Contextmenu

Hi,

I have just started playing around with Opera.

The company I work for uses a web application. This uses custom context  
menus (right click menu) for certain functions. Examples of these are  
opening a search function when right clicking on certain text fields for  
product codes as well as the ability to right click on any page and get  
quick access to a navigation menu to open other sections of the  
application. On some photos we also have this to allow the user to quickly  
download, open in a new window, email, fax or print a copy of the image.  
We have it on tables to quickly print/fax/email the contents.

We do not prescribe which browser should be as our customers also have  
access to this application to allow easy collaboration.

This works quite well for the Internet Explorer and Firefox users but have  
had several requests to have this functionality in Opera as well.

It seems that Opera does not support the proprietry oncontextmenu event  
handler.

Is there a way of having a custom context menu load when the user right  
clicks in Opera?

Thanks in advance,

Op Fri, 06 Jul 2007 15:10:46 +0200 schreef Albert van Dam  
<albert@fastworx.com>:

> Hi,
>
> I have just started playing around with Opera.
>
> The company I work for uses a web application. This uses custom context  
> menus (right click menu) for certain functions. Examples of these are  
> opening a search function when right clicking on certain text fields for  
> product codes as well as the ability to right click on any page and get  
> quick access to a navigation menu to open other sections of the  
> application. On some photos we also have this to allow the user to  
> quickly download, open in a new window, email, fax or print a copy of  
> the image. We have it on tables to quickly print/fax/email the contents.
>
> We do not prescribe which browser should be as our customers also have  
> access to this application to allow easy collaboration.
>
> This works quite well for the Internet Explorer and Firefox users but  
> have had several requests to have this functionality in Opera as well.
>
> It seems that Opera does not support the proprietry oncontextmenu event  
> handler.
>
> Is there a way of having a custom context menu load when the user right  
> clicks in Opera?

Opera supports onrightclick - though this is disabled by default. The user  
has to enable it in the JavaScript options. They can do this globally or  
only for specific sites, using Site Preferences.


-- 
Rijk

Richard Grevers wrote:
> On Sat, 07 Jul 2007 01:10:46 +1200, Albert van Dam
<albert@fastworx.com> 
> wrote:
> 
>> Hi,
>>
>> I have just started playing around with Opera.
>>
>> The company I work for uses a web application. This uses custom 
>> context menus (right click menu) for certain functions. Examples of 
>> these are opening a search function when right clicking on certain 
>> text fields for product codes as well as the ability to right click on

>> any page and get quick access to a navigation menu to open other 
>> sections of the application. On some photos we also have this to allow

>> the user to quickly download, open in a new window, email, fax or 
>> print a copy of the image. We have it on tables to quickly 
>> print/fax/email the contents.
>>
>> We do not prescribe which browser should be as our customers also have

>> access to this application to allow easy collaboration.
>>
>> This works quite well for the Internet Explorer and Firefox users but 
>> have had several requests to have this functionality in Opera as well.
>>
>> It seems that Opera does not support the proprietry oncontextmenu 
>> event handler.
>>
>> Is there a way of having a custom context menu load when the user 
>> right clicks in Opera?
>>
> Please no! Have you not noticed the performance difference when 
> right-clicking in various browsers?
> IE - 1.5 -2.5 seconds delay (YMMV depending on system specs)
> Firefox - 0,5 - 1s delay
> Opera - Instantaneous - because it doesn't have to "build" the
menu from 
> several different sources.
> 
> This is where the real "fastest browser" stuff happens, in the
UI.
> The context menu is the user's demense, and that should be final. It 
> demonstrates one of the weaknesses of Open-source that enthusiastic 
> developers with no understanding of User Interface can emulate an IE 
> atrocity and leverage it into the product.
> 
> 
Good words. I wonder who hears them, and more important, who does follow 
such advice. Not the company websites, that for sure. From my own 
experience such "web-designers" didn't go further than IE6 in both
using 

On Fri, 06 Jul 2007 15:56:15 +0200, Rijk van Geijtenbeek  
<rijk@opera.removethis.com> wrote:

> Op Fri, 06 Jul 2007 15:10:46 +0200 schreef Albert van Dam  
> <albert@fastworx.com>:
>> Is there a way of having a custom context menu load when the user right
 
>> clicks in Opera?
>
> Opera supports onrightclick - though this is disabled by default. The  
> user has to enable it in the JavaScript options. They can do this  
> globally or only for specific sites, using Site Preferences.
>
>


Thanks Rijk.

>>> Is there a way of having a custom context menu load when the user 

>>> right clicks in Opera?
>>>
>> Please no! Have you not noticed the performance difference when  
>> right-clicking in various browsers?
>> IE - 1.5 -2.5 seconds delay (YMMV depending on system specs)
>> Firefox - 0,5 - 1s delay
>> Opera - Instantaneous - because it doesn't have to "build"
the menu  
>> from several different sources.
>>  This is where the real "fastest browser" stuff happens, in
the UI.
>> The context menu is the user's demense, and that should be final. It  
>> demonstrates one of the weaknesses of Open-source that enthusiastic  
>> developers with no understanding of User Interface can emulate an IE  
>> atrocity and leverage it into the product.
>>
> Good words. I wonder who hears them, and more important, who does follow  
> such advice. Not the company websites, that for sure. From my own  
> experience such "web-designers" didn't go further than IE6 in
both using  
> and testing.


It's quite interesting that our customers specifically requested a context  
menu for some functions as it make sense to them in some places to right  
click as they would in a normal application that didn't require a  
browser...

In some cases it does actually make sense to have a context menu and just  
because it is a web application doesn't mean that the functionality  
shouldn't be available. We are therefore adding value to our application  
by allowing access to commonly used features on a context menu tailored  
specifically for the field/table/image the user clicks on. Sure we could  
clatter the display with a button next to each field but in an already  
cramped space this was not possible.

To only use the ability of a rendering a custom context menu to hide the  
browser specific context menu is absurd to me but unfortunately this is  
what it is used for most of the time. Great then that decent browsers  
(i.e. FireFox and Opera) has the capability to ignore this enabling it  
only on a site by site basis where it actually adds value.

Luckily this is all subjected to opinion just like the age old Linux vs  
Windows or IE vs FireFox vs Opera vs Safari or PC vs Mac war... For some  
people there is no question as to what they will use - other just don't  
care. Personally I go for Linux with FireFox as my browser on a PC. Please  
don't push your views down my throat - sure you may have freedom of speech  
and I respect that but if you can't offer anything of value just shut up.  
Had you provided some alternate suggestions and good reasoning as to not  
implement a context menu then you were adding value.

As for your comments re IE... I hate IE like nothing else. It is, in my  
opinion, the worst browser on the market, prone to memory leaks and does  
not support standards fully (there is always something you need to tweak  
in the MS way to get it to work whether it is CSS or JavaScript). The only  
browser worse than IE6 is IE7. In the 15 years I've been at this I have  
only used IE for testing the non-standards proprietary crap implemented by  
MS instead of the standards like the other browsers. Most of our employees  
and customers use FireFox and some are using Opera then only IE with the  
odd person using Safari. Unfortunately we provide systems to institutions  
who have a policy of using IE otherwise we would have canned support for  
IE a long time ago. My job is to make sure that our software works on all  
4 browsers and so far testing on Opera has been a pleasant experience with  
only the context menus not working. We even have a scaled down version of  
the reporting and management side of the application running in Opera Mini  
and various other mobile browsers.

This rant is getting way too long and it is Saturday after all... Time to  
get some beer and watch the Australia vs South Africa tri-nations rugby