After finishing the main topics from our book for this season, I'd thought I'd update an example we covered last season using some of the DOM techniques we have learned so far. Back in the January 06 meeting I showed you how to create image rollovers using the Image object and the onMouseOut and onMouseOver event handlers. The code worked fine, but had a small problem.
Should you use popup windows? Popup windows have gained a bad reputation from marketers' aggressive use of them, but even requested popups can be barriers to good usability. There are situations where popping a new window is arguably the most appropriate solution. Popups are mostly used for one-page interfaces or those in which history navigation is discouraged, such as a survey or a logon page for a commercial web site.
My use for external windows (not popups) use scripting that degrades if not available. We have already discussed this issue at our unobtrusive discussion.
Web development happens on several layers:
Unobtrusive JavaScript is the separation of these layers which allows web designers to create web sites that are a lot easier to use and maintain, more intuitive, and accessible.
