From: Michael Granger <ged@...>
Date: 2003-07-24T08:09:10+09:00
Subject: Re: New RDoc template, and a question

On Wednesday, Jul 23, 2003, at 07:32 US/Pacific, Aredridel wrote:

>> Now the question: this new template relies on DHTML, Javascript, and a
>> lot of CSS. Has the world of browsers advanced to the point where I
>> could make this the default style, or do we still need to support the
>> previous generation?
>
> Considering I use w3m for browsing docs while coding, yes, support old
> browsers.

Have you tried looking at it in w3m? It looks good to me.

> Also, people turn JS off.

Noted. See the <noscript> block below.

> Also, for I in /usr/share/doc/*/*.html; do lynx -dump "$I" > "$(echo $I
> | sed -e 's/.html/.txt/')"; done

Have you tried looking at it in lynx?

> Also, good design is to make anything that uses javascript gracefully
> degrade so that /all content/ is visible and navigable with no
> javascript. It's not that hard with the right thinking cap on.

In the circumstance that someone has javascript turned off, but css 
turned on, you're right: the code will be hidden with no way of 
unhiding it. This can be fixed by adding a <noscript> block with an 
overriding <style> block to the template:

	<noscript>
	<style type="text/css" >
	/* <![CDATA[ */
	div.method-source-code { display: block }
	/* ]]> */</style>
	</noscript>

> Also, scripts shouldn't be inlined whenever possible -- make the
> javascript an external library, referenced by a <script src="..."/>
> tag.  It's even possible to add event handlers via the DOM that way, so
> you can have pure HTML files, and the script is entirely orthagonal.
> It's not easy to think that way, but once you do, your script is
> cacheable and your code is faster, and your HTML is smaller and also
> completely backward-compatible.  I would love to see all the "onclick"
> events handled that way, and even the "[Source]" links added that way.

Noted. I was just following the convention of the original template, as 
well as being a bit lazy: moving the script off into a separate file 
would require additional code-writing, and it just doesn't seem to be 
worth it for a 22-line script. Your preferences/motivation may vary of 
course.

--
Michael Granger <ged@FaerieMUD.org>
Rubymage, Believer, Architect
The FaerieMUD Consortium <http://www.FaerieMUD.org/>