Re: A problem with an apparently common JS menu...

Bryan wrote:

>>> Invalid markup, insufficient feature tests, proprietary referencing,
>>> evil[tm] eval(), and nonsensical, potential harmful comments (in that
>>> order) ... what do you expect?
>
> If I knew, I wouldn't need to ask... :P

If you knew, you would throw it away. One important question just
occured to me: Does your "JS menu" still work if there is no JS support,
i.e. can one still navigate then? If not, you have certainly bigger
problems than a not-working script.
 
> I removed all comments, got rid of eval, now I just need to know what
> part of the markup is invalid,

<http://validator.w3.org/> will tell you, trust me.

> what is "proprietary referencing", and

In contrast to `document.getElementById', `document.all' is not a
reference to an Function object, so it is inappropriate to refer
to its members by using the Call Operator (`()'). While the IE DOM
allows both document.all[...] and document.all(...) to refer to
members of this collection, this is certainly not standards compliant
behavior and therefore error-prone (MS may recognize this bug and
remove it in future IE versions with you having to deal with the
consequences): the same property cannot be both non-function and
function.

> what feature tests I should run...

Opera also supports `document.all' for a targeted, yet failed,
compatibility to IE (for reasons that elude me), but does not provide
the same feature set as IE does. When it comes to AOM/DOM, you should
to test for all possible incompatible features you use, else you risk
(the user receiving) script errors.
 
> It still runs perfectly in IE, [...]

Of course. To put in bluntly, IE can make gold out of the worst junk.
That is good for users in the short-term because they do not have to
deal with the results of the work of incompetent authors. It is bad
for both the user and the authors in the mid-term because average code
quality decreases and Web sites become less interoperable, while users
and therefore authors become dependent on the products and mercy of
one single vendor -- Micro$~1 Corp.

PointedEars

P.S.
Please learn how to quote properly:
<http://jibbering.com/faq/faq_notes/pots1.html> pp.
Received on Mon Nov 21 03:30:48 2005