Links

[Stratman]

Hi admin people. Can you change the hyperlink default to "open in a new window" instead of the same one, as otherwise to get back to where you started can mean a lot of back browser button bashing

[Twinpotter]

Hi Stratman.

Right click the link and select "open link in new tab" (assuming you have a fairly modern standards-compliant browser - such as Firefox), then one can have a few tabs open for cross-referencing. It's far easier than having new windows all over the screen.

Opening up new browser windows is like a vacuum cleaner sales person who starts a visit by emptying an ash tray on the customer's carpet. Don't pollute my screen with any more windows, thanks (particularly since current operating systems have miserable window management). If I want a new window, I will open it myself!

Jakob Nielsen - from Top 10 Mistakes of Web Design Number 2

[Stratman]

Yes thanks I do know how to open new windows or tabs, I just find it annoying that links open in the same window as a rule, especially things like pdfs where you close the documents and the website closes. On all my websites pdfs and external links open in a new window.

[cupasoop]

I meant to reply to this when i first read it, but i forgot

The reason links open in the same window is that the forum was designed that way. It complies with some sort of web standard they say. There was more but I got bored reading it. There is a way to change it to open links in new windows but looks far too involved for me to care about, so it can stay this way.

ps, I prefer new windows as well.

[Twinpotter]

Sorry Stratman, no "teaching you how to suck eggs" meant or implied.

[Twinpotter]

Tim, were you really asked for a "Web 2.0 compliant site"?

Its "Web 2.0" and its a load of shite!!! The next customer that asks me if the solution we are putting in is compliant with it will die !!

If the client indeed asked for this, although sending them to an early and violent death would be straight from the appendix section of the Developers Handbook, it's best to check that they haven't fallen to the daftness of the most recent buzzword before their untimely end. We can't after all sentence them all to death for not quite having the ability to express their needs.

I've been asked for a Web2.0 compliant site but I couldn't bring myself to condemn them for not being appreciative of the nuances of my profession. I hope I haven't misinterpreted your comments but it I suspect that there is some confusion as to what exactly Web2.0 and Standards Compliance is.

Web 2.0, the buzzword applies mainly to the participatory aspect of the web along with a re-hash of existing scripting languages into a new fandango term AJAX - Asynchronous Javascript and xHTML); no relation to a cleaning product. I completely agree that some aspects of Web 2.0 need a good splash of the real Ajax. It's just something that some boffins came up with to get investors back after the burst and the proliferation of jazzy objects thrown in for the sake of it simply clutters everything. In essence, Web2.0 has nothing to do with how links work.

Still, the benefits of the 'rebirth' are many; that we can Google, oogle, dig, twit, flikr, dikr and spacebook on myface (plus other seed-funded intelligence agency data mining programs) and blether on a Blog; that's the participation. Here we are 'doing it' on an open source phpBB (PHP has been around for a while but Open Source exploded with Web 2.0 and it's all the better for it) - generally one of the better aspects of Web 2.0 is our ability to interact almost instantaneously.

What I suspect clients are asking for is that the site be Standards Compliant.

It is a set of wooley standards that seem to change daily so that whatever you design and build today wont be compliant tomorrow.

Not so chap, indeed the opposite is true.

Standards Compliance is a good, smart, efficient and actually a requirement for public sector projects (as well as developer/agency/corporate work). 'Wooly' is certainly isn't and writing to the W3C guidelines using standards compliant code WILL yield a great degree of future-proofing and consistency in newer browsers, improve efficiency, reduce bandwidth and be superbly cost effective in development and maintain. The W3C guidelines are not about to change.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W3c
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_standards

I had to work on a site that was built eight years ago (the client simply didn't want to convert to a cleaner more search engine friendly, accessible, low bandwidth code) and it took me four times as long as usual to make some simple changes , some of which I'd not even try (i.e. when the site is 1000 pages plus). Looking at my own prehistoric pre-standards code, I literally shudder, and now that you mention it, the code looks wooly!

Tim, just in case you're asked this again (again, assuming I have understood you correctly), ask what the client means by Compliance and why it is a requirement. It's likely that the response will point to Standards Compliance, not Web2.0.

If they still insist on a "Web 2.0" compliant site, I'll help with disposal

When you are typing a reply you used to be able to browse away to check something elsewhere and then go back to where you were using Back and your typing would still be there, not it says the page has expired and you have to start again. If i reember, i copy before i browse away so i can paste but it is a niggle.

The above symptoms are indicative of the forms not coded to retain their inputted values (including the wiping thereof following a form validation error) and setting the expiry too short means that the site hasn't been user tested to establish what the maximum expiry allowance should be. Hundreds of other causes besides, few of them will actually be a fault of the browser (unless it is IE v6.0.2800, which is simply monumentally awful! :mad2 )

By the way Timbo, are you the Oxford based former long haired rocker singer named Messer?

Regards all.

[Twinpotter]

Opps...

are you the former Oxford based long haired rocker singer named Messer?

[Stratman]

Sorry Stratman, no "teaching you how to suck eggs" meant or implied.

None taken

I use the "old" version of the phpBB on my club site and it automatically opens in a new window. Just gone in to the admina panel to see if there is a choice for selecting it and I can't see one. Have to agree with Cupa though, some of the details may as well be in Chinese for all the sense they make - Geek Speak so they think they are oh so clever IMHO!

[Twinpotter]

Oops (dealing with tossers) and developing indeed accounts for almost a half of my working day.
Got any (floor) space for rent?

[Jaglifter]

Hell's teeth!! My head hurts.
Haven't you guys got bikes to ride??

[bikerpiker]

Hell's teeth!! My head hurts.
Haven't you guys got bikes to ride??

....... i struggle with basic English , ..fek knows what the language is that they are using in the posts above