[boost] Re: JavaScript index?

From: Jonathan Turkanis (technews_at_[hidden])
Date: 2004-10-02 22:20:24

"Daryle Walker" <darylew_at_[hidden]> wrote in message:

> > That is a beautiful piece of work.  I don't know what the next step
> > is, but maybe it would be a good idea to take an informal poll.  Does
> > anyone actually object to the idea of integrating this thing into the
> > official Boost documentation?
>
> Yes, I object.  I prefer not to have frames.  The lettering Jonathan used
> was too small for my tastes.  The lettering size can be fixed, but both the
> frames had horizontal scroll bars for some of his combinations of HTML code
> (even with the tiny text).  That demonstrated the potential rendering
> nightmares frames can cause.

It's possible to hide the scrollbars, and require users to resize the frames
when an index entry is not completely visible.

> I've seen some web pages that use CSS to define two "frames" seamlessly, but
> in the same file.  See the <http://synopsis.fresco.org> page mentioned in
> another thread.  That looks cooler, and it degrades better when printing (or
> for accessibility).

This depends on setting the navigation pane's CSS position propty to 'fixed',
which is not supported by some old browsers. One of the main design goals was
that it could be viewed with almost any browser.

Two other problems:

1. It violates the 'non-intrusive' requirement for docs that are being written
by hand, since the HTML for the index gets mixed together with the actual
content. For automatically generated docs this is not a problem.

2. It can lead to doc bloat, since the index will be physically included in
every page. This is a show-stopper, IMO.

The look you like can be acheived using geneuine HTML frames or iframes by
setting their stylistic properties appropriately. The problem is that when the
table of contents for a large library is expanded, the bottom part will be cut
off. Notice that the navigation panel on the pages you mentioned are relatively
small. For contrast, see http://tinyurl.com/4qjh6. If i suppressed the
scrollbars (which I could) you wouldn't be able to view the entire table of
contents.

> Could those seamless content tables still use JavaScript?

Yes.

>
> -- 
> Daryle Walker
> Mac, Internet, and Video Game Junkie
> darylew AT hotmail DOT com
>
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