Proposal: no javascript UI

Date	30-09-2014	Contacts	@pvgenuchten
Status	In progress	Release	2.12
Source code	...
Funding	Environment Canada

Overview

For optimal accessibility we could introduce a no-javascript interface besides the angular interface, this interface can potentially also be used for <IE9 users (angularjs officially not support <IE9 browsers). The idea is to create a no-javascript interface for the search/display pages (no admin/editor for now).

Technical Details:

A set of url's is defined that manage display of the relevant items

/geonetwork/home

/geonetwork/advanced (advanced search form)

/geonetwork/browse (search results)

/geonetwork/metadata/{acronym} (display metadata)

/geonetwork/map/{acronym}/{layer} (view a layer on a map)

/geonetwork/group/{groupname} (show group page) (and/or organisation)

/geonetwork/user/{username} (show user page) (and/or contactpoint)

/geonetwork/feedback/{acronym}

/geonetwork/login

/geonetwork/register

/geonetwork/restorepassword

Language is initially defined by header: accept-language but override by a query/post parameter. The use of acronym (in stead of uuid) for dataset-identifier in url is based on web best practices, this probably needs a separate change proposal though.

We have implemented the current version using xslt (is this still available in 2.12?). It would be interesting to research if over time we can use some of the angular-templates and render them serverside. In the xslt folder a folder 'skins' is created in which a default skin is defined. This skin can by overriden by duplicating the default skin folder. The default skin will be based on Bootstrap css. For EC we have a skin based on http://wet-boew.github.io, which facilitates WCAG compatibility. Some javascript is used for layout optimisation, but it is validated that the javascript degrades well in no-javascript browsers.

The geonetwork homepage can detect with (or with javascript to detect <IE9) if scripting is available and if not offer a user a link to the no-javascript interface. Administrators should also be ale to set the no-javascript interface as default (redirect).