Replace Contextmenu with new menu

[Michael Wilcox]

Re: Replace Contextmenu with new menu

DJ WIce <contextmenu@dj wice.com> wrote:[color=blue]
> I'll try to make it smaller than the original one (no disabled
> options that do show) and add icons.
> Just an other thing one can design together with the style of their
> site. Like most new things it's hard for the first to change :-)[/color]

First of all, you're not changing it, you're replacing it, and doing a poor
job. Second, if the context menu was meant to accept style suggestions,
there would be a way to do so with simple CSS. Third, you don't know what's
on the user's context menu (it's not the same for all operating systems and
browsers) and you can't replicate the features they're expecting.
--
Michael Wilcox
mjwilco at yahoo dot com
Essential Tools for the Web Developer - http://mikewilcox.t35.com

[DJ WIce]

Re: Replace Contextmenu with new menu

: First of all, you're not changing it, you're replacing it, and doing a
poor
: job.
That's just a mater of opinion. If I wanted that your opinion on me
replacing the menu, I would have gone to alt.html.critiq ue.

: Second, if the context menu was meant to accept style suggestions,
: there would be a way to do so with simple CSS.
Sorry, this is a non argument. If this argument would hold there would not
have been CSS 2 and worse: you would never ever have phoned your
wife/girlfriend/friends. Simply because a phone was not intended to use it
like that when it was designed.


: Third, you don't know what's on the user's context menu (it's not the same
for all operating systems and
: browsers) and you can't replicate the features they're expecting.
Maybe I can make features that they do not have in that menu?
Maybe this is just a test case for me, testing what is possible?

Do you know MSIE accepts that if you press key x that if tell MSIE that it
was a Q it beleves me?
Code:

document.onkeyd own = function(e)
{
if (document.all)
{
var kC = event.keyCode;
switch(kC)
{
case 40 : /* down */; event.keyCode=9 ; return true;
default : return true;
}
}
}


Now tell me, was that inteded when you pressed the down arrow? That your
browser thinks it's a TAB?
No? Well MSIE accepts it that I define event.keyCode.


By the way do you know how I can do this for Shift+Tab, so I can replace
arrow up?


Wouter

[DJ WIce]

Re: Replace Contextmenu with new menu

: >> My menu was made to look good with my browser, not with your site.
: > Yeah, and what you are viewing is my site ;-)
:
: I came to your site for its content. Your job as an author is to provide
: that content in an organized fashion with proper structure, both in your
: code and in site navigation.
Yes, and here is a definition part that's your discussion point:

site navigation.

I think that includes all the things you can do with my website.
Your opinion is that your browser interface is perfect.
I'm not always convinced all people would think that after they seen some
new.

Internet was never intended to have banners and commercial advertisements.
But it's the one reason why it still exists in this lange scale; they pay
the high way.
(Even though I don't like them on websites or worse in e-mail).


: It is *not* your job to alter my browser preferences or
: interfere in anyway with the normal operation of my browser.
I know, and I will never do that. If you have a browser that does allow
interfearance.. why do you use it?
You just talked about your browser being exactly like you want it?


Ciao and don't be to angry, don't try to find the sence of it. I'm just
finding the limit of the technological posibilities. Nothing more, nothing
less.
Wouter

[DJ WIce]

Re: Replace Contextmenu with new menu

: > I'll try to make it smaller than the original one (no disabled options
that
: > do show) and add icons.
:
: And how do you know what "the original one" is anyway? It might be
In all your examples the menu was langer, and mine normally has no icons.

;-) don't take it to hard.
I'm just trying to test the limits of CSS/DHTML I'm not testing what people
like.
That might come after I can simulate the function of the menu with a few
items.
Then I will visit alt.html.critiq ue.

Ciao, ciao,
Wouter

[Randy Webb]

Re: Replace Contextmenu with new menu

DJ WIce wrote:

<--snip-->
[color=blue]
>
> Do you know MSIE accepts that if you press key x that if tell MSIE that it
> was a Q it beleves me?
> Code:
>
> document.onkeyd own = function(e)
> {
> if (document.all)[/color]
<--snip-->

Just a side note, and an FYI one. MSIE is not the only browser that can
pass that test. Opera, in IE spoof mode, and several other browsers
emulate the document.all (pass the test).


if (document.all &! document.layers &! window.opera){
alert('I think you are using MSIE but I could still be wrong')
}

the !window.opera excludes Opera.
the !document.layer s excludes a browser (the name eludes me, Jim Ley
named it once for me) that supports both document.all and document.layers .

