[riscosweb] Re: Met Office
- From: VinceH <vince@xxxxxxxxxx>
- To: riscosweb@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2006 10:49:25 +0000
On 2 Dec 2006, Chris Terran wrote:
> The redesigned Met Office site:
>
> http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/
>
> is now unusable without Javascript.
> Previously the site was fine in non-JS browsers, only using it
> for animation effects, which is fair enough. But now, as far as
> I can see you can't access most information at all without JS.
> Not even a simple UK forecast. There is no text-only version.
> The only way I've found to get some information in NetSurf is to
> click on the map for a particular location; no other 'links'
> work.
AFAICT there isn't that much javascript in use on that page and
the couple of others I've looked at.
For example, the navigation bar along the top is using drop down
menus which look like they've been implemented using CSS, not
Javascript. The actual links are standard anchors and not using
JS. If I hover the pointer over "Weather" for instance, a drop
down menu appears, the top item on which is "UK" which presents a
standard link to
http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/weather/uk/index.html)
These drop down menus should degrade fine, such that a browser
that doesn't support CSS /at all/ will work okay, rendering them
as a list - but Netsurf is an awkward kettle of fish due to its
incomplete state; some sites will work fine, but sites that use
style sheets to produce clever effects will sometimes be a
problem. If the whole site is as unusable with Netsurf as your
comments suggest, then it looks like this is the reason - not
javascript.
I haven't even switched on a RISC OS box in ages, let alone
checked the latest version of Netsurf, so I don't know - but what
would be handy in situations is an option to switch off style
sheets and just render plain html; is there one? Is it worth
suggesting it to the developers?
That isn't to say there's no javascript in use on the site - there
is - for example the 'form' used to select a UK region; JS is used
for the 'GO' button - and similar menus on other pages - but the
site does appear to be perfectly navigable without JS.
Other related posts:
