Timwi <timwi(a)gmx.net> wrote:
We used to have a system where we had just a row of
checkboxes, and as
soon as you had clicked two, it would load the diff, without requiring
you to click a button. I wonder why we didn't keep that? I preferred
that. Then again, it is conceivable that it might not have worked in
older browsers, or some people might have thought it was unintuitive?
As one of the people who was far from happy with that previous system,
I will outline some of the things that were wrong with it:
* it was possible to select more than two articles if a) you were
quick enough or b) you clicked the browser's back button
* it was impossible to use in any browser that did not have JavaScript
enabled (including old ones, text-based ones, ones belonging to the
security paranoid, etc)
* a self-submitting form gives you no chance to change your mind, or
even work out what the boxes mean, before it starts processing your
"selection"
* check-boxes don't normally work like that, so people won't be
expecting that to happen [OK, so this point's more subjective than the
others]
The current system uses a far more standard set of UI elements - a set
of radio buttons is defined as only having one selected at a time, and
people are used to that behaviour. So to select two of them, you have
two columns - easy! When somebody [Gabriel?] made a working
implementation of this, they added a bit of interface sugar where you
don't see both columns of radio buttons at the same time - but it's
not actually essential to the working of the interface, thus giving
the smooth degradation without JavaScript that the previous
implementation lacked.
In other words, the "evilness" is just somebody's idea of how to make
the solution *look* nicer. Functionally, it is the same as, say,
UseMod's equivalent [1], and the looks would be almost identical too,
if you turned off JavaScript (or, probably, if you did some clever
user-sub-page override). In my opinion, this is about as elegant a
solution (technically) as standard UI elements (and portable HTML)
allow. At first, I thought the disappearing radio buttons were a bit
odd, then I came to like the idea, but if they slow down browsers
(presumably because they're having to re-render large parts of the
page, and aren't very good at it) then we may need to look at
disabling the JavaScript part and just letting people see both columns
all the way down.
[1]:e.g.
http://www.usemod.com/cgi-bin/mb.pl?action=history&id=MeatballWiki
I can't think of any better methods. The only
other possibilities I see
are pretty rubbish.
No... If you were dead-set on check boxes I suppose you could have
manual submission, and a fall-back to a message complaining that you'd
selected too many or too few (with JavaScript making that impossible,
if enabled). But that's quite a bit more complex than just having a
standard HTML form that essentially lets the browser do all that for
you.
--
Rowan Collins BSc
[IMSoP]