[Javascript] Controlling Page Scroll Position

[paul at novitskisoftware.com (Paul Novitski)]

At 01:07 PM 6/29/2005, David Pratt wrote:
>On the last part.  The pages will be pretty much the same height and I 
>believe that looking at any more than 20 rows at a time is a bit much.

Ah hah!  So Hassan was right-on: the reason you were reaching for the 
auto-scroll function was that your page design put the primary content at 
the bottom.

You could simply place the instructions at the bottom of every page, with a 
local hyperlink placed at the top of the page.

Alternatively, put the instructions at the top of the page in a div whose 
default state is invisible (either display: none; or visibility: hidden; 
depending on page design).  When the user clicks on the Instructions or 
Help link, javascript makes the block visible.  That way the user can call 
up help instantly but not be bugged by it.

(This latter technique might have problems for blind users, as I'm told 
that some screen readers won't report a div that's been toggled from 
display: none; to display: block;.)

Paul