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Web 2.0 Recipes With PHP + DHTML
An anonymous reader writes "Take a look at these full simple code examples for dynamic elements for your web apps, including: Ad boxes, Pop-ups, Spinners, and Tabs. Easy ways to show and hide content on the page." From the article: "Incorporating JavaScript into your page makes the page dynamic and creates a more compelling user experience. Users can get more data more quickly, look at information from different aspects, and seamlessly navigate the site -- and the site doesn't have to go back to the server for lots of pages. However, there's also a reason to avoid using JavaScript: browser compatibility. In the early days of flat HTML, Internet Explorer rendered pages differently from Netscape. Those problems were fixed, but when support for CSS was added, new compatibility issues arose. Now most of the CSS issues have been solved, but JavaScript compatibility issues have cropped up. These compatibility problems have no easy solution. You need to weigh the benefit of what the JavaScript is doing against the number of browsers you'll need to test against and support."
This will make for some interesting comments. Begrizzled hippies whining about Javascript. Puzzled newbies arguing the merits of PHP. Flamefests over ruby on rails and other frameworks. Etc.
"including: Ad boxes, Pop-ups, Spinners, and Tabs. Easy ways to show and hide content on the page." Then you just mix it in the bowl and BAM! You have upset customers and lost respect!
Wow, he's using Apple to view/code his site. He might already be riddled with a ton of viruses (I read the McAfee Feigns Fear at Mac Security article). Better not try this at home without McAfee!
My biggest hesitancy in using javascript is the IE warning bar that makes any page containing script look threatening. It's no problem with Foxfire, but most people still use IE. How many of them would see that warning and just assume something bad is lurking if they click Allow?
This article's been on the front page for a couple of minutes, with no comments. Perhaps Web 2.0 is tired?
For me, I really like JavaScript and AJAX when it helps to actually improve the user experience. Dynamic tabs? What's the point? How is it really functionally than just heading to a different page, or using some middleware to control what content is served, after a page reload?
Now, on a website I built, I've used AJAX (shudder) to create a commenting system that doesn't require the user to initially be logged in. The user can visit a page, submit a comment through the form, and if the user isn't logged in, they're presented with the ability to login right then and there, without losing their comment, and without even being shuttled off to a different section of the site, wondering if their comment will post when they're finished. If they don't have an account, they can create one right there. I think those kinds of tricks make remote scripting worthwhile.
Plus, I think adding new widgets to HTML through JavaScript is pretty keen - like the sliders and calendar that Yahoo is making available under the BSD license at their developer area.
concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
I wonder - we should have a competition to see who can make the most obnoxious web 2.0 page. Sort of like 1997 web "1" style - "under construction" gifs, flashing text, and scrolling status bars.
Get your own free personal location tracker
Same goes for Flash...
I can't believe how many companies spent tens of thousands of dollars on a CMS package, or to a "web designer" that rendered them invisible to the search engines.
The article does recommend a fallback for unsupported browsers. Take this to heart, because "GoogleBot" is an unsupported browser.
My ZooLoo
Stop calling it Web 2.0, you are making a total fool out of yourself. I thought meaningless buzzwords were for managers?
I'm Rocco. I'm the +5 Funny man.
Except for the tabs, these all seem like a pretty bad idea. Nobody wants to click all over to get at information that could have just been displayed in the first place.
hi mom!
Great, instructions for ad-boxes, pop-ups, and spinners (I stopped reading the article before I got to what spinners were, but I'm sure they're obnoxious). This is almost as bad as the fact that Macromedia has a forum on their site dedicated to creating ads. Some people just give humans a bad name.
Next week: Your first phishing page with php and dhtml in just minutes!
I was hoping for some good code, it is from IBM after all, but its nothing more than crappy javascript from '99. Someone buy this guy the DOM Scripting book (http://www.domscripting.com/) and teach him what the seperation of structure (XHTML), presentation (CSS) and behavior (javascript) is all about.
I ask because there are whole sites ( http://www.dynamicdrive.com/ ) that provide many more examples along with compatibility information. There are also huge sites with tutorials about developing your own scripts.
So why choose this seemingly random PAGE that offers (as far as I can tell) nothing new?
IBM's JavaScript articles are usually high quality. But this one is awful. It uses invalid code, it doesn't degrade gracefully, it mixes HTML, CSS and JavaScript into the same file instead of separating them, and it breaks when you try and do things as simple as open a link in a new tab.
Don't be fooled by the "senior software engineer with more than 20 years of experience" author, this guy doesn't know the most basic, newbie things. I can only imagine that his 20 years of experience was with something other than HTML, CSS and JavaScript. For example:
That's just the tip of the iceberg. This is an exceptionally poor article.
Bogtha Bogtha Bogtha
Customers who use websites might not like that stuff, but customers who buy websites often love it and ask for it by name, and pay by the hour!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
*cough* *sputter*
... I'm sorry... this isn't Web 2.0, this is Web 1996... this is... this is... I couldn't even cope with TFA, it was giving me horrible flashbacks from back when I wrote IE-only webpages because I didn't know any better.
