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How Tiki should behave when Javascript is disabled/unavailable

No Javascript

This page is to discuss future steps regarding the use of JavaScript in Tiki and report ways how Tiki can work better in contexts where JavaScript is not activated.


jQuery was added as an experimental feature of Tiki 3.0 and became the default in 4.0. Tiki will have more and more JavaScript usage to improve user experience. Ideally, Tiki has a graceful fallback for when JavaScript is not available. It is expected that look and feel won't be as nice, but we should strive to make it work. To test, use NoScript

The basic problem

It is not about pro or contra JavaScript as a language and not about deciding whether Tiki should use JavaScript for functionality where JavaScript is needed.

''It is about "should Tiki require JavaScript" in a way that even for simple browsing the content, navigating through menus and simple basic editing tasks we want to require the user to have JavaScript enabled and processing in their browser. It is about if we as the Tiki community, Tiki project and Tiki software choose to take away from our consultants and site administrators the opportunity to create JavaScript-free websites.

Do we really want to force consultants and projects that require basic no-script navigation and editing to either accept JS in their browsers or to simply go and find other software ... meaning as well for some of us to either abandon this type of projects and customers, or to need to split our resources between Tiki and new other software, or even to leave Tiki, cause things continue to go into directions, as some of us cannot follow when JavaScript is made mandatory and non-optional.

Furthermore, apart from the JS question, we should discuss in the community, which type of market we want to approach. Do we still want to address a wide market and do we still have the goal to offer an all-inclusive web tool for all kind of use cases and all kind of various user groups? Do we still address the professional market as trying to get a stable system with robust fallbacks for special situations? Do we focus on the professional market and do we respect, that we need to support our self-employed consultants to get work and to get companies into the project who can co-fund the development? Or is Tiki more like a hobby project, where single coders commit stuff to their own needs and spleen and can just ignore the needs of other community members who partially indeed do not code themselves, but commit other values to the communities and who depend on Tiki generated revenues or who maintain NGOs' web projects based on Tiki?

(Gary's thoughts:) I don't necessarily agree with the description in the paragraph above and other parts of this page, about types of people involved in the Tiki project and what their motives might be, or about the feelings of markets and users, and some statements I believe go a little too far. But I think we all would like to support as many types of users and organizations as possible. In my opinion, it'd be great if Tiki could be used pretty much without JavaScript but, like many ideas about features and functionality, there's the question of limited resources and relative payoff for the efforts made.

In my opinion, if it isn't too much trouble to add and maintain no-JS fall-backs for actions that normally use JavaScript, this is a good "selling point" for Tiki and a practical value for the users who care about that, but we are talking about an estimated 1.5% to 2% of Internet users. These are probably people and organizations we want to support for philosophical reasons, but this needs to be considered in the context of all the tasks that need to be done to keep Tiki rolling along.

  • In April 2015 we are saying we have to decide if the Tiki project accepts that there are considerable numbers of users on the Internet who decide to browse the Internet with the no-script option active in their browsers and if the software Tiki shall allow those users by default to access content and basic editing on average (not massively customized) Tiki websites.

  • We have to decide if we want to seize the opportunity for web developers, admins and web masters to address no-script users as considerable target group of their web publications and to let them at least contribute in a basic manner on Tiki based collaboration websites like intranets.

  • We have to decide whether consultants can offer their customers no-script access to Tiki content or not.

  • There are projects out in the Internet which address data-protection groups, hackers and hard-core administrators, who avoid allowing JavaScript being processed in their browsers. Browser plugins like for example "no-script" are quite popular. Just check the Firefox Plugin No-Script and see 2.283.941 downloads.

  • Please mind, that if a user uses no-script or switches JS off in his browser, he cannot at all browse a Tiki website right now and he cannot even print a wiki page or find the necessary content in a menu.


