Pop-up etiquette

Hi,

I'm setting up my gallery page so that each of the 9 thumbnail images are a link to a new window containing the full size version. However I'm unsure of the etiquette regarding pop-ups, and how different browsers react.

-It would look better if the new window could be the same size as the image, but is it poor form to dictate the window size?
- Is it bad form anyway, simply to have pop-ups. Should I have the full size image appear in the same window, with the navigation bar, etc.

From my search so far, I have found references to using Java to open a new window to a set size - is this the best method? (I haven't used Java before).

Thanks,

Ruby

hmmm, I think this question would be best answered by someone besides me...lol But I will give it a shot...but I might be wrong as far as netiquette goes.

I believe most people have popup blockers. Plain and simple! But if they are looking at your gallery and click on a picture they are going to expect a full size version to come up. So if the popup was blocked they would Ctrl+click and open it.

I should also say something about lightbox just in case you have not heard of it. It is a great tool to allow full size images to come up over the current page content. So check it out!

ooooooooohhhh I love it! (Lightbox that is). Can browsers such as IE 5 cope with it? I think it looks much better than a new window - I'm really not a fan of pop-ups. Thank you.

I am not sure what browsers it supports...but when I get home tonight I will check for you. But I know it supports IE6, IE7, Firefox 1 & 2, Netscape, Opera, and Safari view it just fine. I will check IE5 when I get home!

Cool. Thank you. My brain is on strike tonight, but will have a go at implementing tomorrow. R

I can't explain why this is but almost no pop-up blocker blocks pop-ups in the target="_blank" attribute of the <a> element. This of course gives you a random sized pop-up but is almost guranteed to work. Also, Lightbox is awesome, it makes navigating flashless Photogalleries fun .

I use the Lightbox script on my portfolio site. You can see it mostly in action in the portfolio section

You can also have it to go through sets ... which I assume you'll have since it's a gallery thing

There's also Litebox which apparently the JS is lighty. I wouldn't know ... I know nothing of JS ... it's all BS to me j/k of course!

To talk about popups in general, I never use them. Even for outbound links on my website. Between blockers, tabs and a the clutter of browser windows that I despise, I think they should never be used.

Thank you all. I love Lightbox, it is fab. It is up and running on my site. However think I'm going to try and tweak the location of the 'next' and 'prev' buttons and at the moment I can't get the image title to show - but I suspect with a little bit more time I'll get there. Very happy

Not to hijack the thread, but rubyfruit seems to have had her question answered.

Pop-ups are a fabulous tool, especially when they open a new window. They can be really helpful to the user. It is a shame that their reputation and usability has sunk so low, due to all the )%^*#$&)#$%)'s abusing them.

Once you have real confidence in your site's security (so that someone doesn't plant popups on your site), you might ask users to put you on their browser list to allow pop-ups. I would also encourage you not to open pop-ups automatically, but rather limit them to specific onclick/link events (like a thumbnail), i.e. make sure the user asks for it to be opened.

</rant>

I agree with you 100% Mason...nuff said!

I must disagree. I like to be given the choice. It may be because I'm computer literate, but it's not exactly difficult to open up a new tab, a new window or to just move on to the url without either of those using keyboard shortcuts or a contextual menu. When a website forces you to open a page in a new window, there is no way for me to get around that. I find that annoying.

The other aspect is that all popups are forced into new tabs in my browser. This means that any specifically sized pages will either resize all of my tabs or none at all (including the one that should have a specific width and height). There are so many competing things that the only safe thing to do is to not use popups at all.

My two cents, anyway.

Yeah, I never thought of that. As I have changed the setting in my browser so I choose what opens, and how it opens. I know if I hold down Ctrl it will open in a new window, and if I don't it will go in the current window. So I just never thought of it from the Mac side of things...that would tick me off...lol