popup window

[SJ]

I need to have some popups work for
our company website but most popup blockers
block popups pretty well. I was wondering if
its possible to popup windows inspite of the
popup blocker using javascript
or any other method.

Thanks.
-SJ

 

[Zif]

I need to have some popups work for
our company website but most popup blockers
block popups pretty well. I was wondering if
its possible to popup windows inspite of the
popup blocker using javascript
No.

or any other method.

That depends on your imagination

Many users go out of their way to add 3rd party pop-up blockers or
change to a browser that has one built in, perhaps you can persuade them
to download an un-blocker or turn their blocker off?

[...]

 

[Randy Webb]

SJ said the following on 11/3/2005 1:18 AM:

I need to have some popups work for
our company website but most popup blockers
block popups pretty well.

Yes, they do what they are designed to do. But, you do not "need" a
popup, you want it.

I was wondering if its possible to popup windows inspite of the
popup blocker using javascript or any other method.

You and every other spammer/porn site operator on the planet would like
to know how.

There is a reason people use popup blockers. Can you guess why?

#1 Reason people use a blocker: GASP! They don't want popups!!!!!!

 

[Randy Webb]

SJ said the following on 11/3/2005 1:01 PM:

http://www.JavascriptToolbox.com/bestpractices/

Tell that to my company's design team... I only do what they ASK me to do
I agree, popups are evil. Thank god for firefox.

Then it is your job to inform them of the problems of the approach they
want.

 

[Lee]

SJ said:

Tell that to my company's design team... I only do what they ASK me to do

What are you, their trained monkey?
Learn to say "no".

 

[Dennis Willson]

That's a bit harsh... Some people aren't in the decision making role and build what those that are design. There may be a good
reason, there may not be, those that can make those decisions may not be well informed (or in some cases not care). But, most people
have a boss and have to do what the boss says... or find another job. Just a fact of life.

Dennis

 

[Richard Cornford]

Actually popups aren't evil in themselves: They're evil in
the way there used.

It is unfortunately the case that some people will use scripting in an
abusive way, and that any browser facility that is significantly abused
will eventually be withdrawn or restricted (on way or another).

There certainly are perfectly valid reasons to use them.

That sentence should probably be moved into the past tense. Once pop-up
blockers of various sorts are a common reality you would need an absence
of alternatives in order to justify calling the use of a pop-up valid.

Unfortunetly they're used in an evil way so often that many
people block them and therefore stop the legitimate uses of them.

I have used them for context sensitive help on web pages,

For which the pop-up is not strictly necessary.

to issue warning that a user is about to do a dangerous thing,

For which the pop-up is not strictly necessary.

to gather or display additional information about an input
field in a form, etc...

For which the pop-up is not strictly necessary.

The version of FireFox I'm using displays a message bar on the
top to indicate something has been blocked and I can chose to
allow it. But I have seen a couple of sites that seen to get
their popups around the FireFox popup blocker, I just haven't
yet taken the time to see how they're doing it.

Firefox has a notion of the 'requested' pop-up, being a pop-up that
results form direct user action. It represents a reasonable compromise
and many other pop-up blockers have their own notion of a 'requested'
pop-up (with very diverse mechanisms). Unfortunately these mechanisms
for providing a 'requested' pop-up have themselves been abused and so
are becoming more restrictive. And the existence of mechanisms that
allow some users to 'request' pop-ups does not reverse the reality that
pop-ups are no longer reliable outside of a controlled Intranet
environment.

<URL: http://www.litotes.demon.co.uk/js_info/pop_ups.html >

Richard.

 

[Lee]

Dennis Willson said:

That's a bit harsh... Some people aren't in the decision making role and build
what those that are design. There may be a good
reason, there may not be, those that can make those decisions may not be well
informed (or in some cases not care). But, most people
have a boss and have to do what the boss says... or find another job. Just a
fact of life.

I've always told my bosses when they had stupid ideas, and
they've been bright enough to recognize that I was helping
to prevent them from looking foolish to a broader audience.

 

[Gérard Talbot]

Dennis Willson a écrit :

That's a bit harsh...

Please learn how to quote properly. Please do not top-post.

Some people aren't in the decision making role and

build what those that are design. There may be a good reason, there may
not be, those that can make those decisions may not be well informed (or
in some cases not care). But, most people have a boss and have to do
what the boss says... or find another job. Just a fact of life.

Dennis

I really disagree with what you say. A boss who knows little about web
programming, web design, usability, accessibility should not be the one
making such decision. You should speak up to defend the objective
interests of the business that pays you.

There is now an overwhelming consensus among browser manufacturers
(MSIE, Mozilla, Safari, Opera, etc.) and usability/accessibility experts
that indicate that usage of unrequested popups is bad business; even to
rely on window.open() and target attribute should not be considered a
safe thing to do. I fully agree with what Randy told you: it is your
obligation to inform them of the pitfalls/risks/problems of the approach
they want - it seems - to impose.

Gérard

 

[Julian Turner]

That sentence should probably be moved into the past tense. Once pop-up
blockers of various sorts are a common reality you would need an absence
of alternatives in order to justify calling the use of a pop-up valid.

As an aside (and not dissenting from your comment), one use for
modeless dialogue boxes I have noticed (no doubt not original), is that
they can be used to monitor and control the progress of a function
running in the parent window. The child window is unaffected by
problems with the main function, can update its own display while the
main function is running, and can effectively through a shared object
(passed by reference in the dialogue arguments) exchange information
with the parent window function.