Do we really want to leave those people out and just ignore them as potential users? Are we really so good, that we do not need them? Do we really know for sure, that those people and the NGOs who deal with them as target group are such a small irrelevant group? Are all the Occupy, Blockupy, data-protection, anti-data retention activists, hardcore administrators, Snowden sympathizers, NSA citizens etc. irrelevant small groups, which should not be addressed by Tiki and all in general and by our consultants in specific?

This is the question here - and again: tech-wise we are talking about robust fallbacks for navigation and basic editing, not about advanced functionality. Do we really hide access with JS and obtrusively force users to use it only to be able to READ our content or to EDIT A WIKIPAGE ? Is that the way we want to go?


Todo

  1. Toolbar & Smileys rely on JS, so should not appear
    • Help should continue to be shown at bottom of page (like in 3.0)
  2. Forms submitted by JS onchange event (e.g. theme switch) should always display submit button with at least "Go" when JS is off
    1. Done: theme switch shows "Switch" button when JS is off
  3. profiles won't work

Proposal - Plan of action (2015 April 20)


At 20 April 2015 Gary, Amette and Torsten agreed on a plan of action and to suggest this as a concept to the community

  • 1. Create a minimal set of rules that helps grasp the core concepts of non-JS, like "keep the information accessible"
    or said simpler: "identify where JavaScript is used, and of these places, which should have a fallback/alternative"
  • 2. Codify that.
  • 3. Implement across the board for Tiki 15 LTS


Please add your name to the plugin proposal to mention, if you agree to that plan or you are undecided or opposed.

The community will implement robust no-script fallbacks for Tiki 15 to some extend with the above sketched plan 20_April_2015
Accept Undecided Reject
2 0 0
  • Torsten
  • amette

Discussion - Allowing JavaScript to be optional?

Thoughts on Accessibility by hartmans

I've often heard the claim that Javascript poses a barrier to accessibility particularly for the blind, who are likely to use text-mode browsers. It's certainly true that there are a number of vocal blind users who are interested in getting as much as possible out of text mode browsers; it's quite common to see discussions on the blind linux users list of trying to use text-mode browsers to download Youtube videos, podcasts and the like. Of course, it's quite common to see discussions of accessing Linux machines from someone's primary DOS-based computer or migrations from DOS to Linux as a primary operating system. Which is to say that there's certainly a long tail in the blind community.
However, all the major browsers do have accessibility that is good and that works with Javascript. There is Chromevox for Chrome. Orca, Voiceover, and Narrator come as part of the OS for Linux/Gnome, OS X, and Windows. There are additional screen readers for Windows if you don't like Microsoft's offering. There are screen readers that typically come with Android and Apple has an offering for its phones and tablets. All of the above work well with Javascript.
As a blind user, I find that Javascript actually improves the efficiency with which I can use some web interfaces I use on a regular basis. As an example, especially with the new keyboard navagation, Google Play Music has a nice web interface. Openerp, an open-source ERP platform, also benefits significantly from use of AJAX that actually makes the product more accessible.
It is possible to decrease accessibility using Javascript of course. I've filed a couple of bugs here in cases where that happened. However, from my experience, Javascript is not the enemy of accessibility.
However, as I discussed above, there are blind users who use text-mode browsers. If you depend much on Javascript, you will make the product harder for those users. However, I think it's more correct to think of it as a user community who has chosen to stick with technologies they find familiar, rather than a user community who has no other options.

