Variable length scrolling <div> or <iframe>?

[Chris Barber]

Re: Variable length scrolling &lt;div&gt; or &lt;iframe&g t;?

Ahh ...

<quote>
Replaced element
An element for which the CSS formatter knows only the intrinsic dimensions.
In HTML, IMG, INPUT, TEXTAREA, SELECT, and OBJECT elements can be examples
of replaced elements. For example, the content of the IMG element is often
replaced by the image that the "src" attribute designates. CSS does not
define how the intrinsic dimensions are found.
</quote>

Found that in:

http://tinyurl.com/23snc

Chris.

"Allard" <spam@atarde.co m.br> wrote in message
news:Xns947E678 E61B6Dallardata rdecombr@207.46 .248.16...
I can seen nothing else than: " I totally agree..."

I am still curious though to know what the h*ll a replaced element is ....
:)

Allie

[Dave Anderson]

Re: Variable length scrolling &lt;div&gt; or &lt;iframe&g t;?

"Chris Barber" wrote:[color=blue]
>
> I had at least one instance on a MAC where the page
> returned as a complete blank with full source still
> visible (eg. View Source).[/color]

My experience with Mac browsers has been somewhat limited for the last three
years, though I used one quite extensively until 2001. And on the occasions
when the above occurred, I was inevitably able to trace the problem to tags
that were opened but never closed (especially TABLE tags). But that is not
to say you never had this happen with valid HTML. I obviously could not know
that.

[color=blue]
> ...it still pi**es me off when my best efforts turn out
> to be garbage on anything other than IE 5.5+ or Mozilla
> (I *like* Mozilla a lot).[/color]

But it isn't that difficult to identify subsets of HTML/DOM/CSS that are
implemented fairly uniformly. And once you identify the land mines, your
future development efforts are greatly simplified (if somewhat limited in
flexibility).

If you have the luxury of setting the bar, things are also greatly
simplified. This is obviously harder to do for public sites, but on our
intrant, for example, we are able to be picky. We code to HTML4, DOM1 (and
some of 2), CSS1 (and some of 2), and full ECMA-262v3 as minima. This
approach does not especially limit our developers OR our users.

Our public web site is another matter. For that, I share your pain, though
my philosophic approach is somewhat minimalist**. I would not try to fill
the window, for example, because I don't believe it is important.

Just don't get me started on vendor-supplied applications that work in only
specific browsers with specific JVMs. Some of our departments are big enough
and isolated enough to think they can purchase web applications without
consulting the development groups or without causing conflicts. And while
this approach is fine for many users, it can force very specific software
versions (browser or plug-in) onto our Citrix systems, which almost always
leads to problems with other vendor-supplied web applications.

[color=blue]
> Certainly trying to get
> anything even remotely complex or interactive to work
> with Netscape or the Mac (Safari) is almost impossible.[/color]


That depends on your bias toward DHTML and against round-trips.


**Simple HTML, simple CSS. I lean toward round-trips and away from DHTML.
Though I am capable of nuanced and attractive design, I have access to a
marketing team with highly skilled artists -- and they are far more willing
than I to "uglify" the source code by using such tools as Dreamweaver. I try
not to think about what they do to the *valid* HTML I hand them.

--
Dave Anderson

Unsolicited commercial email will be read at a cost of $500 per message. Use
of this email address implies consent to these terms. Please do not contact
me directly or ask me to contact you directly for assistance. If your
question is worth asking, it's worth posting.

[Allard]

Re: Variable length scrolling &lt;div&gt; or &lt;iframe&g t;?

"Dave Anderson" <GTSPXOESSGOQ@s pammotel.com> wrote in
news:umEgwbd5DH A.1636@TK2MSFTN GP12.phx.gbl:
[color=blue]
> Our public web site is another matter. For that, I share your pain,
> though my philosophic approach is somewhat minimalist**. I would not
> try to fill the window, for example, because I don't believe it is
> important.[/color]

I have seen too many sites where clicking on a link refreshes the whole
screen, reloading all navigation buttons/links again that were already
there. I have seen too many pages where you must scroll to the top of
the page (after reading to the bottom) to go to another page. I have
seen too many flashy screens (aspx), that refreshes a whole document,
when only a little thing changes on the screen. I have spent too much
time waiting for a page to reload, when it could have been twice as fast
because all that redundant information didn't need to be transferred
again...

