[wp-hackers] Is WP back end supposed to work without JavaScript?

[Jennifer Hodgdon]

I'm working on a patch for a couple of tag-related bugs today. But 
before I started, I thought I would make sure I fully understood how 
the current edit screens worked. Specifically, the tag and category 
sections on the full Edit Post screen (as opposed to the Quick Edit 
screen).

Just to see what would happen, I turned of JavaScript in my browser. I 
was shocked:
   - You cannot see what tags are already on the post, if you edit an 
existing post.
   - If you type in a tag where it says "add a new tag", the "add" 
button does nothing, and if you then save the post, the tags you typed 
don't get added.
   - All of which means that there is no way, with JS disabled, to see 
or modify the tags on the post in any way, as far as I can tell.
   - Also, the "most recent" tab of the Categories section doesn't 
show when you click the tab, with JavaScript disabled. That's fairly 
minor, because you do have a list of all the categories available.
   - The Upload/Insert media section is totally gone without JavaScript.

So my question to the list is: Is the back end of WP supposed to work 
with JavaScript disabled? In other words, is this lack of 
functionality without JavaScript a bug, or was it done on purpose? I 
thought that standard web practice was to have things degrade nicely 
without JavaScript. I also thought that maybe some visually disabled 
users couldn't use JS-enabled browsers, but maybe that notion is 
hopelessly out of date? I also believe that in the past, the WP back 
end would work without JavaScript, but if you cannot do tags and 
media, I wouldn't say it works now. I'm not sure how long it's been 
like that...

Any insight appreciated.... It will affect what I do for this patch 
I'm working on, obviously.

Thanks,
     Jennifer

-- 
Jennifer Hodgdon * Poplar ProductivityWare
www.poplarware.com
Drupal, WordPress, and custom Web programming