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Giving up on a blog that can't display the article in full without JavaScript. Progressive enhancement folks! (Web apps get a pass, but if your site only needs

by sjs 16y ago

Giving up on a blog that can't display the article in full without JavaScript. Progressive enhancement folks! (Web apps get a pass, but if your site only needs to display text it should not require JS.)

thaumaturgy 16y ago
Thanks for the heads-up. Actually it is designed to gracefully fall back without JavaScript, but there appears to be a display bug I wasn't aware of. I'll fix it soon but right now I have a server down. (BTW, do you have any idea how much extra time you noscript guys add to web development efforts? Ugg.) edit: fixed.
- pyre 16y ago
  > (BTW, do you have any idea how much extra time you > noscript guys add to web development efforts? Ugg.) I can't quite form words around the feeling, but this feels like a very backwards statement to me.
  - thaumaturgy 16y ago
    It's relatively easy these days to make sites that use JS in a smart way to dynamically load content. In the case of this personal site, if JS is on, then all the links do is request a "stripped-down" version of only the content of each post, and then swap that into the main content area. There are no http requests then for the images, background, css, and so on, which is nice for the server. That's all well and good, but then I have to go back and make that also all work for noscript users. So, for example, I can't just have a list of items on the left, and then on page load, have JavaScript just "click" the top item in the list. Instead, I have to put in extra effort to get the backend to handle the default home page, and so on. On this site, that wasn't really that hard. On more complex sites, it can be very hard. ...and I'm one of the "silly" web developers, that actually tries to work with the .5% or so of people that have JS turned off. With jQuery and everything else out there, most web developers don't seem to bother.
    - jasonkester 16y ago
      I think that's the "backwards" he was talking about. You're building your links to call javascript, then scrambling later to find ways to make them work without. The accepted way of doing this is to build your links to point to URLs, then use script to override them with whatever dynamic wackiness you think is helpful. You get all sorts of bonuses by doing it that way (such as ctrl-click, save target as, etc.) without any of the downside you go on about. And it's not any harder to implement.
      - thaumaturgy 16y ago
        > You're building your links to call javascript, then scrambling later to find ways to make them work without. Not exactly. I'm building JavaScript to call links, and then making sure that everything works sans JS. I dunno why I'm catching flak for this. The display bug had nothing to do with JavaScript; it was primarily a CSS issue. The JS in that page only coincidentally fixed the CSS issue, which is exactly the kinds of backwards testing I was talking about (and obviously didn't do the last time I updated it). See, in order for the layout to work with a minimum number of images, there's a CSS trick in some overlapping layers. The JS in the page coincidentally extends one of those layers when it inserts the fairly unobtrusive text control links that allow you to scale the page text as large or as small as is comfortable to read on your display (something the noscript folks don't even realize isn't there). Without that element, the content layer wasn't being resized correctly. I'm on your guys' side here. I know all the "accepted ways"; I have to explain them to my clients when I justify the costs they're charged, and the benefits. Sometimes they want to know how many people this will actually affect, and I have to tell them, "maybe a few", and then try to justify doing it anyway. And, it is harder to implement. I can build a site that will look exactly right no matter what size display you're reading it on; fonts and images will all scale, and the site will look right at 800x600 or 1600x1200, without lots of scrolling or empty space. The catch is, to do that, I need JS to work, and spending time trying to figure out the least ugly way to display the site sans JS is not "not any harder". Feel free to browse my page source, it's fairly easy to read, if unconventional in places.
        16y ago
- sjs 16y ago
  Thanks for catering to us noscript types. I appreciate you taking the time to make it work. edit: JavaScript the Evil Parts[1] is what made me start using NoScript and NotScripts. The web is safer and less annoying w/ NoScript and FlashBlock. [1] http://blip.tv/file/3684946 http://blip.tv/file/3684946

by sjs 16y ago

thaumaturgy 16y ago

Thanks for the heads-up. Actually it is designed to gracefully fall back without JavaScript, but there appears to be a display bug I wasn't aware of. I'll fix it soon but right now I have a server down. (BTW, do you have any idea how much extra time you noscript guys add to web development efforts? Ugg.) edit: fixed.

pyre 16y ago
> (BTW, do you have any idea how much extra time you > noscript guys add to web development efforts? Ugg.) I can't quite form words around the feeling, but this feels like a very backwards statement to me.
- thaumaturgy 16y ago
  It's relatively easy these days to make sites that use JS in a smart way to dynamically load content. In the case of this personal site, if JS is on, then all the links do is request a "stripped-down" version of only the content of each post, and then swap that into the main content area. There are no http requests then for the images, background, css, and so on, which is nice for the server. That's all well and good, but then I have to go back and make that also all work for noscript users. So, for example, I can't just have a list of items on the left, and then on page load, have JavaScript just "click" the top item in the list. Instead, I have to put in extra effort to get the backend to handle the default home page, and so on. On this site, that wasn't really that hard. On more complex sites, it can be very hard. ...and I'm one of the "silly" web developers, that actually tries to work with the .5% or so of people that have JS turned off. With jQuery and everything else out there, most web developers don't seem to bother.
  - jasonkester 16y ago
    I think that's the "backwards" he was talking about. You're building your links to call javascript, then scrambling later to find ways to make them work without. The accepted way of doing this is to build your links to point to URLs, then use script to override them with whatever dynamic wackiness you think is helpful. You get all sorts of bonuses by doing it that way (such as ctrl-click, save target as, etc.) without any of the downside you go on about. And it's not any harder to implement.
    - thaumaturgy 16y ago
      > You're building your links to call javascript, then scrambling later to find ways to make them work without. Not exactly. I'm building JavaScript to call links, and then making sure that everything works sans JS. I dunno why I'm catching flak for this. The display bug had nothing to do with JavaScript; it was primarily a CSS issue. The JS in that page only coincidentally fixed the CSS issue, which is exactly the kinds of backwards testing I was talking about (and obviously didn't do the last time I updated it). See, in order for the layout to work with a minimum number of images, there's a CSS trick in some overlapping layers. The JS in the page coincidentally extends one of those layers when it inserts the fairly unobtrusive text control links that allow you to scale the page text as large or as small as is comfortable to read on your display (something the noscript folks don't even realize isn't there). Without that element, the content layer wasn't being resized correctly. I'm on your guys' side here. I know all the "accepted ways"; I have to explain them to my clients when I justify the costs they're charged, and the benefits. Sometimes they want to know how many people this will actually affect, and I have to tell them, "maybe a few", and then try to justify doing it anyway. And, it is harder to implement. I can build a site that will look exactly right no matter what size display you're reading it on; fonts and images will all scale, and the site will look right at 800x600 or 1600x1200, without lots of scrolling or empty space. The catch is, to do that, I need JS to work, and spending time trying to figure out the least ugly way to display the site sans JS is not "not any harder". Feel free to browse my page source, it's fairly easy to read, if unconventional in places.
      - 16y ago
sjs 16y ago
Thanks for catering to us noscript types. I appreciate you taking the time to make it work. edit: JavaScript the Evil Parts[1] is what made me start using NoScript and NotScripts. The web is safer and less annoying w/ NoScript and FlashBlock. [1] http://blip.tv/file/3684946 http://blip.tv/file/3684946