Yes

No

  • hinders progress and modernization of Tiki with features that are universally popular
  • modern touch screens and dropdown menus
  • better functionality
  • better user experience
  • support Ajax and Tiki services
  • JavaScript is a language not a feature - unusual to make entire languages optional
  • burden on code and volunteer coders - more difficult to maintain and understand code
    • Results in significant duplication of code in some cases
  • cost/benefit - benefit to small user set has not yet been proven to outweigh the cost
  • wisdom of "stuck-in-time" approach to JS issues is questionable and not accepted by many, including in the Tiki team
    • Other potential solutions not explored, and exploration is discouraged
    • Respect the environment which includes those who disagree with the "stuck-in-time" approach
  • danger of making the most commonly used functions the most backwards - a significant overall negative for Tiki's appeal to users
    • May result since coders will be less likely to enhance or modernize with JS-based enhancements in areas where JS must be optional

Rule set for coding (suggestion)

  • Restrict optionality requirement to discreet actions where considered absolutely necessary
  • Optionality only to be considered for most basic features and the most basic actions within those features
  • Optionality not required in following areas (not an all-inclusive list):
    • Admin areas (i.e., anything requiring tiki_p_admin_xxx or tiki_p_feature_admin permission), any feature where Ajax services are used (e.g., Trackers), Perspectives (requires jQuery UI), Spreadsheets
  • Basic features where optionality should be considered:
    • Wiki, File Gallery, Article, Blog
  • Basic actions where js should be optional within the basic features:
    • Edit
    • Delete

Related

Keywords

The following is a list of keywords that should serve as hubs for navigation within the Tiki development and should correspond to documentation keywords.

Each feature in Tiki has a wiki page which regroups all the bugs, requests for enhancements, etc. It is somewhat a form of wiki-based project management. You can also express your interest in a feature by adding it to your profile. You can also try out the Dynamic filter.

Accessibility (WAI & 508)
Accounting
Administration
Ajax
Articles & Submissions
Backlinks
Banner
Batch
BigBlueButton audio/video/chat/screensharing
Blog
Bookmark
Browser Compatibility
Calendar
Category
Chat
Comment
Communication Center
Consistency
Contacts Address book
Contact us
Content template
Contribution
Cookie
Copyright
Credits
Custom Home (and Group Home Page)
Database MySQL - MyISAM
Database MySQL - InnoDB
Date and Time
Debugger Console
Diagram
Directory (of hyperlinks)
Documentation link from Tiki to doc.tiki.org (Help System)
Docs
DogFood
Draw -superseded by Diagram
Dynamic Content
Preferences
Dynamic Variable
External Authentication
FAQ
Featured links
Feeds (RSS)
File Gallery
Forum
Friendship Network (Community)
Gantt
Group
Groupmail
Help
History
Hotword
HTML Page
i18n (Multilingual, l10n, Babelfish)
Image Gallery
Import-Export
Install
Integrator
Interoperability
Inter-User Messages
InterTiki
jQuery
Kaltura video management
Kanban
Karma
Live Support
Logs (system & action)
Lost edit protection
Mail-in
Map
Menu
Meta Tag
Missing features
Visual Mapping
Mobile
Mods
Modules
MultiTiki
MyTiki
Newsletter
Notepad
OS independence (Non-Linux, Windows/IIS, Mac, BSD)
Organic Groups (Self-managed Teams)
Packages
Payment
PDF
Performance Speed / Load / Compression / Cache
Permission
Poll
Profiles
Quiz
Rating
Realname
Report
Revision Approval
Scheduler
Score
Search engine optimization (SEO)
Search
Security
Semantic links
Share
Shopping Cart
Shoutbox
Site Identity
Slideshow
Smarty Template
Social Networking
Spam protection (Anti-bot CATPCHA)
Spellcheck
Spreadsheet
Staging and Approval
Stats
Survey
Syntax Highlighter (Codemirror)
Tablesorter
Tags
Task
Tell a Friend
Terms and Conditions
Theme
TikiTests
Federated Timesheets
Token Access
Toolbar (Quicktags)
Tours
Trackers
TRIM
User Administration
User Files
User Menu
Watch
Webmail and Groupmail
WebServices
Wiki History, page rename, etc
Wiki plugins extends basic syntax
Wiki syntax text area, parser, etc
Wiki structure (book and table of content)
Workspace and perspectives
WYSIWTSN
WYSIWYCA
WYSIWYG
XMLRPC
XMPP




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