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ReactOS was selected for Google Summer of Code 2016
- hazelnut 11y agoSorry, but the scrolling of the page is just confusing. Even if it was done with a good and helpful intend. For a lot of people it's pure pain if you take control of the scrolling.
- currysausage 11y agoI hate to bikeshed, but the amount of wasted vertical screen space [1] makes me almost a little angry. Web designers: if you think it's a good idea to reimplement basic browser functionality (scrolling), or to emulate the UX of HTML frames, please think again. [1] http://i.imgur.com/IUEqFj7.jpg http://i.imgur.com/IUEqFj7.jpg
- ank_the_elder 11y agoSo many mobile sites implement this same unpleasant UI control where the header follows your scrolling and stubbornly takes a portion of the screen without adding any useful functionality, that I wonder if people know it's possible to scroll to the top of any page and see the header there...
- visarga 11y ago<rant>I also object to menus that hide when scrolling up and show when scrolling down. I usually place the row I am reading at the top of the window to make it easier to follow visually. When I need to scroll back a little, the pesky menu comes out instead of the text. I think scroll up should be the exact inverse of scroll down, not a menu display trigger. Or, at least, offer us a few lines back scroll before showing the damn menu.
- happyslobro 11y agoI tried to explain the retardedness of this to management, before it was implemented. They were like "but people share more when the widgets are always visible, we A/B tested this!" It's like talking to a rock sometimes.
- jacobush 11y agoWho is the rock?
- chris_wot 11y agoThe more responsive and thoughtful of the two, it appears.
- userbinator 11y agoThat's like saying "but people click the ads more when they're obscuring most of the page or right next to the download button." They certainly do. Whether they intended to, however, is a different matter.
- arm 11y agoIt looks absolutely fantastic with JavaScript disabled though (which is how I browse the Web most of the time): http://f.cl.ly/items/0Y3e3k3A17293r0s2y3d/Screen%20Shot%202016-03-01%20at%2012.58.10%20AM.png http://f.cl.ly/items/0Y3e3k3A17293r0s2y3d/Screen%20Shot%2020...
- apatters 11y agoI would much rather see an implementation of the Web where by default websites need to ask for your permission to load and execute scripts. This would prompt the creation of a widely accessible "reach web" which would never break screen readers or URLs, wouldn't invade your privacy, and could be accessed with a text-only browser. Then there would also be the "rich web" - parts of sites which behave like an app and consequently need user approval to run, rather like you need to "approve" an actual app by downloading it. Many challenges to consider but I think this would solve a lot of problems.
- arm 11y agoCompletely agree with you. Actually, I was oversimplifying when I said I have JavaScript disabled. I’m actually using JS Blocker¹, which gives me your first sentence². Of course, the end user using a browser extension to gain that functionality instead of it simply being a part of the Web does nothing to actually encourage the creation of a “reach web”. ―――――― ¹ — http://jsblocker.toggleable.com/ http://jsblocker.toggleable.com/ ² — http://f.cl.ly/items/0q1m280M40290t222n0U/js_blocker.png http://f.cl.ly/items/0q1m280M40290t222n0U/js_blocker.png
- marrs 11y agoWow, 2 other people in the universe who actually care about this stuff. I thought I was the only one!
- edwinyzh 11y agoAgreed, the Gmail web UI is another example, and I've never been able to understand this...
- SonicSoul 11y agohijacked left swipe to navigate back was a bigger pain for me
- mintplant 11y agoGoogle's Blogger does the same sort of thing, and it really annoys me. Swerve left or right as you're scrolling through the page and it "helpfully" takes you to a different article.
- trymas 11y agoweb design 101: do not override default use of mouse and keyboard. That's just pure rage. Why developer of that website even bothered with implementing (or using some library) to hijack mouse actions.
- rybosome 11y agoAgreed. I tend to scroll in small increments (maybe every other line of text) in an attempt to keep the content I am looking in the same position relative to my eye. This site's scrolling kept behaving in a way that was inconsistent with my expectations, and forced me to actively pay attention to what should have been an intuitive interaction. Irritating and distracting.
