Elementary School portal requires Firefox pop-ups to be disabled

I remember login portals requiring Firefox pop-ups to be disabled in order to function 10+ years ago, but I haven't seen any recently...

Elementary School pulls paper grade reports and makes it mandatory for parents to use a web site to get them.
The web site only functions if you disable Firefox pop-ups.


Is it Amateur Hour to see a brand new 2015 web site function like this or is this still common out there?

$5 says it pops up the report card in a new window via PDF and they just wrote the check for popups in the wrong place.

1. Exhibit A: Web site main page




2. Exhibit B: What happens immediately after you enter your login info:

I'm not sure that I understand the issue? It's commonplace for websites to use popups, I can't think of a single corporate webapp that I use that doesn't use popups. What's wrong with popups?

You have to remember many websites (especially places like schools) don't write their own site. They purchase some off the shelf software, link it to their domain, and manage the content (or pay someone to manage the content). In this situation, the web app is probably hosted on a server by the company they bought the software from. You login from the school's domain, and it authenticates you, and opens a new request with your authentication token to the actual web application. It's not like your kid's elementary teacher is using her lunch break to code the report card system for the school. From an end user perspective, if I have 3 kids in school and want to view each of their report cards, I don't want to have to hit the browser's "back" button to go back to the portal page. I'd rather it pop up the report card in a new window, and I close it when I'm finished looking at it. From a technical perspective, using browser navigation for applications like this causes lots of issues, especially when authentication his handled on a different server than the application itself.

That web site is like logging into your email, the forums, your bank, your credit card. You login to gain access to multiple subsections of the site. This is not about pdf files.

Let me rephrase the question. If you were logging into the forums or Gmail or Yahoo mail or anything else in your life that you frequently log in and it depended on you disabling your browser popup to log in... and the site is created in 2015. How would you feel about that?

just hold ctrl and shift when logging in it will disable it temporarily while it does the check, then you will be good to go.

It would be a good solution except you get a blank page that says javascript:if%20(cbs("bLogin"))%20{tryLogin();}

I suppose what the above poster says might make sense about corporate logins.
So if you are logging in to your corporate site, is it normal that they use a a pop-up that gets automatically blocked by your browser instead of simply logging in like you do into anything else these days? I suppose my question was if this was commonplace for brand new web sites.

I was under the impression that it was old programming techniques.

Why do you even care about the pop-up in the first place?
I have pop-ups enabled for multiple websites, as they are necessary for things like banking, credit card, bills, etc. It is much more common than you are making it out to be.

Just disable for that pop-up or that domain... it will be ok...

That is a legitimate question. There are two computers in the bedroom. One downstairs. One in the living room. One laptop. Another laptop just acquired. Another desktop is coming later this year.

All are reimaged heavily and frequently. They do not retain the individual site information and your response is kind of like inexperienced webmasters saying "that's not a big problem, you only have to do that once" when they refer to setting a cookie for their web site... not realizing people use CCleaner and similar software to nuke their browser history and cookies as often as multiple times a day.


I know of no credit card web site in 2015 that requires pop-ups to be disabled. which one does?
I know of no banking web site, which one does?
None of the utility web sites in 2015 requires pop-ups to be disabled either in my area.


I do however distinctly remember this 10 years ago or more. So we're back to the thread question, is this really common nowadays or is this a matter of someone still using programming from a decade ago and needs to update their programming to modern days?

I know my Chase card, when viewing online statements, uses a pop up window.
Same for viewing my BB&T statement online.
Same for viewing my TWC bill online.

Okay, so when you make your image, disable the pop-up for that domain. Problem solved. It goes onto every computer every time you reimage.

c627627 said:

So we're back to the thread question, is this really common nowadays or is this a matter of someone still using programming from a decade ago and needs to update their programming to modern days?

Click to expand...

It's still quite common, especially in third party applications that host the content that is being served to you. Again, it's not some average guy that's throwing together a blog on Wordpress or something that's making a decision to require popups. It's more than likely software that costs thousands of dollars, and the best user experience is determined to be reliant on popups.

I suspect that the reason they require you to disable popups before you login is so that less technically inclined parents don't get logged in and say "This website is broken, I can't find X or Y," when in reality X and Y are delivered via popups.

Very well. I understand that you are saying that this is actually common even today.

I suppose it's just hard to understand the need to deliver the initial login (and nothing else) using popups.
The act of simply logging in doesn't require popups on this forum to be disabled. If they were, how would you feel about it?
In other words, i think we're focusing on assumptions on what that site does.

But I'm trying to tell you, if you try to login to your bank today, or your credit card account page today, or any email or any forum today...

well how would you feel if any of them required you to make popup exceptions for merely trying to log in? The site in question lists simple text messages and things of that nature, no popups needed after the initial login. Only the initial login requires the popup to be disabled... So to make it clear, how would you react if the forums required the same? or Gmail or Yahoo email? It would seem so unnecessary.

What I think you're failing to realize is that the content you see when you log in isn't all the content that this web application has to offer. They aren't necessarily making you enable popups because the login page requires it, they do it so you don't get logged in and can't find some other content that's reliant on popups. Like I said before, it's most likely purchased software that is far more capable than you realize. Some of the features probably require popups (even if you don't have access to them), so forcing a user to enable them up front makes sense... and prevents a ton of people calling tech support because they can't find some feature later on that requires popups. This same software could very likely manage the school's attendance, lunch menu, duty schedule, calendar, and any number of other things behind the scenes, that requires popups.

The number one assumption in software development is to assume that the user is stupid. The easiest, most practical solution for the developer is to make users enable popups up front.

As an aside, OCF does require popups for the PM system to function as intended.

You are correct. "As intended" meaning as actual pop-ups instead of clicking on your Inbox.

I suppose I was just going off of what I would use the school web page for, namely, clicking on a page and reading it. But your explanation does make sense and thanks for posting.

c627627 said:

well how would you feel if any of them required you to make popup exceptions for merely trying to log in? The site in question lists simple text messages and things of that nature, no popups needed after the initial login. Only the initial login requires the popup to be disabled... So to make it clear, how would you react if the forums required the same? or Gmail or Yahoo email? It would seem so unnecessary.

Click to expand...

To be frank, I wouldn't give a ****. I'm pretty sure that the vast vast vast majority of people wouldn't either.

c627627 said:

Let me rephrase the question. If you were logging into the forums or Gmail or Yahoo mail or anything else in your life that you frequently log in and it depended on you disabling your browser popup to log in... and the site is created in 2015. How would you feel about that?

Click to expand...

Uhhh fine?

Alternately, run Chrome + Better Popup blocker, and simply allow the school's domain to display popups
All the other sites will not be allowed to show popups unless you add them to the allowed list.

Lots of grandparents I personally know couldn't disable the popup blocker if their lives depended on it.
They can log into their email though...

But we've established that this isn't unusual even in 2015 and there's that. I would find a way to code a web site like that so that people can log in and view Teacher plain text messages, I wouldn't throw those grandparents under the bus by making disabling popup blockers mandatory for a site like that.

c627627 said:

Lots of grandparents I personally know couldn't disable the popup blocker if their lives depended on it.

Click to expand...

That's why they have grandchildren.