--
Randy

[Michael Wilcox]

Re: Replace Contextmenu with new menu

DJ WIce <contextmenu@dj wice.com> wrote:[color=blue]
> I think that includes all the things you can do with my website.
> Your opinion is that your browser interface is perfect.
> I'm not always convinced all people would think that after they seen
> some new.[/color]

And once they leave your site, will they ever see your navigation again?
Does it even matter if they like it if they can never use it?
[color=blue][color=green]
>> It is *not* your job to alter my browser preferences or
>> interfere in anyway with the normal operation of my browser.[/color]
> I know, and I will never do that.[/color]

When I right-clicked on your page and saw a menu other than my browser's and
without the features I wanted, then you interfered with my browser.
[color=blue]
> If you have a browser that does
> allow interfearance.. why do you use it?[/color]

If, in this case, intereference means JavaScript, than no, I don't allow it.
I turn it off unless I'm testing a page like yours or some site was poorly
designed to require it.

JavaScript, while not necessarily a bad idea, was horribly abused by the
"developers " at Microsoft and by authors who think they should (or even can)
have ultimate control over another's browser.
[color=blue]
> You just talked about your browser being exactly like you want it?[/color]

Yep, that's what Edit > Preferences is for.
--
Michael Wilcox
mjwilco at yahoo dot com
Essential Tools for the Web Developer - http://mikewilcox.t35.com

[kchayka]

Re: Replace Contextmenu with new menu

DJ WIce wrote:
[color=blue]
> : First of all, you're not changing it, you're replacing it, and doing a
> : poor job.
> That's just a mater of opinion. If I wanted that your opinion on me
> replacing the menu, I would have gone to alt.html.critiq ue.[/color]

Here's a heads-up for ya - you'll most likely get roasted in
alt.html.critiq ue for trying to mess with the user's browser. ;)
[color=blue]
> : you can't replicate the features they're expecting.
> Maybe I can make features that they do not have in that menu?[/color]

A user is accustomed to having their context menus work the same
regardless of what web site they are on. You are trying to make it
different. This does not help the user at all, but will only confuse or
annoy them.
[color=blue]
> Maybe this is just a test case for me, testing what is possible?[/color]

Just because you can, doesn't mean you should. If you care about your
users, you won't mess around with their UI.
[color=blue]
> Do you know MSIE accepts that if you press key x that if tell MSIE that it
> was a Q it beleves me?[/color]

And what if the visitor isn't using IE?

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To email a reply, remove (dash)un(dash). Mail sent to the un
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[Brian]

Re: Replace Contextmenu with new menu

DJ WIce wrote:[color=blue]
>
> I did make a script/css thing to replace the contextmenu on the website with
> a new one: http://www.djwice.com/contextmenu.html[/color]

One which fails to work as advertised in Mozilla. "Add to favorites"
does exactly nothing. And how could it, since "favorites" is
Microsoft-specific. So what good is the script?
[color=blue]
> It works nice in MSIE[/color]

....for which it was obviously designed...
[color=blue]
> but on Netscape (and probable other browsers) it
> stays on the same place (does not "open'' where the mouse is).[/color]

I'm not sure what you mean. Using Mozilla 1.3/Win2k, the context menu
pops up where the normal one would, and looks all pretty and everything.
[color=blue]
> And the links do not work when you click on them.[/color]

back, forward, refresh, view source, and use standard menu all work in
Mozilla. I didn't try print, so I cannot say what happens with that
one. Add to favorites does not work (as I said above). Neither does
"make home page."

Trying to make HTML a programming interface (target="_new" anyone?) is
fraught with problems. Using javascript as an end run to hijack the
browser is only going to introduce the same issues.
[color=blue]
> If anyone has sugestions on how to improve it, please let me know.[/color]

For Mozilla? You cannot make it fully functional, that's for sure.

The menu looks quite nice, and may have some very elegant code behind
it. But I'm afraid there's no way to improve it for my preferred
browser. And even in MSIE, it's terrible in terms of usability for the
context menu to change from site to site, just like it's terrible for
the fixed menus to change. The best thing you could do for the web is
drop the idea.

