WebAIM - Web Accessibility In Mind

E-mail List Archives

Re: How many people switch off javascript?

for

From: Chris Heilmann
Date: Aug 31, 2004 6:30AM


For a rather clean example:
http://www.onlinetools.org/tests/dropdownul.html
works with keyboard and mouse, and hides the sub menus via applying a
class called "h" (for script shortening reasons) to them, and shows them
by replacing this class "h" with "s", in case you want to style the shown
menu.
The navigation UL needs the ID "nav" and automatically finds nested ULS.

HTH

Chris




> The situation is that there are 4 levels in the hierarchy, and they wanted
> at least one drop down.
>
> My menu code uses javascript to generate the whole thing, with the effect
> that if javascript is turned off it loads nothing, hence the need for a
> duplicate menu in noscript tags as back-up.
> It hadn't occurred to me to load it as a list, and then just add some
> javascript and CSS to act on it afterwards to control the appearance of
> it.
> As you say, this would have the effect that by default it is still
> generating the links, which is still perfectly accessible. This is an
> option I might explore some more, so thanks for the pointer. I won't need
> one built for me though, but thanks for the offer of assistance :-)
>
> I'm a bit disappointed in the 5% rate cited by Sandy, I had a real feeling
> it was much higher than that! I have plenty of other arguments against the
> text-only version though, particularly now I have some more ideas on how
> to
> create the menu to play with :-)
>
> Victoria
> -----------------------------------------------------
> Victoria Hamill
> NetInfo
> Phone: (44) 1628-687863
> Email: <EMAIL REMOVED>
> URL: http://www.netinfo.com
> - More than meets the eye
>
>
>
> "lists38"
> <lists@onlinetool
> s.org> To
> "WebAIM Discussion List"
> 31/08/2004 12:33
> cc
>
> Please respond to Subject
> "WebAIM Re: [WebAIM] How many people switch
> Discussion List" off javascript?
> <webaim-forum@lis
> t.webaim.org>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Some more information might help.
>
> How many levels should your navigation have? Recommended is one popup
> level tops, as otherwise it'll be a mouse-pointer nightmare.
>
> I could do a version for you if needed. Generally I pray that anybody
> using or offering DHTML menus to clients should very well know how to do
> them and what their drawbacks are. document.write browsersniffing scripts
> must die quickly and get burried deep in the woods.
>
>
>> Thanks to both of you for these pointers.
>> The only way I've ever managed to get a collapsible menu to work is
>> through
>> javascript, and the code I use is a massive javascript file that is
>> required even in order to load up the menu items. I have used
>> tags to enclose a tabular menu in the past, but I'm not doing that
> anymore
>> as it simply loads 2 massive menus instead of one!
>> I'll take a look at these examples to see if there is anything I can
> glean
>> from them to build a better menu, which may help whether I can convince
>> our
>> client to do without the text-based site or not!
>>
>> Victoria
>> -----------------------------------------------------
>> Victoria Hamill
>> NetInfo
>> Phone: (44) 1628-687863
>> Email: <EMAIL REMOVED>
>> URL: http://www.netinfo.com
>> - More than meets the eye
>>
>>
>>
>> "lists38"
>> <lists@onlinetool
>> s.org>
> To
>> "WebAIM Discussion List"
>> 31/08/2004 12:05
>>
> cc
>> "WebAIM Discussion List"
>> Please respond to
>> "WebAIM
> Subject
>> Discussion List" Re: [WebAIM] How many people
> switch
>> <webaim-forum@lis off javascript?
>> t.webaim.org>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> That would make a lot more sense if they were turned off the first time,
>> though.
>>
>>
>>
>>>
>>> Hi Victoria,
>>>
>>> I don't have any numbers but one solution you can suggest is to include
>> an
>>> option to switch JavaScript menus on and off. An example can be found
>>> at
>>> http://www.darlington.gov.uk/Generic/Profiles/Visitors.htm. That way
>>> the
>>> client gets what they want and the user gets to the content!
>>>
>>> Thanks, Henny
>>>
>>>