Re: Close a window if it is already open

ASM wrote:
> Richard Cornford wrote:
>> ASM wrote:
>>>Richard Cornford wrote:
>>>>I don't want to discourage you from attempting to write
>>>>in English, but here you have failed.
>>>
>>>My english is so ugly ?
>>>or
>>>did I understand nothing (anything?) ?
>>
>> I cannot say how much you understood.
>
> with some difficulties ...
>
>> I can say that your post did not
>> convey much meaning.
>
> Not more than :
> it is not worst to have a new window than a new layer
> or :
> it is worst to have a new layer than a new special
> window (popup you can easily close)

In terms of a graphical user interface there is not much difference
between new windows/alert/conform/prompt and the effects that can be
produced in various sorts of scripted positioned HTML containers. ("new
layer" is a potentially misleading term to use). The latter may achieve
entirely analogous user interface behaviour.

However, scripted HTML has obvious advantages over alter, confirm and
prompt, it that it offers considerably more control over the
presentation of the results. And it has the advantage over new windows
of offering better control over presentation and aspects of behaviour
such as modality and significant positioning.

Significant abuse of the ability to open new windows in some
environments has resulted in pop-up blocking. Either as a built in
facility of web browsers or through the use of add-on and external
software. The last few years have seen such a growth in the use of
pop-up blockers that in a public Internet context it probably makes more
sense to assume that a pop-up blocker of some sort will be acting than
to assume that opening new windows is a viable activity.

It has been the lesson of the history of browser scripting that whenever
a facility is abused in a way that acts against the preference of the
user then that facility is removed, in one way or another. The future
may see abuses of scripted positioned HTML elements acting in the place
of new windows, and those possible abuses may see the removal of that
facility. But we are not there yet and as a result the act of attempting
to open a new window is likely to come under the influence of pop-up
blockers, while the scripted HTML element is not. The result is that
scripted HTML elements used as window-style GUI components are more
reliable that attempting to use new windows for the same task.

The concept of 'requested' pop-ups are often cited as a justification
for continuing to use pop-up windows. Unfortunately the concept of a
requested pop-up varies considerably between the various types of pop-up
blocker, with vary little apparent appreciation of the possibilities
available. This takes the reality that pop-up blockers render the
attempt to open new windows unreliable and by only attempting to open
'requested' pop-ups the unreliability is only diminished.

It is a general principle of browser scripting that when a script is not
capable of acting successfully it should fail under its own control.
That is, all possible outcomes should be manifest in the design of the
code used. When trying to use scripted HTML as window-like GUI
components it is possible to test the environment for its potential to
act in the required way, its performance and behaviour while acting, and
the outcome of attempts to act. So when such a script fails it can be
aware of that failure and do so under its own control. Pop-up blockers
do not allow the same possibility when attempting to open new windows.

The possible results of an attempt to open a new window that is blocked
may be null, or it may be a custom object impersonating a widow object,
or it may be a reference to an existing (usually the current) window, or
it may be a completely viable new window object reference, but a
reference to a new window that will shortly be asynchronously closed by
external software.

You hardly ever see examples of scripts that even attempt to verify the
outcome of window opening attempts, let alone come close to determining
the outcome of the attempt with any certainty. This is particularly true
when it comes to examining the influence of external software that may
close pop-up windows asynchronously.

> and in addition : I do not understand this opposition
> to popups

Why expend effort scripting a system that will be unreliable, and
unknowably unreliable at that, when you can use an alternative that is
reliable, in the sense that it will work in more environments and allows
the precise determination of when and where it will fail.

> (if launched by visitor's action, of course)

Saying a "visitor's action" suggests that you are thinking of the
'requested' pop-ups allowed by a couple of the more recent pop-up
blocking mechanisms. Consider the style of pop-up blocking where new
windows are allowed, but only when the user is holding down a specific
key (often Ctrl). If you design so that users must take positive
additional action to get the pop-ups you can hardly consider the outcome
a good GUI, especially when it is almost certainly possible to achieve
the same effect as a pop-up window by scripting HTML within the one
window.

<snip>
>> For example, I observer the use of the words "the last
>> photo of nose of grand ma'", and you have previously
>> used the phrase "last photo of my mother in law". ...
<snip>
>
> They are of my own expression
> photo of grand ma'
> means what it means : something of not great interest

"Photo of grand ma" does mean what it means, but what it means is an
object, a photograph, with a subject, Grand Ma'. (At least to the extent
that a photograph may be regarded as an object when most are digital
these days.) Meaning beyond that may come from the (lexical or cultural)
context of the use of the term.

<snip>
> perhaps
> photo of the cat
> would have been more explicit ?

That seems almost exactly as non-explicit. The solution might be to
avoid trying to imply meaning, but instead to state: "some arbitrary web
content".

>> I asked one of my French colleagues if he could shed
>> any light on this, but he could not. I think he was
>> also slightly baffled by your post.
>
> In any case I thank you very much for your answer so
> well detailed.
>
> However
>
> > Don't carry coals to Newcastle.
>
> I think that would mean : don't loose your time ?

Or "don't waste your time".

> "Ne batis pas de chateaux en Espagne"
> would have to mean : don't project what it's imposible
> my dictionnary says :
> "Don't build castels in the air"
> but ... perhaps it is quite old ? (1967)

When my French colleague was explaining the use of "Ne batis pas de
chateaux en Espagne" his examples included the contemplation of the
impossible but also included the futile misdirection of activity. The
latter concept is better paralleled in English with carrying coals to
Newcastle, the former with building castles in the air.

My impression was that the potential for wider meaning of the French
expression resulted form the fact that you can build castles in Spain
(regardless of how pointless it may be to do so). In the same way as you
can take coal to Newcastle.

On the other hand, building castles in the air is always impossible, and
so that phrase is used to express futile mental activity. To the extent
that "building castles in the air" is used (poetically) to represent
daydreaming.

I chose to concentrate on the futile activity aspect of the phrase,
rather than the futile thought aspect, as a better illustration of how
the same concept might be represented by very different sequences of
words in different languages, and so better illustrate the limitations
of word-for-word translation.

Richard.



.

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