- From: Karl Pongratz <karlhp@karlhp.com>
- Date: Tue, 28 Jun 2005 17:09:10 +0300
Matthew Raymond wrote: > Karl Pongratz wrote: > >> James Graham wrote: >> >>> Karl Pongratz wrote: >>> >>>> Matthew Raymond wrote: >>>> >>>>> Every indication is that chromeless windows are on their way out. >>>> >>>> >>>> I would be very sad if that would happen. Its currently the only >>>> way to keep forms out of history and to unlock them from the >>>> back/next button. >>>> So I would suggest to keep them and improve them rather than >>>> removing them. >>> >>> >>> Well if you can think of an easy way to improve them so that they a) >>> obviously belong to the browser and b) clearly display the full >>> location then I'm sure UA vendors will be happy to hear from you. >>> Otherwise, the internet being the way it is, chromeless windows, on >>> the public internet at least, have a short life expectancy. >> >> >> Yep, I would be very happy with this approach, to lock chromeless >> windows to the user agent and to always show the full location, and >> that you can't connect to another domain than of the domain from >> where you opened the window. This modification shouldn't be that >> difficult to implement for user agent vendors, I think... and hope. >> As far as I remember the domain restriction already exists. > > > Did it occur to anyone that this is all hostile to the user? You > prevent the user from accessing controls for browser (buttons, menus, > et cetera). You prevent the user from going to another domain. You > block their access to an underlying window. This all smacks of "let's > control the users, because the users are stupid". I wouldn't call users stupid, I would call web browsers stupid if they are not capable to let the user complete a task in the most productive and logical manner. However, I thought we are talking about web applications, or do you want start reading your newspaper within Dreamweaver, a Color Picker or your File Manager? Is that what you intend :-) ? > >>>> I have no objection to avoid them if they are not really required. >>>> Though what doing in the rare cases where you can't avoid them, I >>>> guess Apple applications are still using modal windows in the one >>>> or other case, and they will remain for another decade or two. Or >>>> is it different? >>> >>> >>> It seems to me that two different issues have been conflated here: >>> modal windows (those which prevent their parent window from being >>> focused) and chromeless/navigationless windows. Whilst there are a >>> very few occasions in which I can see modal windows being useful I >>> can also imagine that they would be abused for all sorts of nasty >>> things (even more instrusive adverts, for example). >> >> >> The case where you require modal windows may be rare, yet they are >> extremely useful in those cases, I remember they are on the web >> applications wish list at "Joel on software" as well, >> http://www.joelonsoftware.com/oldnews/pages/June2004.html , section >> Thursday, June 17, 2004.** > > > Yeah, but he really doesn't way why. I was hoping he'd have a use > case in there somewhere... Are you sure you need a more detailed use case? > >> Yep, I am afraid that modal windows would be abused, as many other >> things, though I consider some content you find on the web much more >> harmful than modal windows could ever be, yet you allow authors to >> publish content on the web :-). >> >> Thinking more about it, in my case I would require the modal windows >> on already opened chromeless windows, that could be a solution, >> limiting the use of modal windows to already opened chromeless >> windows, so that you can't open a modal window right away from a >> regular web browser window, that would make it much more difficult to >> abuse them. That is something I would be happy with and may cover >> most use cases where modal windows are required. > > > Congratulations. You just reinvented <xul:dialog>. :) > > Seriously, though, why not just standardize a subset of XUL > ("sXUL") and use a compound document (XHTML + "sXUL"). We could make > sXUL the standard for browser extensions while we're at it. Pardon, there isn't much I know about Mozilla XUL in detail, XUL always sounded interesting, though as only Mozilla supports XUL ... > > . >
Received on Tuesday, 28 June 2005 07:09:10 UTC