For instance, if I want a progress bar to measure the progress of a
function, the parent function can update an object which the child
window then accesses to display progress.

This is admittedly only of limited off-line use: usually to test and
record what is happening during the progress of a function I am
debugging, as it happens.

Julian

 

[aundro]

Tell that to my company's design team... I only do what they ASK me to do
I agree, popups are evil. Thank god for firefox.

Maybe you could point them to this thread, then. If they don't believe
in what you say (which is a pretty big problem, already), maybe the
words from many other (some of them _very_ experienced) programmers
will make them change their minds.

-SJ.

Arnaud

--
Arnaud DIEDEREN
Software Developer
IONIC Software
Rue de Wallonie, 18 - 4460 Grace-Hollogne - Belgium
Tel: +32.4.3640364 - Fax: +32.4.2534737
http://www.ionicsoft.com

 

[Dennis Willson]

Dennis Willson a écrit :



Please learn how to quote properly. Please do not top-post.

Some people aren't in the decision making role and



I really disagree with what you say. A boss who knows little about web
programming, web design, usability, accessibility should not be the one
making such decision. You should speak up to defend the objective
interests of the business that pays you.

Yes you should firmly express (with facts) why that is a bad idea. No question there. However, they ARE the boss and unless you can
afford to loose your job you must do what their final decision is. Regardless if it's a good idea or not.

There is now an overwhelming consensus among browser manufacturers
(MSIE, Mozilla, Safari, Opera, etc.) and usability/accessibility experts
that indicate that usage of unrequested popups is bad business; even to
rely on window.open() and target attribute should not be considered a
safe thing to do. I fully agree with what Randy told you: it is your
obligation to inform them of the pitfalls/risks/problems of the approach
they want - it seems - to impose.

I agree, I have used pop-ups to make web based applications look and feel more like local applications in the past. However I have
started getting away from that due to the fact that so many people have pop-up blocking on. It's sad to have to do that as you can
sure make some nice feeling apps using the pop-ups and opening separate dialog windows via Javascript.

Doesn't change the fact that sometimes there are people in charge and who can actually make the decisions that may not know or care
about the facts, they made the decision and that's the way it's going to be. It's really a shame, but that does happen. You should
make the best case you can so show why that's a bad idea, then if they decide to go with the pop-ups anyway, well that's the way it
has to be. Or they may just find someone else that will do it the way they want. I don't like that it's that way sometimes, but you
have to be realistic if you want to keep getting that paycheck.

I know someone that decided they were going to make that integrity stand and lost 3 or 4 jobs in a row in a fairly short amount of
time. One of which was somewhere I was working. Knowing the story, he was right, his way was far better. He still lost the jobs, had
to sell his car, boat, etc.... to be able to keep eating. He now works somewhere and does what he's told to keep getting his paycheck.

 

[Gérard Talbot]

Dennis Willson a écrit :

Yes you should firmly express (with facts) why that is a bad idea. No
question there. However, they ARE the boss and unless you can afford to
loose your job you must do what their final decision is. Regardless if
it's a good idea or not.

Well, like I said, he either does not know about web design, usability,
accessibility, web browsers, etc... or he does.

Common sense indicate that customers do not come back to websites which
demonstrate poor or no respect at all. And without customers and sales,
businesses do close their doors.

I agree, I have used pop-ups to make web based applications look and
feel more like local applications in the past. However I have started
getting away from that due to the fact that so many people have pop-up
blocking on. It's sad to have to do that as you can sure make some nice
feeling apps using the pop-ups and opening separate dialog windows via
Javascript.

I do make an important distinction between requested secondary window
and unrequested secondary window.

Doesn't change the fact that sometimes there are people in charge and
who can actually make the decisions that may not know or care about the
facts, they made the decision and that's the way it's going to be. It's
really a shame, but that does happen. You should make the best case you
can so show why that's a bad idea, then if they decide to go with the
pop-ups anyway, well that's the way it has to be. Or they may just find
someone else that will do it the way they want. I don't like that it's
that way sometimes, but you have to be realistic if you want to keep
getting that paycheck.

You do not seem to understand that unrequested popups are one of the
major reason as to why so many online websites filed bankruptcy forms
back 3-5 years ago. Nowadays, only a minority of web users are not able
to block unrequested popups.

Gérard

 

[VK]

You do not seem to understand that unrequested popups are one of the
major reason as to why so many online websites filed bankruptcy forms
back 3-5 years ago.

Mmm... Not sure about the rest of the world but in the US it was not a
major reason. Actually during the Big Bubble rush a site covered with
animated banners (so it was all moving like a jar with worms) plus a
couple of popups was nearly a statement of commercial success: "Look
how many people is advertising with us!".
The understanding that all this crap *is indeed a crap* came later. I
would say that Google was the milestone of success w/o common
annoyances.

Nevertheless the majority of people in this group are willing to use
popups as floating toolbars / controls for the main web application
running in the "big window". This approach may be not welcome but it is
not some kind of a mind twist: this is what people see and use in their
desktop applications.

Nowadays, only a minority of web users are not able
to block unrequested popups.

Yes.
And the 3rd party popup blockers crash you script in Explorer:
<http://groups.google.com/group/comp..._frm/thread/b0fd9849734491ab/7cdb65b1fad93dda>

So popups are living their last semi-happy year in the big Web.

The question is then: is there anything what iframe could not do if
used instead of popup? From the first look there is not, but not all
issues are known to me.