DavidIQ wrote:Pony99CA wrote:Keep the buttons, but "gray" them out. If the user still clicks one, pop up a JavaScript error instead of moving to a new page (unless JavaScript is disabled, of course). Also change the tooltip to say "Replies not allowed because the topic is locked".
If anything I'd go with the tooltip and not do the JS alert at all but I think I'd lean more towards not showing them at all.
Not seeing expected buttons can cause the user confusion. Showing them disabled lets the user know that the functions are available (in general), but not at this time in this topic. The reasoning is similar to why menu items in Windows get grayed out instead of removed.
Now if the user class doesn't allow the functions in general, then removing them is OK because the user would never be able to access them anyway (unless he was promoted to Moderator). However, that's not the case here.
Steve