This is only an attempt to make an improvement, to make better user
interfaces, and yes, I do think this is very important. Many Internet
websites simply look too primitive, and could be improved (a lot!) by
offering such a interface that fills the window.

Allie

[Dave Anderson]

Re: Variable length scrolling &lt;div&gt; or &lt;iframe&g t;?

"Allard" wrote:[color=blue]
>[color=green]
>> ...I share your pain, though my philosophic approach is
>> somewhat minimalist**. I would not try to fill the window,
>> for example, because I don't believe it is important.[/color]
>
> I have seen too many sites where clicking on a link refreshes
> the whole screen, reloading all navigation buttons/links again
> that were already there. I have seen too many pages where you
> must scroll to the top of the page (after reading to the bottom)
> to go to another page. I have seen too many flashy screens
> (aspx), that refreshes a whole document, when only a little
> thing changes on the screen. I have spent too much time waiting
> for a page to reload, when it could have been twice as fast
> because all that redundant information didn't need to be
> transferred again...[/color]

None of these issues represents fallout of minimalist design. What exactly
is the point here?

I note, by the way, that each of the above problems can be diminished
through the use of FRAMEs or IFRAMEs, not to mention making forms that are
"wizard-like" rather than all-inclusive.

[color=blue]
> This is only an attempt to make an improvement, to make better
> user interfaces, and yes, I do think this is very important.
> Many Internet websites simply look too primitive, and could be
> improved (a lot!) by offering such a interface that fills the
> window.[/color]

Why would filling a screen improve an interface? Would the Windows
Calculator (calc.exe) be a better application if you could maximize its
window? You are proposing to do essentially the same thing. If the
form/app/page has enough content to fill the screen, then it will. Why force
it to if it doesn't have to?


--
Dave Anderson

Unsolicited commercial email will be read at a cost of $500 per message. Use
of this email address implies consent to these terms. Please do not contact
me directly or ask me to contact you directly for assistance. If your
question is worth asking, it's worth posting.

[Jim M]

Re: Variable length scrolling &lt;div&gt; or &lt;iframe&g t;?

The purpose of the original post was for a weekly calendar, ie.. this would
take 7 <iframes>, 7 hits to the server. Next, I will go after a monthly
calendar with scrolling days... 31 <iframes>. The problem is that a large
screen is a great advantage when looking at a monthly calendar. It seems so
silly to be stuck with fixed sized days in my calendar to get scrolling.

I do not think it is unusual of late for business applications to require IE
to run in order to get functionality. In these very challenging times,
many users would rather pay less and get a good GUI and accept the
limitation of having to run in IE only. The alternative is to pay more in
development costs or get less in GUI.

Just some thoughts from another late night programmer.

"Dave Anderson" <GTSPXOESSGOQ@s pammotel.com> wrote in message
news:OfTV9If5DH A.2416@TK2MSFTN GP10.phx.gbl...[color=blue]
> "Allard" wrote:[color=green]
> >[color=darkred]
> >> ...I share your pain, though my philosophic approach is
> >> somewhat minimalist**. I would not try to fill the window,
> >> for example, because I don't believe it is important.[/color]
> >
> > I have seen too many sites where clicking on a link refreshes
> > the whole screen, reloading all navigation buttons/links again
> > that were already there. I have seen too many pages where you
> > must scroll to the top of the page (after reading to the bottom)
> > to go to another page. I have seen too many flashy screens
> > (aspx), that refreshes a whole document, when only a little
> > thing changes on the screen. I have spent too much time waiting
> > for a page to reload, when it could have been twice as fast
> > because all that redundant information didn't need to be
> > transferred again...[/color]
>
> None of these issues represents fallout of minimalist design. What exactly
> is the point here?
>
> I note, by the way, that each of the above problems can be diminished
> through the use of FRAMEs or IFRAMEs, not to mention making forms that are
> "wizard-like" rather than all-inclusive.
>
>[color=green]
> > This is only an attempt to make an improvement, to make better
> > user interfaces, and yes, I do think this is very important.
> > Many Internet websites simply look too primitive, and could be
> > improved (a lot!) by offering such a interface that fills the
> > window.[/color]
>
> Why would filling a screen improve an interface? Would the Windows
> Calculator (calc.exe) be a better application if you could maximize its
> window? You are proposing to do essentially the same thing. If the
> form/app/page has enough content to fill the screen, then it will. Why[/color]
force[color=blue]
> it to if it doesn't have to?
>
>
> --
> Dave Anderson
>
> Unsolicited commercial email will be read at a cost of $500 per message.[/color]
Use[color=blue]
> of this email address implies consent to these terms. Please do not[/color]
contact[color=blue]
> me directly or ask me to contact you directly for assistance. If your
> question is worth asking, it's worth posting.
>
>[/color]

