On my ASP.NET website with C# as the code behind, I've implemented tabbed content on one of the pages in two different ways. Now I'm trying to determine the best approach. One method involves using JavaScript to swap divs based on which tab is clicked, which works well despite some minor flickering issues. The other method utilizes the Ajax Control Toolkit and the Tabs control. While researching the benefits of Ajax, I also came across a few downsides associated with using tabs in conjunction with Ajax...
- Search engines cannot crawl data within tabs beyond the first one due to limited access to Ajax.
- Bookmarks cannot be created for individual tabs, causing users to lose saved information.
- Ajax may not be accessible to screen readers or older browsers lacking JavaScript support, rendering content in other tabs invisible.
- Long loading times could occur for content-heavy tabs on slower connections without any indication from Ajax, giving the appearance of a broken page.
Are these points accurate? I'm mostly unconcerned about search engine visibility since only site users can access the content.
Ultimately, what are the pros and cons of each implementation method? Ajax appears more streamlined, but how does it affect performance?