/7" and click
on a video link you will see what I mean.. our media viewer windows are
more or less the same size, and have a similar layout (ours look better,
though.. ;) and of course they have no advertising..)
so: yes, it IS a drag that advertisers are abusing this function,
because I personally find pop-ups really neat, I think you can design
good UI w/them if you use them right.. I have been doing HTML for about
10 years now, and have used them a lot in my personal website also
(
www.francesdelrio.com) (& practically all of them are opened by user..)
and the thing is, going back to my situation at work, if a user goes to
main page and our sw detects this user is already registered and we have
their password stored or whatever this video viewer pops up
automatically, w/out any input from user, while pg is still loading in
many cases.. this is where the problem arises.. so I came up w/idea
that instead of a pop-up opened w/window.open() method we could open the
video viewer in a regular new blank window, <a href="__"
target="_blank"> and resize... but how do you do this while page is
loading (w/o input from user??)
ok, I think I've written enough for now... ;)
Frances
kaeli wrote:
[color=blue]
> In article <2mameiFl82ibU1@uni-berlin.de>,
fdr58@yahoo.com enlightened
> us with...
>[color=green][color=darkred]
>>>The only difference between a "popup" and a "new windows" is the name. A
>>>popup is a new window, a new window is a popup.[/color]
>>
>>Excuse me?? there is quite a difference between the two, it seems to me..
>>a new blank window (opened with a regular <a href="#" target="_blank">)[/color]
>
>
> That's HTML, not javascript.
> And its use is discouraged on the internet. The internet is accessible
> by many user agents, not just MSIE browser. ;)
> Actually, if you used a strict doctype, you wouldn't be able to use the
> target anyway. (You ARE using a doctype, right?)
>
> A popup is any window opened by script, be it javascript or vbscript or
> Flash. Unrequested popups are the ones people block most often. That
> means they opened without the user clicking on anything or initiating
> some event.
> A "new window" doesn't even exist in some user agents.
>
> As to blockers, MOST won't block a new window opened as a direct result
> of a user click, mouse action, or keypress. Perhaps your functions need
> a re-write. You should not be opening unrequested windows. The function
> that is fired when the user clicks has to be the one with the open in
> it. I've had the most luck doing that, but my main browsers of concern
> are Mozilla/Netscape/Firefox/Opera with the option to disallow
> unrequested popups. I have not tested that in all the blockers available
> for MSIE. Some of them block ALL calls to window.open.
>
> Note that giving something a target in HTML doesn't guarantee it will
> open in a new window. I can change that with my browser (mozilla) and
> open it in a tab or set it to open in the current window and ignore your
> target.
>
> The only way to open a window in javascript is with window.open. There
> is no magic other way that won't be blocked.
>
> I have yet to see something that uses popups that truly requires them.
>[/color]
