Non-javascript support

[Simon]

I came across a user today who was trying to access my pligg site. They told me they couldn't see comments, or register. After checking, it appears that both these functions require javascript to be visible.

This wouldn't normally be a problem, but quite a number of users I am targetting use the FF extension noscript. Not all are adept at configuring it either. I think it might be prudent to make sure events like registration and comment viewing (can't think of any others off the top of my head) can be accessed without javascript support.

I will be going over my site soon to see where this can be done without compromising usability etc. I know that the jquery library allows detection of javascript support, which could be used as a conditional, I will see if the scriptaculous library can do the same.

[Simon]

Having been through my site already, here are a few tips:

<div class="javascript1" align="center" style="padding-bottom:20px;"><font color="red"><b>Javascript Not Enabled</b> - javascript required to access advanced features!</font></div>
<script type="text/javascript">$$('div .javascript1').each(Element.hide);</script>

This code will alert users that they do not have javascript enabled, providing you are using the scriptaculous module.

A few other things I found included:

• The href="#" setting for tabs - which should be changed to href="javascript://".
• Some tabbed content had the attribute display:none; for ALL content. The default tab content should not have this attribute.
• Registration doesn't work if javascript support is disabled. To rectify this, the "create user" button in register_step_1.tpl should have the disabled="true" attribute removed.
• The register_error.tpl uses a javascript history attribute to send users back to the register page. It is better to use a form to send users back to the register.php page.

So far I have found that voting and the live page have no real javascript alternative, hence the need for the alert message above.

[Geoserv]

I never thought about the javascript limitations for people who have it disabled.

Simon have you made the above changes on your site?

Geoserv

[Simon]

I made the changes on hyiperway.com about an hour ago.

[Geoserv]

No side effects that would alter the operation of the site?

If we all implemented your suggestions above, would we see any change in our site?

Geoserv.

[Simon]

Not that I can think of. Replacing # with javascript:// just means that the page won't get reloaded when a non-js user clicks on a tab. The registration changes shouldn't make any difference either, as errors will still be displayed and stop the user continuing. The extra style="display:none;" is unnecessary, so removing it from the default tab content won't cause any harm, but will let non-js users see comments and the login sidebar tab.

The alert message is good for making sure user know they need js to properly utilise the site.

[Geoserv]

I will implement this tomorrow.

Thanks,
Geoserv.

[abcdefgary]

I don't know if this works, but you could have...

<noscript>Your browser does not support javascript, etc.</noscript>

or something in the body to warn the user to turn it on or something.