Posted by Brian Cryer on 02/16/07 09:15

"dorayme" <doraymeRidThis@optusnet.com.au> wrote in message
news:doraymeRidThis-AE7CD1.07495916022007@news-vip.optusnet.com.au...
> In article <V-ydnX3BL-N12UnYRVnyvgA@pipex.net>,
> "Brian Cryer" <brian.cryer@127.0.0.1.ntlworld.com> wrote:
>
>> > Why? You just use up valuable real estate where you could be displaying
>> > content. Most of us are used to [whatever it is you want to put there]
>> > scrolling with the page.
>>
>> You are probably right. I was interested in whether it could be done, but
>> I
>> accept the arguments against doing it - so I probably won't.
>
> Before accepting this too quickly in respect to fixed
> positioning, perhaps consider that it is not a good _general_
> argument. It certainly applies to some things. You gave just an
> example in your op, there are other examples, like a left
> navigation bar, a neat vertically economical top horizontal
> navigation strip that _could_ be very handy to have visible at
> all times.

Yes, agreed. Good point. I was thinking about this last night and a left
navigation bar struck me as something *potentially* useful to have a fixed
location. I hadn't thought about a small horizontal navigation strip. Good
suggestion. When I have time I'll play with some ideas and see what works
and what doesn't.

> The difficulties of cross popular browser implementation -
> without using frames (which have other unrelated problems) - are
> a good reason to consider it is not worth using fixed. So too is
> something not mentioned so far. Some people report a jerkiness in
> the scrolling as a side effect. This also is a good argument
> against.

I'd always assumed that the "jerkiness" was because the implementation
relied on JavaScript - at least on the sites I've seen (but then I never
actually looked to see how it was implemented).. If I ever do decide to go
down this route I'll try a prototype out on a number of browsers. Certainly
if its "jerky" then that's a good reason for not doing it.

Thanks.
--
Brian Cryer
www.cryer.co.uk/brian

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