Richard Cornford wrote:
MasonC wrote:
Anyone know what percentage of browsers have
javascript enabled? -- security setting --
No, nobody knows what percentage of browsers ... (anything). The
Internet does not lend itself to the gathering of accurate or useful
statistics. Published statistics cannot be accurate or representative so
mostly what you here from people is prejudice, rumour and hearsay (more
a reflection of what they would like to be true than anything else). The
most commonly stated figure is 8-12% but that is from a range of
proposed statistics of 2-80% (and most statistics are made up on the
spot). The best that can be said with certainty is that it is more than
none and less than all.
I love to use it but am worried about my viewers.
Javascript has place in web site design but it needs to be handled with
an awareness of its inevitable failure in some environments. And it is
not nearly as simple as a browser having javascript enabled or not, as
even with javascript enabled some browsers are just not dynamic enough
(or don't expose sufficient of their DOM or provide required methods) to
do what can be done on others. So even on a browser that will happily
execute javascript the failure of any particular script is always a
possibility.
The solution is to use javascript to provide enhancements to a web page,
not as a critical part of presenting the content. So in a worst case
scenario the viewer will have access to the content (which is what they
will be most interested in) and just not get the enhancements.
This is achieved by starting from a basis of viable HTML, which will be
all there is whenever javascript is not available. And then using
javascript to manipulate that HTML, once it has verified that the
browser in use fully supports the features that it intends to use to
achieve that manipulation. The key requirements are adequate feature
testing and always providing controlled paths of fall-back and clean
degradation back to the underlying HTML, whenever the browser proves
unsupportive.
Richard.
For what its worth, I would agree with what Richard has said above
however, saying that, I wouldn't be put off using javascript... just
don't rely on it -
When I create forms, I have javascript check that any required data has
been completed but... when the data is delivered to the server, I have
my host scripts re-check the data... Client side testing is faster then
sending the data over the internet and having my server test for it -
However, I cover my ass by having the server check the data to cover for
the small few who have javascript disabled, or who are trying to crack
my web forms with unexpected form input.
I've found above 98% have javascript enabled - even though I have no
absolute proof that my code worked on every one of those machines, my
code was simple and I'd expect near enough all of the 98% of the folk
who did have javascript enabled, seen the results of my scripts...
But... one thing I did learn is to know who your viewers are - I worked
at a publishing company and one of their advertisers complained that the
site didn't work for him - he cursed and swore - and I was asked to call
him - After much dialog and claims by him that he was using the latest
version of IE at the time, I discovered (and eventually got him to
confirm) that he was in fact using Netscape version 4 and he refused to
update to Netscape or Mozilla, or use IE because of 'security issues'
that he had for anything more recent.
This has not stopped me from using Javascript - but it surprised me
after finding out that there were some people out there who point blank
refused to move to a more recent web browser and prefered using
something that was five or more years old...
Its a lesson I learned - perhaps there's something above that will help
you when considering the merits of javascript...
regards
randell d.