- speeder 11y agoMy mouse is currently with the scrollwheel having some issues. On this site the result was a total disaster: any attempt of scrolling made the site jump around randomly, and immediately stop right back at the start again, making scrolling with the mouse impossible.
- userbinator 11y agoEvery time I see comments on how a site tries to override the browser functionality, I'm once again reminded of why I don't have JavaScript on by default. I don't notice these things at all as a result, and this site is as pleasant to read as any other.
- visarga 11y agoYes, the design is awful. I feel like it's 1995 all over again.
- jensen123 11y agoI seem to remember blinking text, animated GIFs, slow-loading Flash and Java applets back in 1995, although I'm not sure if things were ever as bad as it is now. Then I guess around 2005 web design was generally quite good. And lately it has become pretty awful because many people obviously aren't able to restrain themselves with Javascript.
- andreapaiola 11y agovoilà http://andreapaiola.name/magpie/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.reactos.ru%2Fproject-news%2Freactos-participation-google-summer-code-2016&action=&links=on http://andreapaiola.name/magpie/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.reacto...
- StevePerkins 11y agoIf you want to talk about bad scrolling experiences, then I give you Hacker News. Half the time when there's a submission about some deeply technical topic... before seeing any discussion of the actual topic, you have to scroll through 3 or 4 pages of debate about the ergonomics of the font kerning on the blog post or something. This is a group of C/C++ hackers who have spent the past 18 years re-implementing Windows 95. The fact that there's any CSS at all on their website is a minor miracle. I don't know how strongly I feel about non-responsive websites displaying a fixed header bar. However, I'm pretty sure that most people who do feel strongly about it either way aren't going to be using or hacking on ReactOS.
- orbitur 11y agoCollapsible threads should be a part of the site by now. I have a Chrome extension installed that adds this feature but it's kinda wonky sometimes.
- jrcii 11y agoI have this reliable bookmarklet which makes comments collapsible, however it stopped working once I got a downvote arrow: http://pastebin.com/raw/iMkHgmNZ http://pastebin.com/raw/iMkHgmNZ
- rawe 11y agosmoothScroll for jQuery; seems to be fixed now. https://jira.reactos.org/browse/ONLINE-525 https://jira.reactos.org/browse/ONLINE-525
- jeditobe 11y agoPlease recheck! No more smooth scrolling!!! https://www.reactos.org/ https://www.reactos.org/
- djsumdog 11y agoReactOS has been going at this problem for a loooong time. It's a pretty amazing initiative, and the fact that it's taken so long goes to show how insane a kludge Windows is under the surface. I wonder if the reason we haven't seen more work on ReactOS compared to Linux development is the commercial backing that Linux development receives from the big guys (Red Hat, IBM, et. al.) I wonder if people are wearisome of funding ReactOS beacuse of Microsoft.
- ericflo 11y agoWhy does the fact that it's taken so long show how insane a kludge Windows is, rather than indicating that there is simply a lot of work to recreate?
- thanksgiving 11y agoWhile I'd love to throw poop at Microsoft, I think this is correct. If someone had to create an operating system that accepted GNU/Linux binaries without the benefit of looking at internal communication or the source code, I bet it would take many years as well.
- AstralStorm 11y agoAccepting binaries is relatively easy, you can often stub features and have the thing mostly work. See Wine project. Accepting drivers is super hard and this is the main part of ReactOS - the kernel.
- pizza234 11y agoBased on what I see from the development blogs, I see that most of the effort is just fighting against the huge complexity of building an O/S, more than the quirks/bugs of Windows itself. You can see very often the pattern of "X was implemented using the library from Y, which works but not well" or "Y was implemented and working for Z case, but it's effectively broken" and so on. I've seen comparatively little complaints of the kind "bl00dy Windows performs this functionality in an awkard and messy way". I don't really have much faith in ReactOS, although I would really love to see it mature. Following its evolution with the time, I can see clearly that it's a type of product which is doomed to be "90% functional" for its entire life (unless somebody will throw a massive amount of money at it). While you could consider Wine to have the same fate, there is a distinction in the fact that Wine is more directed to a per-case basis, which makes the "90% functionality" state acceptable.
