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A petition to stop the usage of lightboxes
- jefe78 16y agoI have to admit, lightboxes have been very prevalent lately and I'm getting sick of them. Signed.
- tgriesser 16y agohere's a link: http://viewtext.org/article?url=http://rohanprabhu.com/?p=161 http://viewtext.org/article?url=http://rohanprabhu.com/?p=16... ...looks like the site is struggling to serve requests right now
- mkenyon 16y agoOr use the Coral CDN by appending nyud.net to the host: http://rohanprabhu.com.nyud.net/?p=161 http://rohanprabhu.com.nyud.net/?p=161 It preserves images better than ViewText does.
- ronnier 16y agoI only cache the HTML, not images. I just don't have enough money for hosting :-p
- deno 16y agoAll I get are 408 Time-outs now. As I've mentioned before[1] CoralCDN isn't very good at preserving content that is already down. If OP knew his hosting wasn't very well suited for handling load spikes HN users can generate, he should have posted the original link behind the cdn. At this point the only thing OP could do is to create a rule to redirect to .nyud.net link if the referrer equals HN. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2235559 http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2235559
- dspillett 16y agoAt this point the only thing OP could do is to create a rule to redirect to .nyud.net link if the referrer equals HN. At this point there might be nothing the OP can do except wait until the initial hump of traffic has died down: ifthe server really is completely bogged down he may not even be able to open SSH session to make any config changes. For an article like this, that does not need any dynamic content, would be better served by an event based server as these tend to cope better on low-end boxes in the presence high demand for static content than thread or process based servers. Or, like you say, stick with the current web server setup and post links to high volume sites via a cache like CoralCDN.
- deno 16y ago> At this point there might be nothing the OP can do except wait until the initial hump of traffic has died down: ifthe server really is completely bogged down he may not even be able to open SSH session to make any config changes. I actually did some testing at that moment, before I edited the part you have quoted (I added this later), and I'm confident OP could have probably rescued it if he wanted to. But I agree, it's pretty much game over because you can't edit the link after you've submitted it. So if you're not prepared to handle dense traffic, it's a good idea to submit coralled link instead or put your website behind CloudFront temporarily.
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- mryall 16y agoSounds like a petition for the appropriate usage of lightboxes. That's something I definitely agree with. It's similar to the old problems with modal dialogs in desktop applications. Basically: don't use a modal dialog unless your situation absolutely requires it.
- deno 16y agoWhat would be the appropriate usage of lightboxes? I really can't think of any besides the Facebook's "Before you submit."
- mryall 16y agoOn the web, they seem to work pretty well for image galleries. Although I think it's important that you can dismiss the lightbox by simply clicking anywhere outside the image. In general, modal dialogs are suitable for operations where it helps to have contextual information in the background, but you don't need to interact with it. A 'Save' dialog is a common example. This thread on UX exchange has some more thoughts and examples: http://uxexchange.com/questions/1153/when-should-you-use-a-modal-dialog-box http://uxexchange.com/questions/1153/when-should-you-use-a-m...
- code_duck 16y agoSounds like he wishes to stop the abuse of lightboxes. Lightboxes are great for showing zoomed images or image galleries. They're not welcome for spammy widgets, signup offers or ads. But then, what format do you prefer for spammy widgets or ads? None obviously, so lightboxes are not the problem.
- jacobolus 16y agoPersonally I think they suck for showing zoomed images and image galleries, because they break my expectations about what should happen when I click a link. Even worse, their javascript is often written in a way which clobbers "⌘-click to open in new tab".
- deno 16y agoIs there any advantage of using a lightbox vs a proper pop-up to present zoomed image or gallery? I, for one, much prefer the latter. You can continue with reading the article, you can use all the window management you already know and you don't have to suffer the horrible effects that author of the lightbox library though you can't live without. Not to mention that on netbooks, because lightboxes are always contained within the size of your browser viewport, the "zoomed" content is often smaller than miniature on the site.
- code_duck 16y agoA lot of people don't like popup windows, due to the their abuse years back. That also led to browsers and security software blocking them a lot of the time.
- ronnier 16y agoMy main problem with lightbox is when viewed on mobile devices and pages that don't allow you to zoom.
- jodrellblank 16y agoI really don't get why mobile Safari can be set to not allow zooming on a web page. Who benefits from that option existing?
- furbearntrout 16y agoHappens in Android browser, too. Whose bright idea was it that I didn't need to be able to read my phone without holding to my face, or stretch the screen so I can hit that tiny checkbox?
- holri 16y agoWhat's the alternative for displaying images?
- mkramlich 16y agoimg tag, optionally wrapped by an anchor tag pointing at a larger version. simple and working just fine since the early 90's i think. "if ain't broke, don't fix it!"
- pkamb 16y agoMy biggest gripe with web browsers today is middle-click hijack. If I left-click on a link/picture, fine, you can do whatever you want. Fancy javascript, lightboxes, the whole jazz. But if I middle-click that same link, by god it better be opening in a new tab in the background. No exceptions.
- bradleyland 16y agoI prefer lightbox implementations that extend a standard hyperlink to the enlarged image. If you middle-click, ctrl-click, etc, your browser grabs the URL from href and opens it in a new tab/window. The script is initiated by an event attached using a framework like jQuery, which uses a DOM query to locate links with a specific class. This has the additional upside of working as expected for users with JavaScript disabled. The implementations that fail miserably either use 'javascript:methodCall()' inside href, or have a kludgy onclick implementation. Built properly, a lightbox shouldn't get in the way of your desired behavior.
- pkamb 16y agoChromium bug for "Middle Click with named Target opening in foreground" http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=62319 http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=62319
- tastybites 16y agoThe worst part about lightboxes is that when you click the back button like you've been doing for the past 15 years, you get really pissed off.
- robin_reala 16y agoHTML history pushState should fix that.
- lukeschlather 16y agoA big offender on this is actually Reddit. The lightbox that pops up prompting you to log in when you try to vote is broken for smaller screen sizes. Though personally I keep Reddit zoomed significantly, and that makes it even more broken.
- pc-pro-schools 16y agoSigned.