Re: opening new windows

Scarlett Julian (ED) wrote:
> I know that it's not good practice to open new windows but I think that there are instances where it is valuable from a usability point of view. Currently I am working on a help system for an intranet and want the help page(s) to open in a new window (with the necessary prior warning to users of course) so that users can work through the help page whilst still looking at the site. My questions is, since the use of target is deprecated, how is it possible to open a new window without the use of javascript? I don't really want to use client-side scripting if at all possible but can't see any way round this problem. 
> 
> thanks
> 
> Julian

Depends on how you are creating your documents but, if you are using 
CGI, the help can be a form submit button that feeds all the current 
data into the help page to preserve state.  You then have a "done" 
button on the help page which re-creates the original page with the 
original data.

I used to have a form with a drop-down list; if the item that you wanted 
wasn't on the list, you could call a pop-up window in which you could 
create the required item, close the window, re-load the original page 
and then select from the list.

Making this accessible by re-coding as above, without the pop-up, 
simplified the whole process and obviated the need for some rather 
unpredictable JavaScript.

I'm assuming that, if you are using forms, you have access to CGI 
facilities, so the above could be done fairly easily.  Contact me 
off-list if you want code samples.

Cheers

M

-- 
Matthew Smith
Kadina Business Consultancy
South Australia
http://www.kbc.net.au

Received on Thursday, 10 July 2003 06:22:22 UTC