Wikipedia:Don't use hiddenStructure: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 01:54, 10 March 2006

Revision as of 01:52, 13 March 2006

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| [[Image:Lynx.uss monitor.css.png|thumb|150px|[[USS Monitor]] using CSS hacks]]

| [[Image:Lynx.uss monitor.meta.png|thumb|150px|[[USS Monitor]] using meta-templates]]

|-

| [[Image:Lynx.blue whale.metacss.png|thumb|150px|[[Blue Whale]] using meta-templatesCSS hacks]]

| [[Image:Lynx.blue whale.meta.png|thumb|150px|[[Blue Whale]] using meta-templates]]

|}

The problem with using ''hiddenStructure'' is that it hides rows in a non-standard way. Whereas other websites hide data by simply not sending it out from the server<ref>Most websites use PHP or ASP to conditionally send data from the server. More advanced designs cache results so PHP/ASP scripts are only executed once for each possible outcome.</ref>, ''hiddenStructure'' defers this hiding process to the client. Because of this, some non-CSS aware or compliant browsers incorrectly render pages using this hack (see pictures at right).

{| style="float: right; border: none; background: transparent; margin-left: 1em; padding: 0; clear: both;"

<br clear="both" />

{| style="float: right; border: none; background: transparent; margin-left: 1em; padding: 0;"

|-

| [[Image:LynxFirefox.bluecardinal whalehealth.css.googlecache.png|thumb|150px|[[BlueCardinal WhaleHealth]] usingas CSSseen hacksin Google's cache (via Firefox).]]

| [[Image:Lynx.blue whale.meta.png|thumb|150px|[[Blue Whale]] using meta-templates]]

|}

*Some products used by disabled individuals also have problems with hiddenStructure; sometimes reading parameter names aloud (such as "<nowiki>{{{foo}}}</nowiki>"), or in the best case, simply reading a number of rows with no actual data in them.

*Some third party websites which host Wikipedia content may also have trouble with hiddenStructure. For example, Google's cache of webpages has been shown to have hiddenStructure displayed as raw text (see picture at lower right).

Some pages minimize the damage by only displaying the variable if it's actually non-blank (using the syntax <code><nowiki>{{{variable|}}}</nowiki></code>). In this way only the row is displayed, not the ugly <nowiki>{{{variable}}}</nowiki> variable name. Of course in templates with large numbers of conditional rows, this still results in unnecessary data being displayed to non-CSS compliant browsers.

Because of these problems many articles render poorly for the disabled. In the worst case, a number of Wiki-markup variables are displayed/read to the reader. In the best case, a number of rows are displayed/read which are empty.

For these reasons, ''hiddenStructure'' should not be used.

==Solutions==