[RESOLVED] How to workaround a 'workaround'?

[GuardianReader]

Here's a scripted block of a js flasher style element, provided by theguardian.com, that only runs when scripting (and of course persistent cookies) is allowed on theguardian.com

Steps to illustrate:
Home page
theguardian.com
Note the red 'live' headlines titles with flashing dots.

The webmaster advises that the animation can be turned off at this page:

http://www.theguardian.com/help/accessibility-help


There is no block of the flasher when js is blocked for theguardian.com
Or when cookies are dumped per session.

Since it appears that theguardian.com webmaster doesn't want to provide a non js styles fallback for animations, I wonder if there is a possibility of creating a surrogate for this very complicated "accessibility" method?

[barbaz]

Well, someone asked about this on mozillaZine, and I was going to try to help them but I never could see the animation even in a clean profile... and without being able to see it, I can't help, sorry. If someone who does see it can post the relevant code here, then I might be able to come up with something.

@Thrawn, the mozillaZine poster is from Australia, can you see this animation?

[therube]

> Note the red 'live' headlines titles with flashing dots.

No?
Screenshot?

[GuardianReader]

Thanks for looking chaps. It's really not all that important to me to get a handle on this but I just wondered whether the thing may look more straightforward to power users.

@barbaz...We generally view the UK homepage, even though from an Australian IP. I doubt the animations would be served per IP, but I'm prepared to be wrong. I often am.

@barbaz@therube...The animation has only been on links to 'live' articles - for example sport and breaking news reports.
None are up right now. They aren't up every day.
Co-ordinating a look at one in real time via a forum? Not really feasible. And messaging is out of the question because the only dm I can monitor reliably these days is SMS on a portable dumb phone.

I'll get a screenshot and post here whenever.
That may be a few weeks away because I'll be offline as of this afternoon.

The fix is not high on my list of essentials; I'm just scratching an itch because the webmaster is so dismissive about providing text fallback. It's pretty clear the coders are only in beta for developing their accessibility routines; the accessibility page isn't even linked on the home page.

We nuke the styles to vanish the animations and the page remains highly readable anyway, so just to re-emphasise: I wouldn't expect any more effort from a helper here than having a quick look, which you all have done. So my thanks for now and I'll bother you some more later on if/when I get screenshots.

[Thrawn]

Not seeing any flashing dots, sorry.

If we could reproduce the problem, then a surrogate could fix it.

[not GuardianReader]

Posting shots as promised, on behalf of GuardianReader

Code: Select all

http://s1252.photobucket.com/user/charles_brown8/media/Guardian%20Flash%20Title_zpsusnjh9vt.gif.html

Code: Select all

http://s1252.photobucket.com/user/charles_brown8/media/Part%20Source%20Guardian%20Flasher%20example_zpsuqtjlvyx.jpg.html

Hope that's the information asked for. I don't know much else about it.
GuardianReader won't be online for at least a month, so you can mark the thread closed or whatever.

[barbaz]

Thanks, "not GuardianReader", that is what I'm looking for - it gave me enough information to find the relevant code for when those are displayed.

FWIW, the animations seem entirely done in CSS.

Can one of you please see what effect this surrogate has?

Code: Select all

window.addEventListener('load', function(){for (let c of document.querySelectorAll('.live-pulse-icon')){c.classList.toggle('live-pulse-icon')}}, false);

sources

Code: Select all

!@.theguardian.com

GuardianReader won't be online for at least a month, so you can mark the thread closed or whatever.

Or we can just leave it alone and wait for the first "GuardianReader" to come back, because as noted in Forum Rules we don't care if people reply to old threads per se.

[not GuardianReader]

OK. Thanks for your work there.
I have no idea how to use your code, so I'll point original GuardianReader at the thread whenever.
I think the online Guardian is a clickfest crock, so I made my nick reflect that.

[barbaz]

I think the online Guardian is a clickfest crock, so I made my nick reflect that.

(Thanks, I've likewise changed it in your above post as well to remove the potential for confusion.)

[GuardianReader]

The surrogate shuts the little flasher down perfectly
If you'd like feedback on how it runs:...
With scripts blocked for theguardian.com, the thing generally loads momentarily and then disappears.
Very satisfying to watch it getting zapped, I have to say.
Sometimes the object isn't shown even that first time, I suspect it all depends on what is queueing up for load and how
congested the connection is.

Thanks so much @ barbaz.

[barbaz]

Oh cool. You're welcome