5 ms·

There are two problems with adding widgets to browsers: 1: Once they are in, you have to support them forever. Or you will break the few websites that use them

There are two problems with adding widgets to browsers: 1: Once they are in, you have to support them forever. Or you will break the few websites that use them. 2: Almost nobody uses them. Try 10 popular websites and chances are you will not see a single native dropdown. You might not even see something as simple as a native radio button. I think it's better to get the basics right instead of building more and more 'userland' type of functionality into the browser itself.

perlgeek 8y ago
> 2) Almost nobody uses them. Try 10 popular websites and chances are you will not see a single native dropdown. I'd argue that's because the native widgets haven't changed much since I've started using computers around 1994 (probably longer), and simply aren't up to the modern standards anymore. If there was a native widget that worked better than any of the current javascript-enhanced widget and could be styled to fit the website around it, lots of people would use it. Maybe not the top 50 web pages in world, but lots of developers with lower budgets would.
- no_gravity 8y ago
  that's because the native widgets haven't changed much So why aren't they updated? If browser makers can't maintain something as simple as a radio button, they will probably not be able to maintain more complex widgets. Browser engines are already so complex that even a giant like Microsoft gave up on maintining one. And Firefox is spending over $200m in software development per year to keep up.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >If browser makers can't maintain something as simple as a radio button, they will probably not be able to maintain more complex widgets. Who said they "can't maintain it"? They just wont, which is different. Besides, it is up to HTMLWG/W3C to expand on those widgets, and they have done nothing... >Browser engines are already so complex that even a giant like Microsoft gave up on maintining one. Not because of them having radio buttons and form controls. Those we had since Mosaic... Even Lynx supports those. It's all the other craziness (from 3D, to MIDI, to sound APIs, to 2-3 layout engines, to crazy CSS features).
    - hug 8y ago
      It’s not even that they won’t, it’s that the radio button doesn’t do the thing you want it to. The radio button works, perfectly, as much as it ever did. There are no issues, regressions, or any such thing. It is perfectly maintained as the exact UI element it should be.
- memco 8y ago
  > If there was a native widget that worked better than any of the current javascript-enhanced widget and could be styled to fit the website around it, lots of people would use it. Maybe not the top 50 web pages in world, but lots of developers with lower budgets would. Awareness and training matter a lot here. There is now a usable <details> and <summary> element, but a number of people I know simply use bootstrap's data-toggle or a custom onclick handler because they don't actually know about the existence of these tags nor the gotchas you need to account for. Safari will have <datalist> support in the next major version, but I expect it will be a year or so before libraries begin to use it and developers won't use it until it is well documented and supported by libraries. The HTML spec introduced native attributes for a bunch of form states including valid/invalid state, required state, min/max values and more, but most libraries don't take advantage of them because they built the functionality before it had browser support and so developers don't use them either. We'll see these things gain adoption, but it will take time.
coldtea 8y ago
>1: Once they are in, you have to support them forever. Or you will break the few websites that use them. That's not a problem. We want them supported forever. And basic widgets/controls haven't changed in substance since Xerox park or Win 3.1 anyway, so it's not like we'll discover suddenly that a autocomplete widget is a thing of the past. >2: Almost nobody uses them. Try 10 popular websites and chances are you will not see a single native dropdown. You might not even see something as simple as a native radio button. That's because they have been neglected (unlike the rest of the stack), and don't support extensive styling in most browsers.

perlgeek 8y ago

> 2) Almost nobody uses them. Try 10 popular websites and chances are you will not see a single native dropdown. I'd argue that's because the native widgets haven't changed much since I've started using computers around 1994 (probably longer), and simply aren't up to the modern standards anymore. If there was a native widget that worked better than any of the current javascript-enhanced widget and could be styled to fit the website around it, lots of people would use it. Maybe not the top 50 web pages in world, but lots of developers with lower budgets would.

no_gravity 8y ago
that's because the native widgets haven't changed much So why aren't they updated? If browser makers can't maintain something as simple as a radio button, they will probably not be able to maintain more complex widgets. Browser engines are already so complex that even a giant like Microsoft gave up on maintining one. And Firefox is spending over $200m in software development per year to keep up.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >If browser makers can't maintain something as simple as a radio button, they will probably not be able to maintain more complex widgets. Who said they "can't maintain it"? They just wont, which is different. Besides, it is up to HTMLWG/W3C to expand on those widgets, and they have done nothing... >Browser engines are already so complex that even a giant like Microsoft gave up on maintining one. Not because of them having radio buttons and form controls. Those we had since Mosaic... Even Lynx supports those. It's all the other craziness (from 3D, to MIDI, to sound APIs, to 2-3 layout engines, to crazy CSS features).
  - hug 8y ago
    It’s not even that they won’t, it’s that the radio button doesn’t do the thing you want it to. The radio button works, perfectly, as much as it ever did. There are no issues, regressions, or any such thing. It is perfectly maintained as the exact UI element it should be.
memco 8y ago
> If there was a native widget that worked better than any of the current javascript-enhanced widget and could be styled to fit the website around it, lots of people would use it. Maybe not the top 50 web pages in world, but lots of developers with lower budgets would. Awareness and training matter a lot here. There is now a usable <details> and <summary> element, but a number of people I know simply use bootstrap's data-toggle or a custom onclick handler because they don't actually know about the existence of these tags nor the gotchas you need to account for. Safari will have <datalist> support in the next major version, but I expect it will be a year or so before libraries begin to use it and developers won't use it until it is well documented and supported by libraries. The HTML spec introduced native attributes for a bunch of form states including valid/invalid state, required state, min/max values and more, but most libraries don't take advantage of them because they built the functionality before it had browser support and so developers don't use them either. We'll see these things gain adoption, but it will take time.

coldtea 8y ago

>1: Once they are in, you have to support them forever. Or you will break the few websites that use them. That's not a problem. We want them supported forever. And basic widgets/controls haven't changed in substance since Xerox park or Win 3.1 anyway, so it's not like we'll discover suddenly that a autocomplete widget is a thing of the past. >2: Almost nobody uses them. Try 10 popular websites and chances are you will not see a single native dropdown. You might not even see something as simple as a native radio button. That's because they have been neglected (unlike the rest of the stack), and don't support extensive styling in most browsers.