JavaScript Functionality

JavaScript is intentionally not required (nor are cookies, nor Java) for most of the DAC website's functionality. The few strategic exceptions to this are designed to enhance the experience of users with more advanced browsers while not disabling basic usability for those with older software.

The default home page (home.html) uses JavaScript-based hierarchical submenus to provide direct access to many of the main areas of the site. Due to occasional misloading of images from arrays of arrays in Netscape 4.XX and to image display issues in some AOL browsers, "home.html" redirects those clients to a page (home_map.html) they render reliably. That alternate page, which has no submenus, also offers a faster option for users with slow connections. A text-only, minimal version of the home page also is available.

Aside from minor uses of JavaScript (such as main image pages' "Back" button, which offers users of JavaScript-enabled browsers a convenient way to return to the page that led them to an image despite the multiple possible paths to those image pages), the site's other main use of JavaScript is found on the DAC's 2001 zoomable image page, which offered proof-of-concept for a client-side image navigation application.

Back to Design: Typography | Forward to Image Preparation