Trendy JavaScript

I received a request to add my opinion on Trendy JavaScripts. Now, I’m not exactly sure what a Trendy JavaScript is, but I am definitely sure there are scripts out there that are abused — for completely pointless reasons, or none what so ever! I don’t get it, really, because excessive JavaScript bogs down your pages making them slower to load. Why would anyone want a slow website?

‘No Right Click’ Scripts

‘No Right Click’ scripts make me laugh. Naïve webpage owners add them because they think it will stop people viewing their source and stealing their images; how hilarious! Someone really should point out to these poor souls the following facts:

  • You can still view the page source via the drop-down menu titled “View” in the browser toolbar — a feature which every browser I’ve ever used has had.
  • Images can be stolen by screenshotting the page and cropping the result in any decent graphics editor.
  • The majority of mice with scroll-wheels also have a middle click (activated by pressing down the wheel) which will bring up the right-click menu but is not affected by the script.
  • ..and my favourite: All browsers have the ability to disable JavaScript which renders the ‘No Right Click’ feature useless, allowing full access to your images and source coding.

The daft thing is, most of the people who use this script don’t have anything worth stealing anyway.

Image Fading/Filter Scripts

These scripts are one of the most irritating circulating the web. There are a variety of scripts which distort the way images displayed on a webpage by either altering the opacity or colours of the image (usually turning it into a greyscale image).

I wish someone would tell me what the point of these scripts are. They require the visitor to hover over each individual image to actually see what’s on it, therefore requiring extra effort and irritating lazy visitors like me. If you irritate a visitor they don’t bother to read the rest of the webpage and 9 times out of 10 don’t come back again. Oh dear, your loss.

Browser/Window Resizing Scripts

I have only one word for this useless script “invention”: AAARRRGGGHHH!

Excessive Pop-ups

Now, pop-ups themselves are generally annoying, particularly when they come in the form of advertisements selling viagra or offering you the chance to win $1,000,000. However, they are sometimes handy for little bits of text or images which would otherwise clutter a ‘main’ page and are optional to enhance the browsing experience.

This does not mean you should use them for every piece of content or that every link needs to open in a pop-up. I like the fact that Firefox supports tabs: it means I only have to have one window open. So, don’t force me to keep more open because you can’t design with the boundaries of a single browser window.

Fancy Tooltips

This one doesn’t bug me like the others, it just makes me laugh. So many websites using the fancy tooltip script already have several Megabytes of content and images on their webpage which causes a delay before the tooltip displays. By the time I can actually see the strange little box containing the pointless additional text, I’ve already clicked the link to find out what the page is about. Redundancy, yay!

Conclusion

Before you leave thinking I’m anti-JavaScript, realise that I actually have nothing against it — it can be quite handy. I just wish these “web designers” would refrain from using 10 different scripts on every page of their website because my poor little Internet connection can’t take it any more!

Page last modified: April 6, 2008