[Jim M]

Re: Variable length scrolling &lt;div&gt; or &lt;iframe&g t;?

Is it safe to say that ShowModalDialog is out of the question for a cross
platform solutoin? I find this routine very effective, especially with ASPX
postbacks in the modal dialog.

Jim


"Dave Anderson" <GTSPXOESSGOQ@s pammotel.com> wrote in message
news:OfTV9If5DH A.2416@TK2MSFTN GP10.phx.gbl...[color=blue]
> "Allard" wrote:[color=green]
> >[color=darkred]
> >> ...I share your pain, though my philosophic approach is
> >> somewhat minimalist**. I would not try to fill the window,
> >> for example, because I don't believe it is important.[/color]
> >
> > I have seen too many sites where clicking on a link refreshes
> > the whole screen, reloading all navigation buttons/links again
> > that were already there. I have seen too many pages where you
> > must scroll to the top of the page (after reading to the bottom)
> > to go to another page. I have seen too many flashy screens
> > (aspx), that refreshes a whole document, when only a little
> > thing changes on the screen. I have spent too much time waiting
> > for a page to reload, when it could have been twice as fast
> > because all that redundant information didn't need to be
> > transferred again...[/color]
>
> None of these issues represents fallout of minimalist design. What exactly
> is the point here?
>
> I note, by the way, that each of the above problems can be diminished
> through the use of FRAMEs or IFRAMEs, not to mention making forms that are
> "wizard-like" rather than all-inclusive.
>
>[color=green]
> > This is only an attempt to make an improvement, to make better
> > user interfaces, and yes, I do think this is very important.
> > Many Internet websites simply look too primitive, and could be
> > improved (a lot!) by offering such a interface that fills the
> > window.[/color]
>
> Why would filling a screen improve an interface? Would the Windows
> Calculator (calc.exe) be a better application if you could maximize its
> window? You are proposing to do essentially the same thing. If the
> form/app/page has enough content to fill the screen, then it will. Why[/color]
force[color=blue]
> it to if it doesn't have to?
>
>
> --
> Dave Anderson
>
> Unsolicited commercial email will be read at a cost of $500 per message.[/color]
Use[color=blue]
> of this email address implies consent to these terms. Please do not[/color]
contact[color=blue]
> me directly or ask me to contact you directly for assistance. If your
> question is worth asking, it's worth posting.
>
>[/color]

[Allard]

Re: Variable length scrolling &lt;div&gt; or &lt;iframe&g t;?

"Dave Anderson" <GTSPXOESSGOQ@s pammotel.com> wrote in
news:OfTV9If5DH A.2416@TK2MSFTN GP10.phx.gbl:
[color=blue]
> Why would filling a screen improve an interface? Would the Windows
> Calculator (calc.exe) be a better application if you could maximize
> its window? You are proposing to do essentially the same thing. If the
> form/app/page has enough content to fill the screen, then it will. Why
> force it to if it doesn't have to?
>[/color]

A calendar is not an application that has scrollbars, because it is
small anyway. Take a look at a site, let's take an example:
http://www.w3schools.com. (one of the sites I got very irritated...)
Select any of the options (for example, learn XML), and start reading.
Every time you read to the bottom of the page, you must scroll up to go
to the next section.... Sure this could be solved easily with CSS, to
make the table of content section on the left "fixed". (the left part of
the screen is blank anyway...)

