Dan wrote:
First, I'm sorry if this question has been asked
too many times. I'm new to this news group.
The question has to do with the use of popup
windows in a web page. I have heard that popup
windows should be avoided;
That would be my position.
due to use of popup
blockers and browser that do not process javascript.
Not actually directly due to the use of pop-up blockers, more due to the
consequences of their use as it is extremely difficult to know when a
pop-up window attempt has been blocked, making any fall-back to
alternative provision difficult to orchestrate. As there are browsers
that just cannot open new windows the web site design should already
tolerate navigation within the current window as a fall-back, but not
knowing when to do that is the problem that pop-up blocking introduces.
It is also worth considering how a pop-up is going to be used. If the
point is to have two windows visible to the user at once then that
design concept is somewhat undermined by tab based browsing, where a new
window request might just result in a new tab and not produce the
expected/designed GUI.
Is the use of popup windows bad design?
The revealing of containers for particular purposes does not seem to go
against the spirit of computer GUIs. There are issues in an Internet
context relating to such things as javascript dependencies,
accessibility (how will screen readers handle it?), and so on.
But pop-up window-like behaviour does not necessarily require the
opening of a new browser window. And avoiding the new browser window
avoids the need to worry about the influence of pop-up blockers on the
process.
In response to recent questions on this subject I have been referring
people to a couple of scripts of mine that where written to demonstrate
that not all pop-up like behaviour necessitates a new browser window (or
a javascript dependency):-
<URL: http://www.litotes.demon.co.uk/examp...iWindow_1.html
<URL: http://www.litotes.demon.co.uk/examp...age_popup.html >
Often it seems to me that new browser windows are opened as the easy
alternative to DHTML scripts doing the same task. Superficially that is
often the case, but once you attempt to detect the actions of pop-up
blockers, and do something meaningful in response, the DHTML scripts are
suddenly much less complex, and more reliable, than any window opening
script.
Will it severly reduce the usage of our web page?
A dependency on pop-ups will reduce the usage of your web page (assuming
it is of general interest and available on the Internet). Whether that
dependency will severely reduce usage would be difficult to say (short
of designing the site without the pop-ups, measuring the usage, once it
had settled down, and then introducing a pop-up dependency and measuring
the resulting reduction in use (probably not a worthwhile process to go
through)).
I did recently read the results of a survey that suggested that pop-up
blocker use had increased by 1400% (1% to 14%) over the last year, so
the impact of blocking this year might be less than the impact next
year. (Generally I don't trust surveys unless they are explicit about
the data gathering techniques used and the statistical analysis applied;
there are already to many bogus statistics being waved around concerning
the Internet. So a report of the results of a survey is not really more
than hearsay.)
Note, The popup windows are created using only
onClick events, not onLoad or onClose events.
Do popup blockers make any distinction between
the two?
That will help diminish the problem. Browsers that provide a built-in
pop-up blocking mechanism (at least the more recent ones) are quite good
at recognising the distinction between "requested" pop-ups and
non-requested pop-ups, if configured to do so. External pop-up blockers
are not so good at it. Some proxy pop-up blockers do use more elaborate
blocking scripts that do things like measuring the interval between user
clicks and requests to open windows, allowing the window opening if the
interval does not exceed a pre-defined limit. It is also not uncommon
for external pop-up blockers to be provided with an override key so the
user can hold the key down when they want a pop-up to be allowed
(obviously they need to be told up-front that a particular action will
result in an attempt to open a window, else they may not know to hold
the key down to allow it to happen).
Overall, I would say that if you are in a position to avoid a dependency
on opening pop-ups (currently only at the design stage), and client-side
scripting, then doing so will maximise your potential to keep any
visitors you get coming back. Many of the common uses to which pop-up
window are put can be successfully implemented without new browser
windows, and seeking alternatives to opening new windows (and designing
processes so that they do not require them) will avoid the influence of
all pop-up blocking mechanisms.
Richard.
