Non-scrolling Sidebar - OK?

[Mason A. Clark]

My page has a menu sidebar that does not scroll.
It uses javascript to do this. It validates
except for a CSS complaint about the sidebar.

I have not found a browser it doesn't work on, but
there may be one (the code is a bit delicate).

There has been one complaint of the drop-down menus
overlapping the main text. I have been unable to
reproduce this except by making the screen too
narrow -- which the user should know better than to
do.

http://masonc.home.netcom.com/index.html

I'd like to keep this design if it works.

Any comments will be greatly appreciated.

Mason C

[Mark Tranchant]

Re: Non-scrolling Sidebar - OK?

Mason A. Clark wrote:[color=blue]
> My page has a menu sidebar that does not scroll.
> It uses javascript to do this. It validates
> except for a CSS complaint about the sidebar.[/color]

So it doesn't, then. It's a pain if the user doesn't have JS.
[color=blue]
> I have not found a browser it doesn't work on, but
> there may be one (the code is a bit delicate).[/color]

Lynx? Have you looked at it in a text browser? It's horrible.
[color=blue]
> I'd like to keep this design if it works.
>
> Any comments will be greatly appreciated.[/color]

I'd struggle to call that a design. It's very messy, not helped by the
copious underlining. The liberal use of <br> is inelegant.

Sorry if this sounds negative, but it's not a particularly user-friendly
design. I would leave immediately unless I knew there was something
there I *needed* to read.

You should look at it in a real browser like Firefox, too. Your widths
and spacings are clearly "designed" for IE.

--
Mark.

http://tranchant.plus.com/

[kchayka]

Re: Non-scrolling Sidebar - OK?

Mason A. Clark wrote:[color=blue]
>
> There has been one complaint of the drop-down menus
> overlapping the main text. I have been unable to
> reproduce this except by making the screen too
> narrow -- which the user should know better than to
> do.
>
> http://masonc.home.netcom.com/index.html[/color]

Perhaps you should set your browser to use a larger than average/medium
font size and take a look in an 800px wide window. Try it in IE with the
'override font size' accessibility option enabled, too.

It's not very usable.

--
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Please reply to the group so everyone can share.

[Mason A. Clark]

Re: Non-scrolling Sidebar - OK?

Regarding:
[color=blue]
> http://masonc.home.netcom.com/index.html
>[/color]
I appreciate the comments made. I will be
rebuilding the page(s).

For the record, I did test the page with its
non-scrolling sidebar on a variety of browsers.
(not including text browsers). And they look
good on two library systems on MSIE and Netscape
and on a Mac. The many ugly link underlines
are esthetically bad but eminently practical.

I think

Nevertheless, the use of javascript worries
me as does the inherent uncertainty of the CSS
layout for various browsers.

Thanks again,

Mason C

i'll use tables ouch! don't slap me !