Not working on Windows 7

[weiglemc]

OS: Windows 7 Enterprise SP 1 (CS conference room computer)

Firefox ESR 38.5.2
After clicking "Calculate # of Thumbnails", there's a small popup near the back button that says "Please fill out this field" and nothing further happens.

Chrome 48.0.2564.103m
After clicking "Calculate # of Thumbnails", nothing happens.

[ibnesayeed]

Ping @a-mabe @dhruv282

[machawk1]

This is a usability issue. The placeholder (the gray text "http://4genderjustice.org/") makes it seem like there is a value that is pre-populating the field. Clicking the "Calculate # of Thumbnails" button gives the impression that the default, which is actually a placeholder and not a default, will be used as a parameter for processing.

A few ways to remedy this:

• Change the placeholder value to "e.g., http://4genderjustice.org/" or "For example, http://4genderjustice.org/", which will give an indication that the field requires more input before he button can be pressed.
• Pre-populate the field with http://4genderjustice.org/, not just as a placeholder. Use some JS that reads, on the initial use focus of the focus, that the user has interacted with the field and clears it so as to not require the user to do so...since they likely don't want to use this URI for their own test.

The latter is very inaccessible but allows for those just testing the tool to actually have results shown instead of an alert that tells them they have done something wrong. The former requires more input from the user. Consider, also, providing an example outside of the field, i.e., not as a placeholder, to help guide the user as to what is required as an example to use the tool.

[a-mabe]

Changing the placeholder value to "For example, http://4genderjustice.org/" did not fix the issue. Pre-populating the field fixed it. However, a new error appeared UnCaught TypeError: Cannot read property 'push' of undefined from timeline.js line 48.

Including this script file, https://code.jquery.com/jquery-migrate-3.1.0.js, in index.html fixed this new error, and I was able to fully calculate thumbnails on Firefox ESR 38.5.2, Chrome 48.0.2564.103m, as well as current versions of Firefox and Chrome.

[ibnesayeed]

Placeholder text is supposed to be an illustration or instruction rather than a default value unless a default value makes sense. By design browsers keep placeholder text in a muted color, so that is enough visual clue for people to not assume that as a value. The experience can be improved by removing the alert dialogue (these are considered a bad practice) and showing the error inline with input field highlighted in red (the way it is commonly done in form validations).

[machawk1]

As above, a placeholder is the way to go. The issue is that it is unclear that the dimmed URI in the placeholder is not a pre-populated value. Adding the text to precede the placeholder makes it more clear that the greyed text is a placeholder value.

The first approach I mentioned above is preferred over the second, the latter which seems to have been implemented in #56.