Sunday, September 18, 2011

Yet Another Blogspot Workaround

Blogspot recently decided to redo how an image is displayed when someone clicks on it to see the full size version. This used to work by displaying the picture by itself. I liked this just fine. I could middle-click on it and have it appear in a separate page, for instance.

Now, of course, they had to "improve" things by making the picture display over the page, instead of going to a new one. Try it, if you haven't, on this image:

Image credit: Cujo359

Yuck.

Anyway, it works on the new images, ones I've put into articles in the last few months. Earlier than that, though, they don't work. All you see is a red rectangle in the middle of the screen. Go to this article and click on a picture to see what I mean.

The workaround for this is to disable Javascript. If you have the NoScript extension in Firefox, just disable the blogspot.com domain. If you don't have NoScript, just disable Javascript globally, and you should be able to see the picture in the next page just like before.

Sometimes, middle-clicking on the picture works, too, at least if you're using a POSIX system like Linux or BSD Unix.

Someday, I'm sure this will be fixed, but for now, that's a workaround. Sorry for the inconvenience.


4 comments:

Suzanne said...

thank goodness i can still right click to open up the picture in a new tab .... *whew* thanks for the heads up cujo

Cujo359 said...

You're welcome.

Unknown said...

This is not quite as annoying as the "improved" posting mechanism that google has done to blogspot. Major Yuck. Maybe I'm getting old and cranky but have zero issues with the old system, wich I'm sticking to come hell or high water.

As for the new photo-streaming mechanism: meh. It may work for some people when the blogger post multiple photos on one blog (as I am wont to do.) That way the viewer can quickly plow through the photos, and then get on with their lives. Plus as Suzanne pointed out one can always right-click to get the one-by-one glory of your masterful photos.

As I ride Chrome quite a bit, NoScript is non-starter. Plus I found NoScript annoying, especially when visiting a new site. These days, AdBlock is my go-to extension for zapping content I dislike on Firefox and Chrome.

Cujo359 said...

When you have narrative that goes along with the images, as I usually do, the new interface blows. It blows because it covers up the narrative.

As for NoScript and Adblock, I use both. They are not the same thing. Adblock stops annoying or slow ads from downloading. NoScript is a security feature. It prevents a whole host of problems, like click-jacking and cross-site script attacks, as well as many of the more mundane security problems that can come with Javascript. What you're doing when you let a site download and execute Javascript is, even assuming the Javascript software on your computer works as it should, you are allowing that site to download anything else it wants to your computer, and look at whatever you're putting into the browser. I leave javascript turned off for a site unless I absolutely need it for it to work properly, and assuming I can't find another site that does the same thing.