The death of javascript links
You know those websites where you can't select "open in new window" when you're browsing through a listing of products? I hate those sites. I believe the advent of tabbed browsing in addition to fast Internet and fast computers has brought on this hatred. If I had a slow machine I may consider not using tabs and only browsing in one window or some such low-tech. However, none of that is true today. I want to be able to click on all the links that I want to view and then browse the results one at a time in detail while I wait for all the other items to finish loading or while I wait for the main list to finish loading its next page.
This definitely puts a demand on servers that is far above what developers first envisioned. Sites were designed with high graphic details and sometimes client-side caching was not considered. Everyone assumed users followed links like a maze going forward and occasionally backing up to the first page to go to the next division. Today, if your website is "Web 2.0" and everything is loaded upon the first page load, you may be getting the wrong idea. Unless it builds every new page on the client with Javascript in a new tab, you are wasting bandwidth.
The smart people make one page design that the client can cache for every new page and only new content will be different. As long as the links are real links or at least Javascript in a new window, it's worth my time to look.
The whole idea of using Javascript links was initially for "Web 2.0" or tracking or lazy programmers. Your could fire off a few requests to add the item to a "recently viewed" list or track where your users are going throughout your page. Or you could be the lazy type and use the javascript to write the new URL of the next page in some dynamic fashion that makes all the links look the same. Sure that saves bandwidth too, but it doesn't call out new tabs or new windows. All it does for the user is make them wonder what website they will be on after they click the link. It doesn't make the page easily to bookmark because the URL looks ugly. The user can't load up multiple pages from your website at once so they have to keep clicking back to the results page (which reloads each time wasting their time). A good website doesn't use javascript links and handles tracking and all that jazz on the server. The links can still use Javascript on the side using additional standardized code. So you can still do whatever you wanted the link to do with your Javascript while still allowing multiple tabs and windows to be loaded. This makes your clients happy and they will likely revisit your website a second time.
Basically, use the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) principle. The faster your site works and still remains presentable and useful to the client, the more likely they will bookmark you for later use.
Now I'm doubly annoyed because I wasted my whole evening looking at house prices on an annoying website with these stupid links and now I have forgotten entirely to do my laundry.
This definitely puts a demand on servers that is far above what developers first envisioned. Sites were designed with high graphic details and sometimes client-side caching was not considered. Everyone assumed users followed links like a maze going forward and occasionally backing up to the first page to go to the next division. Today, if your website is "Web 2.0" and everything is loaded upon the first page load, you may be getting the wrong idea. Unless it builds every new page on the client with Javascript in a new tab, you are wasting bandwidth.
The smart people make one page design that the client can cache for every new page and only new content will be different. As long as the links are real links or at least Javascript in a new window, it's worth my time to look.
The whole idea of using Javascript links was initially for "Web 2.0" or tracking or lazy programmers. Your could fire off a few requests to add the item to a "recently viewed" list or track where your users are going throughout your page. Or you could be the lazy type and use the javascript to write the new URL of the next page in some dynamic fashion that makes all the links look the same. Sure that saves bandwidth too, but it doesn't call out new tabs or new windows. All it does for the user is make them wonder what website they will be on after they click the link. It doesn't make the page easily to bookmark because the URL looks ugly. The user can't load up multiple pages from your website at once so they have to keep clicking back to the results page (which reloads each time wasting their time). A good website doesn't use javascript links and handles tracking and all that jazz on the server. The links can still use Javascript on the side using additional standardized code. So you can still do whatever you wanted the link to do with your Javascript while still allowing multiple tabs and windows to be loaded. This makes your clients happy and they will likely revisit your website a second time.
Basically, use the KISS (keep it simple, stupid) principle. The faster your site works and still remains presentable and useful to the client, the more likely they will bookmark you for later use.
Now I'm doubly annoyed because I wasted my whole evening looking at house prices on an annoying website with these stupid links and now I have forgotten entirely to do my laundry.