[thelist] Save me from JavaScript humiliation

Fred D Yocum fdy at mcc.org
Mon Feb 12 13:16:05 CST 2007


Thank you for the responses. I had not realized I was asking for the 
setTimeout to be 25 seconds. I thought it was two seconds -- set so that I 
could see what was happening, lessened later when I knew the script was 
working. 
 
Users will arrive at this page on a CD very occasionally. They are going 
to be looking for a very specific bit of information. "What the policy is 
for workers wishing to have a home birth?" or "How to limit the damage 
when a partner organization is found to be fraudulent?"  They may spend 
minutes traversing the tree to click on one link or thirty minutes 
clicking hundreds.

I had originally had a notification appear prior to loading the new page, 
but it was felt that would become annoying after the third link clicked. 

Having a static visible notification at the link would mean hundreds of 
lines all ending with the same statement -- visually cluttered and 
difficult to scan.

They could have a notification with the option to switch off the popup. 
They would also need to know the link (which they spent thirty minutes 
finding) when they return using the back button -- will have disappeared 
with a page refresh disappeared with the page refresh. Would need to know 
this each time they use this CD because they may not access again for 
three or four months or a year.

I could have put the information in the introductory text at the top of 
the page, but we all know how well this gets read.

I though having a message blink on telling people what is happening but 
not delaying the process (buggered that up didn't I) was the best way to 
go. Having said all of the above, Most people will use the search function 
rather than go through the pain of looking through hundreds of lines in a 
listing.

-- I was trying to be clever and roll too much into the same JavaScript.

What I will do is separate out the alertMessage and put this on the 
mouseover method for the link.

many thanks again, 
 
Frederick D Yocum



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