Why I hate IE (#1)

Each morning I take some minutes for reading newspapers (online) and for drinking my coffee.


So I did this morning and it hit me that too many of the websites that show click-to-see-larger-version pictures at some point, enlarge them in a javascript activated popup.
It's so damn annoying: first of all, it is a popup window which carries the bad reputation of belonging to some sort of unwanted advertising; second of all it's disturbing my good desktop organization (I don't like irregular things here and there on my desktop); third, most of these popups are fixed size (which usually is the size of the picture, larger than the desktop); fourth, it shouldn't be this way: a picture is a part of the website, is not something 'additional' to pop near the website, it should be displayed inside the website, in a unitary (style-wise) frame so that when I (the user) see and memorize it I also see and memorize the frame, thus the identity of the website: it's OUR picture, the users must remember that. (This is is not even code-wise difficult!)


Naturally, I wondered why... The first reason that came in my mind was that of the need to keep the user on the picture index page: usually you have more than one picture, in thumbs, and the user wants to see a larger version of one of the pictures. Opening the picture must not navigate the user away from the thumbs page so he/she can enlarge another picture if he/she desires. A target blank is not a choice since it would launch another browser instance which is even more annoying than a popup :).
After this reasoning I realized, once again, how much I 'love' Internet Exploder (it's a pun!): their lack of tabbed browsing encouraged 'the popup solution'. In a tabbed browser it's easy: you just open the picture in a new tab (I don't know if such a thing is possible but it should be), or even in the same tab and leave it to the user to middle-click or ctrl+click the enlarging link to open it in a new tab. With firefox 2.0's new functionality of opening all target blank links in new tabs instead of new windows, this is even more simple (even if one shouldn't rely on this kind of particular browser behavior). Worse than this is the fact that IE is way to spread to just ignore your website's UI on this browser.


Since IE 7.0 was too recently released, I suppose people didn't have time to change their websites...


Eagerly waiting for the world (wide web) to turn the other way, I end here wishing you happy non-poppy browsing!