What if this "content" is too big to fit on the height of the screen?
Then it doesn't work anymore. (that's why they didn't do it, sure) Then
it would need scrollbars. How big would they be? Answer: height:100%

So this is why a full screen environment is needed, leaving the content,
or any important links fixed to the left or top of the screen, and
allowing a smaller part of the screen as the view, only this view
changes.

And yes, this would then be a IFRAME, but how do you put this IFRAME to
use the fullscreen... leaving the left side and top side off the screen
as they are.... that is the point.

It's interesting to discuss these kind of things. I am still trying to
convince you, hope I will... :)

Allie

[Allard]

Re: Variable length scrolling &lt;div&gt; or &lt;iframe&g t;?

"Jim M" <anonymouse@dis cussions.micros oft.com> wrote in
news:ujvH21h5DH A.2732@TK2MSFTN GP09.phx.gbl:
[color=blue]
> Is it safe to say that ShowModalDialog is out of the question for a
> cross platform solutoin? I find this routine very effective,
> especially with ASPX postbacks in the modal dialog.
>[/color]

showModalDialog is great. Except for the title of the window that you
can fill with "the title &nbsp;&nbsp;&nb sp;&nbsp;&nbsp; &nbsp;etc" but
will never lose the three little points, no matter how many &nbsp; you
put.

A drawback is that you cannot change the URL in the modalDialog, it will
open always a new window.

And it only works in IE...

Allie

[Dave Anderson]

Re: Variable length scrolling &lt;div&gt; or &lt;iframe&g t;?

"Allard" wrote:[color=blue]
>[color=green]
>> If the form/app/page has enough content to fill the screen,
>> then it will. Why force it to if it doesn't have to?[/color]
>
> A calendar is not an application that has scrollbars,
> because it is small anyway.[/color]

I didn't exactly mention scrollbars, and I don't see how this addresses my
question. How exactly does a bunch of unused space improve an application,
much less "a lot"? I still don't understand why you need to fill the window.

[color=blue]
> ...let's take an example: http://www.w3schools.com. (one of
> the sites I got very irritated...) Select any of the options
> (for example, learn XML), and start reading. Every time you
> read to the bottom of the page, you must scroll up to go to
> the next section.[/color]

This is a completely separate issue, as an excess of content already takes
care of filling the window for you. Nevertheless, we can look at this. I
followed the [Learn XML] link and skimmed through some of the articles,
pressing the [Next] button at the end of each.

I have two impressions from this. First of all, the site does not do a good
job of visually distinguishing content from promotion/advertising. I
consider this a design flaw because it could lead a viewer to believe that
the bottom of the page is logically the bottom of the content (article). But
(a) this does not represent a limitation of the technology, and is easily
remedied, and (b) CONTEXT is important here. As I reached the end of an
article, I got to the [Next] button, which did not require any scrolling to
reach. So I did not find this especially burdensome IN ACTUAL PRACTICE**.

[color=blue]
> ...What if this "content" is too big to fit on the height
> of the screen? Then it doesn't work anymore. (that's why
> they didn't do it, sure) Then it would need scrollbars.
> How big would they be? Answer: height:100%[/color]

I don't understand your objection. Yes, content that exceeds the available
screen space will require a scrollbar. But you don't have to do any work to
accomplish that, so why worry about it? Once again, I don't understand the
need to fill the screen when (a) there isn't enough content to do so, or (b)
the sufficiency of content already does it for you. I see absolutely no
practical reason to use height:100%. Aesthetic, perhaps, but not practical.



**In practice, those users who are most apt to press the [Next] button ought
to be the ones actually reading the article. If the user is paying any
attention whatsoever, that end is obvious.

--
Dave Anderson

Unsolicited commercial email will be read at a cost of $500 per message. Use
of this email address implies consent to these terms. Please do not contact
me directly or ask me to contact you directly for assistance. If your
question is worth asking, it's worth posting.

[Dave Anderson]

Re: Variable length scrolling &lt;div&gt; or &lt;iframe&g t;?

