Re: Popup windows: problems and some solutions -Reply

>>> Heikki Vesalainen <wes@clinet.fi> 03/21/96 09:30pm >>>
>Chris Josephes wrote:
>
>> Your post to the previous digest clearly mentioned
>TARGET="_popup"
>
>There has been a lot of talk after my first proposal on this
>subject.
>And in the problems & solutions text that you replyed to I
>clearly said,  that the targetting way will bring up problems
>with old browsers.
>
>> But the point of the A element is to serve as an anchor.  I
>doubt that
>> the NAME attribute will go away due to it's amount of usage,
>but <A  > NAME> dosn't necessarily mean that the element will be
>a Footnote.  It
>> could just be a target to another point in the document.
>
>Well it should go.(and be replaced by ID)

I agree, but it's up to browser authors to 
make it so. In other words, if none of the 
major browsers (Spry, NCSA, Netscape, or 
Microsoft support it, it won't be in web 
documents.


>> <FN> clearly identifies the selected text as a footnote.  Thus,
>the
>> browser, serach robots, etc, etc, clearly understand the
>purpose of
>> the enclosed text.

Also, it would be easier to translate other 
document formats with footnotes into HTML.
AND it would be easier to control the rendering
of footnotes using stylesheets.
AND it could be printed at the bottom as a 
wordprocessor would because it is known to 
be a footnote no matter where it's linked 
from.

>I think the browsers should know it's a popup window before they
>start  loading it.  Actually they must know, because otherwise
>they will first  clear the current page, then (as they receive
>the FN tag) they will have  to redraw the page they just cleared
>and display the popup note into it.
>If we declare it a popup window (and meaby it's dimensions)
>before the  data is even received, the browsers won't have this
>problem.

If the footnote is on the same page, then the
browser would know before hand.  If the footnote
is on another page, then perhaps it shouldn't be a 
popup anyway, since you would be seeing it out of
context.

>  > Huh?  You're saying <A NAME> dosn't require a closing </A>? 
>That  > dosn't sound right.
>
>I'm saying that officially the </A> is required, but think from
>the  programmes point of view.  What would it do with it?  What
>practise would  it have? NONE! 
<snip!>

Actually, Mosaic for Macintosh used to highlight 
whatever was in <A name=""></A> when you jumped to 
it.  It was useful when you needed to look at a 
certain part of the page and the page was full of 
things.  For example, if there was a page with 
nothing but images of abstract paintings, and you
linked to it with a link like this: 
<A href="other.html#pizza"> Explosion of a Pizza 
Factory </A> the reader could learn that the 
painting with the green and white swirls was 
indeed, "Explosion of a Pizza Factory" (and that
the artist was, perhaps, colorblind.)

So the use is, perhaps, browser dependant.

>
>> Tables mess up older browsers.  I'm not saying we should always
>>jump on
>
>Tables should not mess up old browsers (the data will just be
>displayed  in the order it is in the HTML file).  If it does,
>then the old browsers  are not good.  The use of FN will mess up
>even the good old browsers.

<FN> will not mess up older browsers (except when 
linked to with id attributes) for the same reason
<Tables> will not: both contain %bodycontent (well,
actually table data cells contain %bodycontent.)

so if you have this:
<FN> <P><SUP>1</SUP> It was a nice day today.  
Not too sunny, not too overcast. </FN>
an old browser sees it like this:
<P> <SUP>1</SUP> It was a nice day today.  Not too 
sunny, not too overcast. 


>I'm consearned about there being too many tags for nearly same
>purposes.

But you see, you're adding more attributes. And
a footnote has a logical meaning: it's a addition 
to the document, a side note.


>--  Heikki Vesalainen http://www.clinet.fi/~wes/ wes@clinet.fi
>
C  h a r l e s    P e y t o n   T a y l o r        
ctaylor@nps.navy.mil
The opinions and views expressed       ##  even though we're on
our own,
are my own and do not reflect          ##        we are never all
alone,
Those of the Naval PostGraduate School ##  when we are singing,
singing.
               http://www.nps.navy.mil/personal/charles.taylor/

Received on Friday, 22 March 1996 13:51:06 UTC