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Bug 4481 - Options usability
Summary: Options usability
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Alias: None
Product: Validator
Classification: Unclassified
Component: Website (show other bugs)
Version: 0.8.0b1
Hardware: PC Windows 2000
: P2 enhancement
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Olivier Thereaux
QA Contact: qa-dev tracking
URL: http://validator-test.w3.org/
Whiteboard:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2007-04-20 10:28 UTC by riaStudio
Modified: 2007-06-01 05:58 UTC (History)
0 users

See Also:


Attachments

Description riaStudio 2007-04-20 10:28:40 UTC
When validating by Uri, the opening or closing of the Options result in the loss of the document address.

Reproduceable : Always
Steps to reproduce :

1. enter an uri in the document address field (ex: http://www.w3.org/)
2. click "Options" to open or close the advanced options
3. the document address field is empty
Comment 1 Olivier Thereaux 2007-04-24 02:32:05 UTC
(In reply to comment #0)
> When validating by Uri, the opening or closing of the Options result in the
> loss of the document address.

Interesting. There is actually no such thing as "opening or closing of the Options", as "Options" is a link to the detailed interface, which is a different page. 

I suppose this means it was a bad idea to make the link somehow look like a javascript toggle...

Comment 2 riaStudio 2007-04-24 07:13:12 UTC
> I suppose this means it was a bad idea to make the link somehow look like a
> javascript toggle...

No. The Options fieldset is a good thing. The use of a second page to show them is not.

One single page with a real toggle may be simplier to maintain and not too hard to setup ?
Comment 3 Olivier Thereaux 2007-04-24 07:28:47 UTC
(In reply to comment #2)
> One single page with a real toggle may be simplier to maintain and not too hard
> to setup ?

That's what we had made for the CSS validator back in December, but this faced a number of issues. 
http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

The main issue is that there is no way to give a URI to a page showing the options toggled visible
...  which is very un-web. As a result one has to say "go to this page and click there".

Other Usability issue with the js-based solution: suppose one first toggles option visibility and then changes to another method (different tab) the options are toggled off again.

Lastly, even when invisible, the options are present in the HTML and thus are creating annoyingly long URIs, like 
http://validator-test.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F&charset=&doctype=&group=0
when the "simpler" interface creates
http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F

Neither of these issues are absolute showstoppers, but given the aversion to scripting shown by a good chunk of the community around the validator, we tried a solution without js-based toggling for now. If someone can come up with a js-based solution that 1) solves the usability issues mentioned above and 2) degrades gracefully for agents without js, it would really be great.

Comment 4 Olivier Thereaux 2007-05-20 22:36:20 UTC
we're looking into this now.
Comment 5 Olivier Thereaux 2007-06-01 05:58:54 UTC
(In reply to comment #3)
> The main issue is that there is no way to give a URI to a page showing the
> options toggled visible
> ...  which is very un-web. As a result one has to say "go to this page and
> click there".
> 
> Other Usability issue with the js-based solution: suppose one first toggles
> option visibility and then changes to another method (different tab) the
> options are toggled off again.

These two issues have been addressed with the usage of mootools, and the validator-test instance (now beta 2) now sports proper toggling methods.