Forum OpenACS Q&A: Re: Some potential usability issues in the preview flow of forums package

3: Re: Some potential usability issues in the preview flow of forums package (response to 1)

Posted by Emmanuelle Raffenne on 07/23/09 12:29 PM

Hi Michael,

The back button thing is not easy to solve and IE users have been complaining about it for a while. Most of the browsers are reliable on this matter though, except IE of course.

Regarding links preview, what do you want to do? Check that the links are not dead or allow the user to check they're the right ones? or both?

As for the target attribute, it's allowed only in the loose and frameset DTD (http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40/index/attributes.html) and OpenACS is using the strict one by default, although it can be set to loose for one page if necessary. The WCAG recommend not to open new windows though -may confuse some users-, in any case the user has to be informed that the link will open a new window.

My five cents :)

4: Re: Some potential usability issues in the preview flow of forums package (response to 3)

Posted by Michael Steigman on 07/23/09 07:44 PM

Thanks for the Safari report, Miguel.

And thanks for the accessibility info, Emma. I'm not sure what the best approach is for links in preview. I checked out vBulletin (php-based forums software) to see how this stuff works in their software. Back button seemed to work fine, though I was only testing over http. I could go back and forth without issue. They code links to open in a new window by default.

Anybody feel strongly either way on this? Nobody has had any complaints about lost posts in forums? A good chunk of readers are on IE (mainly 6, some 7) here so we are particularly vulnerable to IE's quirks.