They Just Don't Get It

Someone in my company recently asked me for help with a Javascript error she was getting. "Sure," I said, being an old programmer who loves a challenge. The problem was on a very well-known Canadian corporation's Web site, which several people inside our company use on a regular basis, and who knows how many thousands in the real world. It was happening in Netscape but not Internet Explorer.

Here's the code that was generating the error --

  <input type="text" name="origin" size="10" value="">
  <img src="/images/nav/home/down_arrow.gif"
    width="16" height="22" align="absmiddle"
    alt="Choose a City" border="0"
    onMouseDown="setMouseDown(event, self);"
    onMouseUp="openWindow(event, self,
     'schedules/scheduling/cityOptions.html',
     'newWindow__schedule_origin__schedule_org',
     390, 140);">

"Wow," I opined. "That is so cool!"   "Shaddap, Rudy. You're talking out loud again," came a voice from over the cubicle partition.

This was the first time I had ever seen anything like this. It's a combination INPUT TEXT field and a special "down arrow" gif, and together they look just like a dropdown select list. When you click on the image that looks like the down arrow of a dropdown list, a small window pops up which contains -- are you ready for this? -- a dropdown list! You pick an entry from the list, and it gets populated back into the text box. (How do I know this? Because it works fine in Internet Explorer. However, Netscape is our company standard.) You have to close the popup window using the Close button, but that's a minor quibble. Alternatively, if you know what you want, you can type it right into the text box. Not a bad idea, a combination input/dropdown control. Too bad it throws an error in Netscape, eh?

"Okay, I'll get to the bottom of this," I said -- to myself, this time. There's a Contact page, I'll write to the webmaster.

Here's what transpired. Note that I've changed the domain to foobar.ca because they did not give me permission to post their emails and make fun of them on a public site, although I daresay they probably would never know it.

It was ten (10) days before the answer came back:

Duh. No it's not.

Only four days to get an answer this time (two if you don't count the weekend):

I don't believe it. Let's see if I can get this person on the phone. Notice that he or she has still not identified himself/herself.

This time a fairly quick response:

Getting warm, eh? I thought so too.

Now the kicker --

Is that a riot, or what?! The person who responds to the emails from the Web site is not authorized to actually speak to the customers? Time to send them over to cluetrain.com. They just don't get it.

I have still not heard back from them, but it's only been a week.