ratcreature | web design question about image display

Back in ancient times (okay, three years ago or so) I used to have my website setup in a way so that images like sketches or fanart and such displayed in a new pop up browser window, because personally when navigating thumbnails that just open an image, not a real page, I like not to go away from the gallery page. However I then did a a poll on this topic, and the vast majority preferred thumbnails to open the image in the same window. So I changed my site to match that preference.

However now I just found a neat javascript thing, Lightbox JS, that displays images in an overlay on the same page. If you surf with javascript turned off it'll behave just like before, so it doesn't break the basic navigation or anything like that, it's just an extra. And I'm considering to switch my site's picture galleries to this. To show the effect I created a copy of my fanart page using the script, so that you can see the effect. Just click on a link to a piece of fanart, and if you have javascript enabled, it ought to show the image in an overlay with the page underneath darkened (and please tell me if it doesn't work for you for some reason, or if there are any display problems, like distortions or whatever).

So given this alternative to the images simply opening in the same window, and having to use the back button, which do you like better?

[Poll #1133237]

ETA: Just to clarify, this script does not prevent you from opening the image in a tab with a different click (at least that still works for me, it was the first thing I tried), nor does it hinder saving images or any of the other annoying things some image display gadgets will do.

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This is just a personal quirk, but I actually loathe Javascript and Flash-based widgets of that nature. I want to be in control of my browsing experience -- I want to be able to open a dozen images in side-by-side tabs, or stop something from loading if I clicked on the wrong thing or if it's taking forever, or save a favorite image to my desktop without having to resort to a work-around. (I realize that many artists take steps to stop people from doing that last bit, and I can understand why, really I can -- but when I see something that I want to add to my folder of artistic inspiration, reference or just pretties, I'll do a screengrab if there's something blocking me from getting the original image, with a side dose of annoyance for the extra effort.)

After years of using tabbed browsers, I command-click to open a link in a new tab by habit anyway, so the back-button or popup thing is not an issue for me.

(Edited 'cause I broke my HTML.)

Well, I do the tabbed click as well, but that still works, so it's not like I broke that? I mean, you can still click to open it in a new tab and just the image will appear there, so I'm not sure whether it is actually my suggested site navigation you are complaining about here, or some other widget you encountered that breaks navigation.

It doesn't prevent saving the image either.

Actually, the tabbed click doesn't work in Safari. A tab-click just acts like a regular click and opens the Javascript window. It's understandable, because Safari is a bit of a weird browser and an unusual one, but that's the one where I do most of my LJ browsing, so that's the one I tested your page in. I just tried it in Firefox and while it does open a tab window, it also opens the Javascript window as well -- which means you have to wait for it to load and then close it before you can open another tab. It kinda works for my purposes, but I definitely like the other way better.

But ... heh ... I hadn't even tried "save as", because I'm so used to this sort of navigation NOT letting you do that. My mistake, totally -- you're right!

Weird about the tab thing. I use Linux and have it setup so that the middle mouse-click will open a new tab, and it worked in Firefox, Konqueror and Opera (opening the image in a separate tab, opening nothing in the main window), so it didn't occur to me that others might handle it differently. But that's certainly good to know and a consideration. I mean, I don't want to inconvenience users after all.

I loathe the weird things that prevent saving images as well, because they are such a pointless hassle, and I'm not against others saving my stuff anyway.

The only thing that caused me trouble was that the Firefox image resizing extension sometimes resized the image with distortions inside the javascript overlay.

Huh, I can just use my usual mouse click (or a right-click for a menu) to open any of the pictures in a new tab in Firefox, no problem -- it only launches the javascript window if I do a regular left click. Maybe it's something about my settings, though, and I am on a PC.

Yeah, I'm on a Mac and it is starting to look like that's basically the problem. But seeing as Macs are only something tiny like 5% of the computer-owning public, it's hardly worth changing the navigation of the page just for us, honestly!

Oh, but how annoying for you!

Well, since I don't use Windows either, I'm really in favor of not breaking things for others. For example the updated version of this gadget allows for slides, so you can just click through a series of pictures, which would have been neat for some of my content, like for example the images where I posted several progress stages, but aside from it being large, it also doesn't work with Konqueror, though it does work in Firefox for me, so I didn't even consider using that one.

I like the javascript, but I admit that I usually open things like this up in a new tab with a middle-click. *g* But I like that it works to open the image in the same page, *or* just operates the regular way, if you want. That multi-functionality seems to me the best of both worlds.

Yeah, I like that aspect as well, but it seems a lot of people prefer things plain.

web design question about image display

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