- jensvdh 11y agoJesus. What kind of "smoothscroll" is applied to that site? It's super annoying.
- eggy 11y agoIn a recursive fashion, I had to scroll past all of the comments against hijacked scrolling to get to the first comment about the subject matter. This is not the first time on HN I have had to do this. Maybe a single comment, without all of the piled on comments would lessen this distraction? My intent is serious, and I hope not taken the wrong way, but the irony is there.
- tbolt 11y agoFor the love of god, leave scrolling alone.
- mikejmoffitt 11y agoSeconding this. Websites shouldn't push a preference like that on users.
- simonebrunozzi 11y agoFrom their webpage: "Nearly ten years ago the ReactOS Project released version 0.3.0. Today we are proud to announce the formal release of version 0.4.0. ". This is the problem. Going from 0.3 to 0.4 in TEN years means that you cannot be commercially successful. As much as I admire ReactOS' contributors and their efforts, I have little faith in their ability to make a dent in the market.
- outworlder 11y agoMaybe I've missed the sarcasm? GSOC is for FOSS projects only.
- viraptor 11y agoLinux went from 2.6.0 to 2.6.39 in 8 years. That's not even 0.1 change! It can't be commercially successful... </sarcasm> Version numbers don't mean anything out of context. Is there any specific issue you wanted to point out that took them too long to implement?
- chrisweekly 11y agoRe: version numbers and context: Hear, hear! High time to decouple marketing releases from software api versioning. Eric Elliott says it better: ): Major.minor.patch (: Breaking.feature.fix https://medium.com/javascript-scene/software-versions-are-broken-3d2dc0da0783#.7ujofs3b4 https://medium.com/javascript-scene/software-versions-are-br...
- viraptor 11y agoThis doesn't apply to Reactos though. The api is "whatever windows is doing". Unless they remove something supported by windows N-1 and instead implement replacement interface from windows N, there's not going to be a "breaking" release. But as far as I know the API target is not going to change for a while - it's 2003 kernel / 8.1 user.
- simonebrunozzi 11y agoI really don't understand why the downvotes. Can someone explain?
- freeqaz 11y agoThe Project Proposal page has a list of potential items for people to work on. Pretty interesting! https://www.reactos.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code_2016_Ideas https://www.reactos.org/wiki/Google_Summer_of_Code_2016_Idea...
- riscy 11y agoGiven Microsoft's recent moves towards a freemium desktop operating system, with its numerous privacy concerns and baked in advertising, it's great to see an actively developed alternative for those who make use of software originally developed for Windows. Lock-in is a terrible thing.
- cmdrfred 11y agoI also like to think that some of the ideas implemented in this project might make it's way into things like Wine as a major side benefit. I agree this is a very important project.
- Piskvorrr 11y agoThey do. ReactOS contributes to WINE a lot.
- melling 11y agoConsidering that people have been complaining about Windows lock-in for 2 decades, I can't really see the point. Chasing Windows compatibility is not the answer. Getting software to run on other platforms and reducing Windows dominance is more important. Make it easy for people to switch platforms so companies need to listen to consumers.
- riscy 11y ago> Chasing Windows compatibility is not the answer. [...] reducing Windows dominance is more important. Make it easy for people to switch platforms so companies need to listen to consumers. Agreed, but not everybody's seen the light, aka POSIX. I also view ReactOS as a way to subvert Microsoft's control over users and developers who enjoy aspects of Windows-like operating systems, such as the UI or the APIs.
- rcoder 11y agoI think it could be a really interesting model for folks who need to run legacy Windows software in the future, as well. Instead of keeping a few XP machines around (lack of security patches and all) why not just spin up a lightweight ReactOS VM for just that one application? Think of all the weird desktop apps, custom databases, etc. that small businesses, schools, and other non-technical orgs have baked into their workflow. Yes, eventually we'll have wonderful legacy-free versions of all of these available on the web but in the meantime wouldn't it be nice to give them some outlet to use them w/o paying an MS tax or dealing with the infinite upgrade treadmill?