--
Brian
follow the directions in my address to email me

[Richard Cornford]

Re: Replace Contextmenu with new menu

"Randy Webb" <hikksnotathome @aol.com> wrote in message
news:K-2dnVU60Na1yJrdR Vn-vA@comcast.com. ..
<snip>[color=blue][color=green]
>>Do you know MSIE accepts that if you press key x that if tell
>>MSIE that it was a Q it beleves me?
>> Code:
>>
>> document.onkeyd own = function(e)
>> {
>> if (document.all)[/color]
><--snip-->
>Just a side note, and an FYI one. MSIE is not the only browser
>that can pass that test. ...[/color]
<snip>[color=blue]
>if (document.all &! document.layers &! window.opera){
>alert('I think you are using MSIE but I could still be wrong')[/color]

Konqueror 3 (Safari), IceBrowser 5, iCab and NetFront (at least) all
also make it in here. I think that they all support a - keyCode -
property on a global - event - object but I doubt that they will behave
consistently in response to having that - keyCode - property
re-assigned.
[color=blue]
>}[/color]

There are objects for which their existence would currently allow the
inference that the browser in use was IE (5.0+). But given the extent to
which, for example, IceBrowser actively spoofs the IE DOM (global
ActiveXObject constructor, filters collections on elements, etc.) it is
unlikely that any test that attempts to infer the browser make or
version from the existence of objects in its DOM is going to stay valid
for long. Even IE's conditional comments could be implemented by another
browser if they were seen to be being employed as a mechanism to exclude
it from a significant number of sites.

In principal[1] the safe test for the availability of the required
feature would be:-

if((typeof event != 'undefined')&&
(typeof event.keyCode == 'number')){
... // safe to access event.keyCode
}

- but the only way of seeing if assigning a new value to - keyCode - had
the desired result would be to try it and then monitor the browser to
see if it was possible to work out what the result was.
[color=blue]
>the !window.opera excludes Opera.
>the !document.layer s excludes a browser (the name eludes me,
>Jim Ley named it once for me) that supports both document.all
>and document.layers .[/color]

It was Omniweb.

Richard.

[1] The principal being: testing the browser for the existence of the
features most closely associated with the code that may be executed if
they exist.

[Richard Cornford]

Re: Replace Contextmenu with new menu

"DJ WIce" <contextmenu@dj wice.com> wrote in message
news:bu7iq5$qo6 $1@news.tudelft .nl...[color=blue]
>: First of all, you're not changing it, you're replacing it,
>: and doing a poor job.[/color]
[color=blue]
>That's just a mater of opinion.[/color]

You are (at least attempting to) replace the context menu, so that
cannot be opinion.

You are doing a poor job, because you are failing to replace it at all
on Opera versions (for example). Your replacement can only be an
impoverished version of the original at best because you have no way of
telling what features were in the original and are incapable of
reproducing (at all, or fully) many of the features that you know would
have existed on the context menus of common browsers.
[color=blue]
>If I wanted that your opinion on me replacing the
>menu, I would have gone to alt.html.critiq ue.[/color]

If it is scripted and you post it to comp.lang.javas cript you are
inviting opinions on how viable/sensible the script is.

<snip>[color=blue]
>Maybe I can make features that they do not have in that menu?[/color]

When a user activates the context menu of their browser it is not a
speculative activity intended to give them the opportunity to see what
new features may have been provided. It is an action taken with the
expectation that a known set of features will be available to them. If
you take any of those features away, or break them with a bad
implementations (and especially the one they intended to use), it
doesn't matter how spectacular what you put in its place may be, the
user will still be frustrated.
[color=blue]
>Maybe this is just a test case for me, testing what is possible?[/color]
<snip>

Then you should want to be told if you are wasting your efforts on
something with no viable Internet applications.

Richard.

[Stephen Poley]

Re: Replace Contextmenu with new menu

On Thu, 15 Jan 2004 22:56:32 +0000, Steve Pugh <steve@pugh.net > wrote:
[color=blue]
>It doesn't work at all in Opera 7.23 (even when I set my preference to
>allow JavaScript to access the right mouse click, which I normally
>don't allow. Can any Opera users remember whether that's off or on by
>default?)[/color]

I've never changed that setting as far as I can rememember; it's off in
my 7.23.

