3 Windows and Pages - Sun Web Application Guidelines

Sun Web Application Guidelines - Version 4.0

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How To Use These Guidelines - An Introduction

3 Windows and Content Pages > 3.1 Main Browser Windows

3.1 Main Browser Windows

The main browser window is the primary place where users do their work. For this reason a primary content page is most often displayed, although the main browser window could also display a secondary content page.

Required

R1 Main browser windows must be resizable, regardless of content.

R2 Frame borders must be resizable, except on frames that contain only fixed-size content (images, applets, Flash movies) and no text. Also, frame borders must be grabbable (at least 1 pixel wide) except on non-resizable frames.

R3 Use the main browser window style masthead, as shown in Chapter 4, Mastheads.

R4 Vertical and horizontal scrollbars should appear in all windows and frames, so that contents are not hidden (clipped at the window or frame edge) and so that all controls can be accessed, with the following exceptions:
- Frames or pop-up browser windows that contain only fixed-size content (images, applets, Flash movies) and no text.
- In very small frames, such as those containing a small tab set, where the appearance of scrollbars would obscure some or most of the content.
If possible, configure scrollbars so they are suppressed by the user's browser when not needed (as determined by the user's browser). An exception would be when reserving horizontal space is an issue. This exception might occur, for example, in the rare case of vertically stacked framesets with right-aligned elements (such as buttons).

Implementation Tip:

Do not suppress scrollbars (horizontal and vertical):

When a page is constructed with frames; each frame should be configured so that scrollbars appear if the frame contents do not fit.

When a pop-up browser window is opened, the opened window must be configured so that scrollbars will appear if the entire contents of the page does not fit, per the above guidelines.

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3 Windows and Content Pages > 3.1 Main Browser Windows