- jadavis 11y agoRead this headline and thought, "First React Native, and now ReactOS. What'll they think of next?"
- eggy 11y agoYes, I also have to do a 'double-take' on these names. I know it's not the point of your comment, but ReactOS started first for those who don't know already.
- orionblastar 11y agoReactOS is a cool idea. Use WINE to create a Windows compatible FOSS Operating System. They aim for XP/2003 compatibility so it doesn't run a lot of newer stuff. But it is good for legacy Windows apps. With the 0.4.0 release they added more driver support, Wifi support, Audio support, etc. They need more people to work on it, and I hope that Google funds them some money as well to pay people. So far it is in the alpha stage and needs to go to beta stage soon. It only has a 48M overhead and loads faster than the real Windows. It has EXT file system support as well as FAT support but NTFS is read only. Someone can make a ReactOS bundle with PHP, MySQL, Apache2 so it can be used as a web server. If someone ports CLRNET or the Dotnet open source programs over to it, it can run ASP.Net stuff as well.
- ossreality 11y agoYeah, I can run new dotnet projects on Linux now. Good luck with ReactOS.
- pizza234 11y agoYou're severely underestimating the massive amount of resources needed to accomplish such target, especially when compared to what the target it. There isn't much point in throwing a massive amount of resources for building an AMP hosting environment. If somebody needs to start an AMP server from scratch and he really needs to save money, there is LAMP. The only realistic use case of ReactOS is large-scale deployments of machines which need Windows (driver) compatibility, in which case ReactOS would save large amounts of money.
- _yosefk 11y agoWhy doesn't Google make a free, compatible Windows clone, for the same reasons Microsoft as well as Google made free, compatible browser clones? I honestly don't understand it.
- runeb 11y agoGoogle Docs, Sheets and Slides. They're just picking the parts of the Windows ecosystem that many people use.
- dr_zoidberg 11y agoHardly a replacement for Office. They're good to collaborate and work with people over long distances, but when documents grow to not so big sizes, problems begin. I even have problems to load 30 page documents. Word 2016 flies on Windows 8 and 10, and it takes 60-100 MiB of RAM. Also, there are countless document templates (which plague different work fields) that are utterly incompatible with Google Docs and break all over.
- pjc50 11y agoBecause that's an enourmous amount of work and likely to attract hostile legal action? They didn't even create their own operating system for their phones.
- _yosefk 11y agoWhy then does MS work on Bing? Bing is more likely to infringe on Google's patents than a Windows clone is likely to infringe on MS's patents, not? And Bing is certainly lots of work.
- pjc50 11y agoThere isn't an API issue there though, and it's not required to work in the same way so it's hard to say that it's more likely to infringe patents.
- jahewson 11y ago
- trymas 11y agonote: it's just a complete nitpick, but I just have a question In the front page of ReactOS[0]: > 9,000,000+ lines of code > And growing! Is the huge and growing codebase a pro or a con? [0] http://www.reactos.ru/ http://www.reactos.ru/
- lugus35 11y agoThe problem with ReactOS is its lack of automatic or semi-automatic OS update. There is plan to do it, but from what I understand, it's still not available: https://www.reactos.org/wiki/ReactOS_Update https://www.reactos.org/wiki/ReactOS_Update Security is another major problem with this OS. They are proud to have produce 9M LoC, but they don't advertise how they assure this code is not full of vulnerabilities. Do they audit the code ? Do they use static analysis tools ? Do they have specifics security practices and processes ? I don't see any security advisory on their page. I only see a wishlist on their wiki https://www.reactos.org/wiki/Security https://www.reactos.org/wiki/Security
- zymhan 11y ago> The problem with ReactOS is its lack of automatic or semi-automatic OS update. Among many other reasons why you shouldn't use it as your main OS. But not even the React Devs would suggest that you do, so I'm not sure what your point is. It's clearly still in the development stage and is almost certainly just going to be run in a VM for the time being anyway.
- jeditobe 11y agoIt is alpha version. Too early for autoupdate.