3 ms·

Why is there layout on the web at all? In almost every case, I care about the content, not the particular web site designer’s vision of the “experience”. I do

by efitz 8y ago

Why is there layout on the web at all? In almost every case, I care about the content, not the particular web site designer’s vision of the “experience”. I don’t want an experience, I want information. I would prefer the content be delivered to my browser with metadata describing what it is, e.g. “news article” or “comment” or “image of purchasable item”, and choose my own experience- that is best for me. Browsers seem like a silly vanity for me- 90% of the functionality is about allowing a remote party to control my experience. I’d rather control my own.

krapp 8y ago
> Why is there layout on the web at all? For the same reason text in a book is arranged in paragraphs, and why magazines separate articles into headers, body text, insets, etc, rather than having all printed media be simply unformatted text. Having navigational elements and content groups on a site (a "layout") with a predictable visual style allows users to more easily differentiate between the different parts of a site, their different functions, and to navigate those sections more easily. Typographic elements like headers, paragraphs, font styling (bold, underline, etc.) make text easier to read and communicate concepts like hierarchy and emphasis. Flow is a necessary consideration when incorporating non-textual elements such as images into a document alongside text. Modern sites must also consider how they will appear on multiple screen sizes down to mobile. >Browsers seem like a silly vanity for me- 90% of the functionality is about allowing a remote party to control my experience. I’d rather control my own. A remote party isn't controlling your experience, they're sending you documents in a markup language, and your browser is interpreting that markup. If you want to download and view raw HTML then you can wget the pages and open them in the text editor of your choice (I think RMS does something like that to avoid executing nonfree code), but you should realize that most people don't want to view raw metadata and have to write their own stylesheet and schema for each site, they just want to read the document.
- efitz 8y ago
  I want to decouple layout from content, and control layout myself locally. There is too much active content and too much commingling of style directives and content in most modern web sites. I want the markup to be higher level and focus on describing the content rather than specifying style.

by efitz 8y ago

krapp 8y ago

> Why is there layout on the web at all? For the same reason text in a book is arranged in paragraphs, and why magazines separate articles into headers, body text, insets, etc, rather than having all printed media be simply unformatted text. Having navigational elements and content groups on a site (a "layout") with a predictable visual style allows users to more easily differentiate between the different parts of a site, their different functions, and to navigate those sections more easily. Typographic elements like headers, paragraphs, font styling (bold, underline, etc.) make text easier to read and communicate concepts like hierarchy and emphasis. Flow is a necessary consideration when incorporating non-textual elements such as images into a document alongside text. Modern sites must also consider how they will appear on multiple screen sizes down to mobile. >Browsers seem like a silly vanity for me- 90% of the functionality is about allowing a remote party to control my experience. I’d rather control my own. A remote party isn't controlling your experience, they're sending you documents in a markup language, and your browser is interpreting that markup. If you want to download and view raw HTML then you can wget the pages and open them in the text editor of your choice (I think RMS does something like that to avoid executing nonfree code), but you should realize that most people don't want to view raw metadata and have to write their own stylesheet and schema for each site, they just want to read the document.

efitz 8y ago
I want to decouple layout from content, and control layout myself locally. There is too much active content and too much commingling of style directives and content in most modern web sites. I want the markup to be higher level and focus on describing the content rather than specifying style.