[Bug 4481] Options usability

http://www.w3.org/Bugs/Public/show_bug.cgi?id=4481





------- Comment #3 from ot@w3.org  2007-04-24 07:28 -------
(In reply to comment #2)
> One single page with a real toggle may be simplier to maintain and not too hard
> to setup ?

That's what we had made for the CSS validator back in December, but this faced
a number of issues. 
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

The main issue is that there is no way to give a URI to a page showing the
options toggled visible
...  which is very un-web. As a result one has to say "go to this page and
click there".

Other Usability issue with the js-based solution: suppose one first toggles
option visibility and then changes to another method (different tab) the
options are toggled off again.

Lastly, even when invisible, the options are present in the HTML and thus are
creating annoyingly long URIs, like 
http://validator-test.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F&charset=&doctype=&group=0
when the "simpler" interface creates
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F

Neither of these issues are absolute showstoppers, but given the aversion to
scripting shown by a good chunk of the community around the validator, we tried
a solution without js-based toggling for now. If someone can come up with a
js-based solution that 1) solves the usability issues mentioned above and 2)
degrades gracefully for agents without js, it would really be great.

Received on Tuesday, 24 April 2007 07:28:50 UTC