"Jim M" wrote:[color=blue]
>
> The purpose of the original post was for a weekly calendar,
> ie.. this would take 7 <iframes>, 7 hits to the server.
> Next, I will go after a monthly calendar with scrolling
> days... 31 <iframes>. The problem is that a large screen is
> a great advantage when looking at a monthly calendar. It
> seems so silly to be stuck with fixed sized days in my
> calendar to get scrolling.[/color]

That's a misinterpretati on of my suggestion. You could certainly have
branding/navigation in the primary document (or one of the frames), and the
calendar table in the IFRAME (or other frame). Here is an example of a
frameset with a big dynamic table in the content frame:
http://tinyurl.com/32zuf

I like this example because it demonstrates how you can visually present
subsets of a large set of content that is much larger than the window. The
user can choose how much to view at a time. Such an approach seems
well-suited for a calendar.

[color=blue]
> I do not think it is unusual of late for business
> applications to require IE to run in order to get
> functionality.[/color]

It clearly is not unusual. I do not think it wise, however. As has been
discussed in this and other groups, a dependence on IE is fine as long as IE
is functioning as expected. But when a not-insignificant percentage of my
corporation's users lost all client-side scripting in IE last year (which we
were only able to restore with the application of Win2K SP4), those users
could not access some of our vendor-supplied web apps, which required IE and
scripting. Our in-house apps, designed to standards rather than
implementations , were 100% accessible to those users, who simply switched to
Mozilla.

And I could go on and on about loss of sessions with IE and IIS, an issue
that emerged with IE 5.01, when the decision to "open new windows in a
separate process" was taken from the user and delegated to IE on the basis
of available resources. 100% of our sessions lost during active use are IE.

http://aspfaq.com/show.asp?id=2157

Note that the session problem emerged with newer versions of IE. How
comfortable does that make you feel with IE-dependence?

[color=blue]
> In these very challenging times, many users would rather
> pay less and get a good GUI and accept the limitation of
> having to run in IE only. The alternative is to pay more
> in development costs or get less in GUI.[/color]

I would argue that the ultimate costs of single-vendor dependence are
greater in the long run. We don't spend much extra effort writing to
standards. It takes work to get in a habit, but then it's a habit. And if
the little bit of effort allows us to cheaply walk away from the perilously
costly** Internet Explorer, then it's an easy call to make.


**Users simply are not sophisticated enough to deal with all of the threats
IE exposes them to. Even one of my very experienced colleagues fell victim
to a piece of adware, thinking he was installing something from one of our
vendors, but instead being rewarded with a new pop-up ad window every 10
seconds no matter where he browsed (even our intranet). I have seen some
pretty high-powered machines grind almost to a halt because of all the
adware/spyware that users said [Yes] to. IE is not free, in my opinion.

--
Dave Anderson

Unsolicited commercial email will be read at a cost of $500 per message. Use
of this email address implies consent to these terms. Please do not contact
me directly or ask me to contact you directly for assistance. If your
question is worth asking, it's worth posting.

[Allard]

Re: Variable length scrolling &lt;div&gt; or &lt;iframe&g t;?

I give up....

I could say something like : " so you had to scroll DOWN to be able to go
to the next page. But if during reading you had already scrolled down a
bit, and suddenly realise that you already read the page and want to open
another one, then you must first scroll either down or up to find your link
because it has scrolled offscreen"

But ... I give up anyway...

[Dave Anderson]

Re: Variable length scrolling &lt;div&gt; or &lt;iframe&g t;?

"Allard" wrote:[color=blue]
>
> I give up....[/color]

That was never my goal. I hope you are able to embrace HTML for what it
represents (universal accessibility) rather than hate it for what it does
not represent (tyrannical control for the developer).


--
Dave Anderson

Unsolicited commercial email will be read at a cost of $500 per message. Use
of this email address implies consent to these terms. Please do not contact
me directly or ask me to contact you directly for assistance. If your
question is worth asking, it's worth posting.

[Randy Webb]

Re: Variable length scrolling &lt;div&gt; or &lt;iframe&g t;?

