[Mailman-Developers] Frames (was: unsubscriptions requiring approval)

[Thomas Wouters]

On Thu, Feb 10, 2000 at 09:14:52PM +0100, Gerrit Holl wrote:
> Thomas Wouters wrote on 950200274:

> > (It might be even worth it to take a look at a frames interface, possibly ?)

> Noooo! Please don't!
> Sorry, but I really, really hate frames for several reasons.

I hate the whole smegging world wide web for mostly the same sort of
reasons. Nevertheless, the Common User might appreciate, might even greatly
appreciate, a frame-style interface.

>     * I want to be able to admin my site in lynx, since I often haven't
>       booted X and want to administrate fast,

This i consider a valid reason, and i concur. But the frame-style interface
would, of bloody course, be _optional_.

>     * it's neither in the HTML 4.01, nor in the XHTML 1.0 dtd. There's a
>       seperate DTD for it. I think we should conform the HTML to XHTML 1.0
>       anyway (comments?),

This might be a valid reason, but i dont follow the standards business
regarding the WWW anymore. HTML 1.0 was ok, 1.1 had neat tricks but wasn't a
real standard, and it just went downhill from there ;)

>     * it's not possible to bookmark a frames page, you can't bookmark the
>       combination of the frames,
>     * in netscape, the images button doesn't work on frames,
>     * the sidebar needs to use javascript, and javascript is hard to maintain,
>     * it's often unclear which frame you selected, so scrolling is hard,
>     * you can't have a quick look at the HTML source code (I use to do that
>       very often).

These are pure browser bugs. Fix the browser, get a different one, complain
to the author, or avoid frame-based pages ;)

> I'd rather administrate my lists by email than using frames!
> Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, but please, no frames!

Hey, like I said, I dont like the web. I would honestly prefer an (optional,
etc, yahdah yahdah) email-based administration system for everything but the
configuration. (In fact, email-based responses to admin-requests are one
thing still on my personal TODO-drool-list) And the configuration is
preferably done via a text file, not a webpage ;) (i wont be adding that to
my TODO list, though.) The reason I like mailman, and one of the reason we
are changing from majordomo to mailman, is that we run the service for
customers as well as for ourselves, and our customers would be in heaven
with Mailman. (Will be in heaven. ;)

And I'm not talking about frames just for the layout, by the way. You can
use frames to change part of the displayed page without reloading the whole
thing, without erasing parts of a form you have filled in in another part of
the page.

For instance (just a thing i just made up now) the posting-approve admin
interface could be a list of requests, each with the same buttons as now,
plus three extra buttons per posting: display headers, body, or both (and
perhaps a 'limited headers' setting with the body to show only the headers
most email programs show) -- and the requested parts would be shown in a
seperate frame.

In order to do that without frames, and not lose form data, would be either
to make the things pop up in another browser window (is that a standard HTML
extention, by the way ? Mailman already uses it) which is, IMHO, worse than
frames, or by making all those 'view' buttons be form submit buttons, and
have the python script display the requested parts plus all form data.

I agree with everyone who says 'HTML is not intended for interactive use', I
agree completely. The problem is, Mailman _is_ using it interactively ;)

Asbestos-ly y'rs,
-- 
Thomas Wouters <thomas@xs4all.net>

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