Re: [boost] Help request, boost docs - tree folding menu

From: Janek Kozicki (janek_listy_at_[hidden])
Date: 2007-06-20 16:04:52

Robert Ramey said:     (by the date of Wed, 20 Jun 2007 11:58:25 -0700)

> > IMHO working with frames is not the right direction. We can
> > investigate iframes, a module of XHTML 1.1 but for now is it out of
> > the scope of the proposal.
> 
> Well, I certainly don't want to be guilty of promoting scope creep.
> Though I would menention that frames have been a part of standard
> html forever and documentation for many boost libraries have them
> for just this purpose.
> 
> The usage of javascript is a little more problematic in that it depends
> on the particular case.  In the case of J.Turkanis navigator control
> this was discussed at some length and the final consensus seemed to
> be that this was an acceptable and useful tool.

It is possible to have a folding tree menu *without* frames.
You can just make a <div style="width:20%;"> (I'm typing off my head
without checking). Or at a last resort it could be a table. I'm sure
this can work without frames - on all browsers.

You could just make a left pane (a div or a table) and put there a
tree menu with folding. It will be really useful to ease the browsing.

I just made some google search, and unfortunately a tree menu with
folding is not possible in CSS.

In CSS you can only make a menu that expands when hovered by mouse.
And does not remeber what was expanded when browsing webpages.
So everytime you want to find something you need to start looking for
it from the very begginning - hover over all the menu positions
again, and again from start. 

The same problem is with your drop down menu on the top-right - you
always need to click the drop down menu and look (again and again)
alphabetically from start.

On the other hand, a tree menu that remembers what was unfolded and
folded helps in quick finding what you need, because you don't need
to unfold again, and again, always from beginning.

It's not to criticize, just some my observations about usability of webpages.

I think that you could make a hacky version just to see how it works
by taking javascript from Robort and putting it in the right pane
of width about 20%.

I repeat: 

1. to my knowledge folding tree menu can't be done with CSS only.
2. folding tree menu has big usability advantage above options offered by plain CSS.

moreover:

3. when javascript is not available:

- by default the tree menu stays all unfolded
- but also you can detect this, and simply don't show the left pane with that menu.

Sorry, it got a bit lenghty.

-- 
Janek Kozicki                                                         |