Forum OpenACS Q&A: Response to Javascript Popup Login

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Posted by Pascal Scheffers on
I am, like most of us here no, not a 'typical' end user. But I have to admit that I get confused quickly when a site pops up additional screens. The *only* popup I found sofar that I kind-of like is the 'I am processing your request, please hold' like shellgeostar does.

There are other things that annoy me even more: pop up a box with 'it worked!', and just an okay button. Or even more aggravating: 'it didn't work, press reload to try again', and then, again, just an okay button - the user has to find the reload button himself...

Another problem with pop-ups is slow connections. A lot of times the main-screen has been fully loaded, images and all, before a single line in the popup shows. To make matters worse, the 'designer' has 'helped' to remove 'confusion' for the user by, erhm, changing *everything* s/he is familiar with on a browser window:

  • Navigation bar (back, fwd, home): gone
  • Location bar (http://....): gone
  • Status bar: GONE!
  • Menubar: gone
Remember, there are people out there who don't even know how to close a window with the 'X' in the top-right corner.

I like to have everything inline. Infact, most (not all) sites have a fallback when javascript doesn't work. If I want something from a site with popups, I disable javascript.

Only a 'modal' dialog for login (like basic-authentication does), would be fine for me. But remember: most sites use forms, people are used to them.