Posted by dorayme on 12/14/71 11:29

> From: Mark Parnell <webmaster@clarkecomputers.com.au>
>
> In our last episode, Tony Vella <tony.vella@nogo.rogers.com> pronounced
> to alt.html:
>
>> Let's say we have a table with three columns: a, b and c.
>> In column 'a' there is a list of countries in alpha order. Each
>> country-name in column 'a' is a link.
>> When I click a country-link in column 'a', I want to see in column 'b' a
>> list of years in which that particular country issued stamps. Each year in
>> column 'b' is a link.
>> When I click a year-link in column 'b' I want to see in column 'c' pictures
>> of the stamps issued by that particular country in that particular year.
>
> Why? Why not just display it all in the first place? Split the table up
> onto multiple pages if necessary (e.g. by first letter of country name).
>
> If you wanted to, you could then hide the second and third columns with
> Javascript and then use Javascript to display them when you click on the
> country etc., as described above.
>
> It would also be possible to do much the same using a server-side
> script, though that means reloading the entire page each time.
>
> Either way would be preferable to frames. :-)

Perhaps...

If you did use frames, it would be quite a nice use of them but
you would still need to put in a lot of targeted links and make
a lot of different html pages to fill the frames.

If you don't want to use frames nor js or server-side anything,
you could do this simple, easy but slightly tedious and dumb but
very effective thing:

Count the number of possible different combinations that can be
obtained: a page with just the countries in col a is one, a page
with all the same in a, but years of one choice of one country
in b is two, a page with the stamps of one year of one country
in c is another. If the number is not too great, you can make an
html page for each without frames and the site will work fine.

Or, really, and better, rethink the design as Mark is partly
suggesting. What about a page with the countries only as a home
page or index page. A click goes to the years with a reminder of
the country concerned and the stamps for the earliest year(s) to
give a nice idea straight away of the format to the viewer, he
or she can pick a different year from the list that would be
there, you could even have buttons or arrows to move through
year by year... as is quite common all over the web for such
navigation... This way you have just an index page and a set of
other pages that get down to business straight away.

Yes, this is a slightly different concept to your table idea.
You might also this way, dispense with tables altogether. I am
not saying this /should/ be your aim, but it could be a bonus in
the scheme I outline. It will aid you in separating style from
content and generally help our church here grow its membership
:)

dorayme

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