--
Stephen Poley

http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/

[DJ WIce]

Re: Replace Contextmenu with new menu

: One which fails to work as advertised in Mozilla. "Add to favorites"
: does exactly nothing.
Thanks I did disable it (I think) in Mozilla.

Wouter

[Steve Pugh]

Re: Inline Box Model (was: Replace Contextmenu with new menu)

Darin McGrew <mcgrew@stanfor dalumni.org> wrote:[color=blue]
>Steve Pugh <steve@pugh.net > wrote:[color=green]
>>
>> You can not set the width property for inline elements, and the height
>> of an inline element is determined by the line-height property, not by
>> any images that it may contain. This is already well documented, see
>> for example: http://www.hut.fi/u/hsivonen/standar...l#lineboxmodel[/color][/color]

It seems that both Henri and I have made a mistake. The height of an
inline element is _not_ determined by the line-height property but by
the font-size property. As demonstrated by <span style="border: 1px
solid red;line-height: 2em;">
[color=blue]
>I understand the "what" of the inline box model: inline elements do not
>expand in height to accomodate taller sub-elements (e.g., images, <big>),
>among other things.
>
>What I'm missing is the "why" of the inline box model.
>
>Is there documentation of the inline box model that explains the rationale
>behind this behavior? The documents I've read (Henri's and Eric's) explain
>the "what" of the inline box model well, but not the "why".[/color]

I believe that the rationale lies in the desire to keep inline boxes,
box shaped.

Remember that we are dealing with two different types of boxes at the
same time: inline boxes and line boxes.

<span> ... a very long sentence that wraps onto multiple lines with a
slightly too tall <img> in the middle of it ... </span>

The above markup comprises of one inline box (the span element) but
multiple line boxes as the text wraps onto multiple lines.

The span is thus simultaneously one long box and several shorter
boxes. The CSS presentation model wants to keep all those boxes
rectangular and to display them as well as possible.

When there is no image present that is simple the line boxes are all
the same height (derived from the height of the inline box).

But when we include the image there is a problem. Obviously the line
box that contains the image must be taller. But what affect does that
have on the height of the inline box? There are three options.

1. The height of the inline box increases to accomodate the image. But
this means that the height of _all_ the line boxes would increase, not
just the one containing the image. This would give an odd looking
presentation.
2. The height of the inline box increases for the line box containing
the image but not the other line boxes. But this means that the inline
box is no longer box shaped, it has two different heights.
3. The image doesn't affect the height of the inline box at all, just
the height of the line box.

I believe the rationale behind the CSS2 system is a desire to avoid
case 2 above (case 1 being ruled out straight away on aesthetic
grounds).

Is it so important that inline boxes remain box shaped? I don't know.

Steve

--
"My theories appal you, my heresies outrage you,
I never answer letters and you don't like my tie." - The Doctor

Steve Pugh <steve@pugh.net > <http://steve.pugh.net/>

[Fabian]

Re: Replace Contextmenu with new menu

DJ WIce hu kiteb:
[color=blue][color=green]
>> Having the "Disable this" text doesn't make it okay to toy with the
>> user's browser. What if I wanted to copy and paste? That's not even
>> on your menu.[/color]
> I'm now just working on the scripting. And getting it to work like to
> normal menu.
> When selection is done I can disable the menu, that a nice suggestion!
> Thanks.
>
>[color=green]
>> My menu was made to look good with my browser, not with your site.[/color]
> Yeah, and what you are viewing is my site ;-)[/color]

If I find that the site navigation tools, such as the user interface,
have been manipulated, my first thought is that the webpage contains
potentially hostile content, and my instinctive reaction is to close the
window.

Oops, you lost another viewer.


--
--
Fabian
Visit my website often and for long periods!

http://www.lajzar.co.uk

[kchayka]

Re: Replace Contextmenu with new menu

DJ WIce wrote:[color=blue]
> : One which fails to work as advertised in Mozilla. "Add to favorites"
> : does exactly nothing.
> Thanks I did disable it (I think) in Mozilla.[/color]

So you're making it even less useful than it was before? How is a
seriously limited-function context menu supposed to be a good thing for
the user? Please, just throw the whole idea away right now.

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