Jim M wrote:[color=blue]
> I have had great success with using <iframe> with overflow-y set to auto. I
> can get a similar look with the <iframe> tag.
>
> BUT... In all cases I need to have fixed heights. Is there a way to put
> either tag inside an HTML <TD> and have the same kind of scrolling effect.
>
> This would allow me to fill the screen and have the size of the scrolling
> box change on resize.[/color]

It was asked August of 2003 about a scrolling table where the header
stayed fixed, the td's scrolled.

It has taken me 4 days to find the page again (the original doesn't
exist that I can find). Gotta love the archives.org site :)

<URL:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030608220432/http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/HTMLJavascriptCSS/ScrollingTableInMSIE.html

/>

Watch for URL wrapping.
Might be real real close to what you are describing as wanting and not
that hard to modify the code. The real beauty is that there is *no*
scripting involved.

--
Randy
Chance Favors The Prepared Mind
comp.lang.javas cript FAQ - http://jibbering.com/faq/

[Roland Hall]

Re: Variable length scrolling &lt;div&gt; or &lt;iframe&g t;?

"Randy Webb" <hikksnotathome @aol.com> wrote in message
news:VomdnQ0sa-tdb4bdRVn-jw@comcast.com. ..
: Jim M wrote:
: > I have had great success with using <iframe> with overflow-y set to
auto. I
: > can get a similar look with the <iframe> tag.
: >
: > BUT... In all cases I need to have fixed heights. Is there a way to
put
: > either tag inside an HTML <TD> and have the same kind of scrolling
effect.
: >
: > This would allow me to fill the screen and have the size of the
scrolling
: > box change on resize.
:
: It was asked August of 2003 about a scrolling table where the header
: stayed fixed, the td's scrolled.
:
: It has taken me 4 days to find the page again (the original doesn't
: exist that I can find). Gotta love the archives.org site :)
:
: <URL:
:

http://web.archive.org/web/20030608220432/http://www10.brinkster.com/doctorunclear/HTMLJavascriptCSS/ScrollingTableInMSIE.html

You didn't have to look that hard:

http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&frame=right&th=6a3c631fb4d02fad&seekm=eWwP9zo1DHA.2360%40TK2MSFTNGP10.phx.gbl#link1

--
Roland Hall
/* This information is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
without any warranty; without even the implied warranty of merchantability
or fitness for a particular purpose. */
Technet Script Center - http://www.microsoft.com/technet/scriptcenter/
WSH 5.6 Documentation - http://msdn.microsoft.com/downloads/list/webdev.asp
MSDN Library - http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp

[Randy Webb]

Re: Variable length scrolling &lt;div&gt; or &lt;iframe&g t;?

Roland Hall wrote:[color=blue]
> "Randy Webb" <hikksnotathome @aol.com> wrote in message
> news:VomdnQ0sa-tdb4bdRVn-jw@comcast.com. ..
> : Jim M wrote:
> : > I have had great success with using <iframe> with overflow-y set to
> auto. I
> : > can get a similar look with the <iframe> tag.
> : >
> : > BUT... In all cases I need to have fixed heights. Is there a way to
> put
> : > either tag inside an HTML <TD> and have the same kind of scrolling
> effect.
> : >
> : > This would allow me to fill the screen and have the size of the
> scrolling
> : > box change on resize.
> :
> : It was asked August of 2003 about a scrolling table where the header
> : stayed fixed, the td's scrolled.
> :
> : It has taken me 4 days to find the page again (the original doesn't
> : exist that I can find). Gotta love the archives.org site :)
> :
> : <URL:
> :
> http://web.archive.org/web/200306082...bleInMSIE.html
>
> You didn't have to look that hard:
> http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=e....phx.gbl#link1
>[/color]

http://rockintheplanet.com/lab/scrolltable.html

Doesn't scroll in my Mozilla, just cuts off the page and limits what I
can get to (data wise). Same effect in NS7.1, assumption is all mozilla
based browsers will do the same.

It gets worse in Opera :( The second and third row are stacked on one
another and still can't scroll the table.



--
Randy
Chance Favors The Prepared Mind
comp.lang.javas cript FAQ - http://jibbering.com/faq/