...who are you people, and what have you done with Slashdot?
Seriously, I'm not trying to troll, I'm genuinely at a loss for words here... how... what...???
Flash!
Ah-aaaargh!
Seriously though. Flash is an awful choice. One the plus side, you get fairly consistent rendering. On the minus side it completely fucks up your entire interface. Middle-click to open in a new tab? Right-click to bookmark? Shift-click to open in a new window? Ctrl-F? Find-as-you-type?
Flash is great if you want to trade in the quality of the end result for ease of development. But I'd rather put a bit of effort in and get a decent interface rather than put little effort in and get crud. Crud that might look pretty, granted, but still a horrible, horrible interface.
In the early days of flat HTML, Internet Explorer rendered pages differently from Netscape. Those problems were fixed, but when support for CSS was added, new compatibility issues arose. Now most of the CSS issues have been solved, but JavaScript compatibility issues have cropped up.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhh. My eyes are bleeding. What the fuck are you talking about?
In the early days of HTML, Internet Explorer did not exist.
Only IE and Netscape render pages differently?!
Most of the CSS issues have been solved?!? What?!
Javascript compatibility problems are new?@#$?@#$!?
From a practical point of view the information provided by the site in question is useless (not to take away from the efforts of those involved). The focus really should be on the convenient, useful aggregation of content, while providing ease of use for visitors to the site.
I was roped in by the "wowee zowee" stuff as IE battled Netscape in the 90's. Eventually we all realized that coding to the lowest common denominator was the key to creating a consistent, error free experience for our end users.
The bottom line is to make our sites useful. If done properly the sites can look great, be secure, provide great functionality and be compatible with all platforms. The caveat is that we remain at the mercy of browser quirks, making standards compliance a serious inconvenience for both users and developers.
This is the direction that emerging (AJAX, for example, is not new. It IS emerging) techniques and technologies should be focused on. Such a focus could cause new tricks to enhance compatibility/usefulness across platforms.
Thanks for letting me participate in the discussion!
WTF? I ordered a CHEESEburger!
"In the early days of flat HTML, Internet Explorer rendered pages differently from Netscape. Those problems were fixed, but when support for CSS was added, new compatibility issues arose. Now most of the CSS issues have been solved, but JavaScript compatibility issues have cropped up."
CSS compatibility issues have been worked around; they have not been "solved", and any quick trip through Position is Everything or A List Apart will show you that. JavaScript compatibility issues have also been around since the first days of JavaScript implementation in browsers.
Neither are going to "be solved", especially if Microsoft have anything to say about it. Right now, as in the past, implementation differences equal a certain degree of lock-in. The truth is that no rendering engine provides a complete, perfect-for-intents-and-purposes CSS2 implementation, and IE is easily at the bottom of that pack. Combined with its field dominance, it is largely responsible for "CSS compatibility issues".
IE 7 isn't going to provide a better rendering engine than Gecko, KHTML/WebCore, or whatever Opera's engine is called; it will simply address a list of the most important problems, such as the infamous box model fuck-ups. There will not be a "kickass" rendering engine in IE 7, and as much as I hate to say it, that's going to keep us in compatibility hack hell for the near future.
Now, if you ask me--and obviously you did, right, lol internet_rant--Microsoft have had more than ample time, people, and resources to produce a rendering engine on-par with Gecko and its peers. But that's not going to be the case. Only one reason for that.
CSS compatibility issues mostly solved? Not even close.
Mikey-San
Karma: +Eleventy billion (mostly affected by watching Celebrity Jeopardy)
This code is crap. Use of <a href="javascript:"> makes it same quality as <marquee><font color="#ggggg">OMG Web 2.0!</td></font>
Unlike TFA, here are some resources worth reading:
I spent years wading through the quagmire of DHTML/CSS/Javascript compatibility issues and eventually realised that it was a full time job getting it right. 'Trouble was the job went largely unrewarded as the end user was only interested in how pretty it looked and it's difficult to get a client to pay you properly for time spent working round compatibility problems. Eventually I got wise and realised M$ had screwed up the CSS and Javascript game beyond recovery and decided to concentrate my energies where my time would be rewarded. I've been working with Perl, PHP, MySQL and PostgreSQL ever since and haven't looked back. For front-end design I keep it simple - basic CSS and no Javascript. That way I can sleep at night and wake refreshed to concentrate on the aspects of web development which add real value to a site. "Web 2.0" won't tempt me back into the fray as IE5/6 issues will haunt web developers for many years yet, regardless of what Vista and IE7 brings.
One area of web development I think is very much neglected is semi-dynamic web development with Template Toolkit and cron. The content of many dynamic sites only changes periodically so it can often be better to have templates generate static pages periodically from your database with a cron script instead of coding the whole site in PHP, Perl/CGI or whatever.
No one ever went broke ignoring 1% of the target market.
Slashdot - where whining about luck is the new way to make the world you want.
I was doing some of this dhtml and java scripting 6 years ago. Where have these people been? (Oh! It's IBM. never mind)