Update 25/05/06: DOMinclude now supports only one include window at a time and closing include windows from external files.

Pop-up windows are a pain for both the developer and the users. Often enough a page needs to link to a terms and conditions document and as the client does not want the user to leave the page you are asked to implement them in a pop-up.

The problem with this are technical and psychological:

• years of unsolicited pop-up windows have conditioned users to immediately close windows when they open
• the same reason and security concerns made people install pop-up blocker software and browsers to include pop-up blocking options, and depending on their configuration these may even block your “friendly pop-ups”.

One solution is to use JavaScript to create a new layer with the content of the document when JavaScript is available and simply link to the page when it isn’t.

DOMnclude is a script that does that for you

Following is an example what it does to a normal link when you add a certain CSS class. Enjoy, and kiss those pop-ups good-bye.

Update: Would people who have IFRAMES blocked please test the version that checks for blocked iframes? You should be sent to the page instead of trying to load the page into the layer when you click the “Amber Spyglass” link in the demo page. Please comment below if it works then I will include the fix.

More job offers from those who sponsor my bills right now:

• Web Developer – Product Quality Support Team

Quote moi and if you get the job I’ll sponsor the first sandwich.

I am starting the final chapter of my book at the moment (yay!) and it is “Using Third Party JavaScript”. In the chapter I will introduce some libraries and services to use and give examples how to do that (quick Google Map, Flickr stuff, using the REST APIs of Yahoo) and I wondered what other services you like using and why? I’d be especially interested in services that provide JSON objects or even code.

Thanks for your input!

Yahoo UK are hiring one more web developer to work in the same team as me, so if you are good in JS/CSS/XHTML and live in the London area, drop me your CV and I will hand it over to the powers in charge.

[delicious:My JavaScript Links,codepo8,5,javascript]

[delicious:My Links,codepo8,10]

I joined two weeks ago and cannot tell much, but the amount of skill and the challenge of the job I encountered so far made me really think I did the right thing in joining the purple Y.

Check the job descriptions on the following pages

As part of my last but one chapter of the book (Yay!) I came up with the idea of a dynamic image badge – much like flickr’s badge but one that loads thumbnails from a folder instead of using the flickr REST API.

I christened the solution badgr and would welcome feedback:

• Check out badgr now

What it does is turn a link like:

Animals

into a thumbnail gallery that displays the large photos lightbox style (but without the greying out of the whole page).