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Download page lacks anchors for direct links to the various sections

    • Closed (moved) Issue created by Andrew Lewman @andrew

    The download pages, both easy-download and download, lack anchors to let users directly link to a set of packages, such as the 'Tor for Smartphones' or 'Tor for Windows'.

    I frequently need to respond to a user that needs a link to the right section, such as 'Tor for smartphones', but I cannot do it, https://www.torproject.org/download/download.html.en#smartphones would be great.

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    • Andrew Lewman added component::webpages/website owner::phobos priority::medium resolution::invalid status::closed type::defect labels

      added component::webpages/website owner::phobos priority::medium resolution::invalid status::closed type::defect labels

    • A
      Andrew Lewman @andrew ·
      Author

      Trac:
      Cc: N/A to jmtodaro

    • J
      jmtodaro @jmtodaro ·

      I've added page anchors and "Jump to" menus to the pages. The accordion feature on 'all downloads' is no longer needed and has been retired.

      Preview: http://tor.jmtodaro.com/test/download/download-easy.html.en

      http://tor.jmtodaro.com/test/download/download.html.en

      Any suggestions or feedback before I patch this in?

    • A
      Andrew Lewman @andrew ·
      Author

      I don't like your proposed changes. First, it didn't auto-detect my operating system. Second, it makes the page one long page that you cannot shorten. Third, it pushes the donation widget out of site.

      Is it possible to simply add an anchor to the existing pages?

    • J
      jmtodaro @jmtodaro ·

      Replying to phobos:

      I don't like your proposed changes.

      Awww...

      First, it didn't auto-detect my operating system.

      Which OS would that be? I'll look into it. It appears to be working for me on linux.

      Second, it makes the page one long page that you cannot shorten.

      I'm assuming you are addressing the 'all downloads' page here. I don't think shortening the page is that important seeing as how this is a secondary download page now. Plus the accordion script does not play nice with anchors unless it is fully expanded by default. Otherwise you end up on the wrong part of the page due to the non-javascript fallback.

      Third, it pushes the donation widget out of site.

      The side nav isn't necessary on the download-easy page, I just figured it might be handy. We could get rid of that and bump the donation box up to the top no problem. Or just swap places even.

      However, since the full download page is not the primary download page, I don't think it's that big of a deal here. It is still mostly visible at 1024x768 resolution and well visible at anything higher. We could swap places here too, but navigation above the donation box just seemed more natural.

      Due to the large volume of packages on this page I think fully expanded sections with a navigation menu would be more appropriate here than the current accordion. I fear some people might not realize the packages are nested in a collapsed accordion menu, and simply get the impression that the page hasn't loaded properly.

      Is it possible to simply add an anchor to the existing pages?

      Not 'simply' =). With download-easy it required reworking the scripts to bypass the auto detect feature only when using an anchor link and display the section specified by the hash.

      The full download page will require significant work to use anchors properly with the current accordion menu unless we expand it by default. In which case we should still have some sort of side nav in my opinion, whether above or below the donation box. And if we expand it by default, and have a side nav, then the accordion feature isn't really all that useful anymore, so why keep it around? It was really only useful when this was the primary download page and we detected the os & kept the visitor from being overwhelmed with packages. But now, when someone visits the page through the website, they are specifically seeking 'all downloads' (or soon maybe a specific section via an anchor link) so it seems like displaying all by default is the natural thing to do. I personally feel like adding page anchors would be more useful than retaining any accordion functionality on this page.

    • A
      Andrew Lewman @andrew ·
      Author

      It sounds like an answer here is to leave easy-download alone and un-javascript the auto-OS detection for the full download page (download.wml). This allows us to add in anchors for the various sections on the full download page. All of this is worth an experiment to try positioning of the donation widget versus the section navigation widget.

    • J
      jmtodaro @jmtodaro ·

      Replying to phobos:

      It sounds like an answer here is to leave easy-download alone and un-javascript the auto-OS detection for the full download page (download.wml). This allows us to add in anchors for the various sections on the full download page. All of this is worth an experiment to try positioning of the donation widget versus the section navigation widget.

      Actually, os detection was removed from the full download page ages ago, after easy-download went live. What is preventing the anchors from working properly is the accordion menu.

      This is how it works: When the page initially loads, all sections are open and this is what users without javascript see, this is the fallback. If javascript IS enabled, the accordion menu functionality then kicks in, and the sections automatically collapse. All of this happens before you actually see the page.

      Unfortunately, when visiting the page via an anchored link, it moves to the section location relative to the full uncollapsed menu. Then when javascript kicks in and collapses the rest of the sections, the section you expect to see moves up, but the viewport stays in the same spot so you end up somewhere in the list of warnings rather than the expected section. I've already tried various hacks to make this work correctly, without success.

      My thoughts (as illustrated in the full download preview) are that we should get rid of the accordion functionality altogether, and just use a side or top navigation of some sort. This would be a lot more intuitive anyway, I think.

      This page serves a slightly different role now than it did when the accordion was implemented. I no longer feel that it is the appropriate solution for this page. Properly working anchor links would just be an added bonus in this case, really.

    • A
      Andrew Lewman @andrew ·
      Author

      Trac:
      Resolution: N/A to invalid
      Status: new to closed

    • Trac closed

      closed

    • jmtodaro mentioned in issue #4590 (moved)

      mentioned in issue #4590 (moved)

    • Trac moved to tpo/web/trac#4511 (closed)

      moved to tpo/web/trac#4511 (closed)

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