5 ms·

A dystopia. You can't control-F in the page. Can't copy and paste a word you don't know into a translator or dictionary. Can't share text unofficially - like

by ape4 5y ago

A dystopia. You can't control-F in the page. Can't copy and paste a word you don't know into a translator or dictionary. Can't share text unofficially - like copy a sentence into a email, etc.

DrJokepu 5y ago
Also, you know, accessibility. This could be a real serious problem for people with disabilities.
- bryanrasmussen 5y ago
  I'm hoping for a revamped EU accessibility act https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1202 https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1202 that also covers document and office applications, and with GDPR sized fines.
  - Silhouette 5y ago
    We have to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater here, though. Obviously accessibility is an important issue for both commercial and ethical reasons, but if you're talking about writing laws and severe penalties for breaking them then you will always have to choose what minimum standards you will always require and then accept that it might be unreasonable for a software developer to go further. For example, suppose the entire purpose of a certain office application is to draw some clever visualisation that helps the office workers to understand complex relationships in their business data. Maybe that presentation style has been chosen based on years of experience and saves a lot of time and avoids a lot of mistakes compared to a simple text report or table of figures. However, maybe it also doesn't work for someone whose vision is too limited to usefully see or interact with the visualisation. Perhaps you could present the same data and relationships in a different way, a format that would be more amenable to sound- or touch-based interfaces for those with severely limited or no vision. In reality, that might mean writing a second entirely separate application, one that might cost more than the original to implement and support, for an audience that will usually be very small and often empty. So where should the line be drawn? In an ideal world we want to be as inclusive as possible regardless of anyone's individual limitations, but we also want to provide the most effective presentation possible to those who don't have the same limitations. In general doing both might be prohibitively expensive, so how do you make realistic, ethical decisions in this space, and given that every software application is different, how do you codify the standards you want to make mandatory for the accessibility reasons?
  - anticensor 5y ago
    The website says: Cannot read property 'match' of undefined TypeError: Cannot read property 'match' of undefined at /var/app/current/routes/avs.js:44:29 at Layer.handle [as handle_request] (/var/app/current/node_modules/express/lib/router/layer.js:95:5) at next (/var/app/current/node_modules/express/lib/router/route.js:137:13) at Route.dispatch (/var/app/current/node_modules/express/lib/router/route.js:112:3) at Layer.handle [as handle_request] (/var/app/current/node_modules/express/lib/router/layer.js:95:5) at /var/app/current/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:281:22 at param (/var/app/current/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:354:14) at param (/var/app/current/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:365:14) at param (/var/app/current/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:365:14) at Function.process_params (/var/app/current/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:410:3)
- mumblemumble 5y ago
  This is 100% the reason why I decided not to use Flutter back when I was shopping. It probably would have reduced my developer effort considerably compared to basically every other option that made it to my short list, but I can't in good conscience build something that isn't accessible.
  - brabel 5y ago
    Flutter claims to be fully accessible: https://flutter.dev/docs/development/accessibility-and-localization/accessibility https://flutter.dev/docs/development/accessibility-and-local... Did you actually try it?
    - mumblemumble 5y ago
      No, I just looked at the documentation and saw that it isn't supported on all the platforms I'd be targeting. For example, that page you link is specific to iOS and Android targets. Nary a mention of what to do when you're targeting the Web. But it's also, at least as of when I did my comparison, explicitly not supported on at least some desktop targets.
    - blackbrokkoli 5y ago
      Thank you for saying "claims to". Copy pasting a response I made elsewhere: This is making a mockery of accessibility. It's the equivalent of having a company that actively discriminates against everyone not passing a internally developed test to check whether you are a "neurotypical" and then respond to criticism by pointing at the wheelchair ramp you installed on one of your entrances. If I can't copy paste words from your websites to put them into a translator, if I can only use your website when I use one of the two corporate-affiliate-selected screen readers (not even platform-agnostic ones), when I can't look at your website from anything that does not have 4+ cores and a 4G or better connection...saying accessiblity is a "first class citizen" or even citizen at all is laughable at best.
      - brabel 5y ago
        I said "claims to" because I don't know how I can verify if it is. The other person responding to me correctly mention how they suggest tools to scan for accessibility issues on iOS and Android, but they don't say how to do that on the web... have you managed to somehow figure out what is not currently working, exactly? Regarding performance: Chrome uses Skia to render the DOM, why do you think rendering Flutter, also based on Skia, should be so much worse?
- calderwoodra 5y ago
  Accessibility is a first class citizen in flutter. https://flutter.dev/docs/development/accessibility-and-localization/accessibility https://flutter.dev/docs/development/accessibility-and-local...
  - zffr 5y ago
    I wish that page mentioned how accessibility works for Flutter websites. Seems to only mention Android and iOS.
  - blackbrokkoli 5y ago
    This is making a mockery of accessibility. It's the equivalent of having a company that actively discriminates against everyone not passing a internally developed test to check whether you are a "neurotypical" and then respond to criticism by pointing at the wheelchair ramp you installed on one of your entrances. If I can't copy paste words from your websites to put them into a translator, if I can only use your website when I use one of the two corporate-affiliate-selected screen readers (not even platform-agnostic ones), when I can't look at your website from anything that does not have 4+ cores and a 4G or better connection...saying accessiblity is a "first class citizen" or even citizen at all is laughable at best.
    - threatofrain 5y ago
      You're talking about very different issues of accessibility, one of which is the financial accessibility of client technology and reliable web connection. That is attacked through very different means. For example, FB being free and ad funded addresses that issue; but this is a business model and not a technological standard. Society subsidizing technology is another possibility. But these very serious issues of access and the solutions to negotiate with them are very different from purely technical solutions to access.
      - wizzwizz4 5y ago
        HyperText Markup Language is accessible, doesn't require a powerful computer, and can be copy-pasted into a translator. If your website is unreadable in view-source:, it's probably inaccessible in some way. It's not hard to make an accessible website. If it's hard to make that accessible website look the way you want? Tough luck; hire a competent web designer, or scale back your artistic vision, because you sure ain't sacrificing the ability for people to actually use your website for some pretty colours, are you now?
- bluetwo 5y ago
  Due to Section 508, this sounds like it would make Google Docs unsuitable for government work.
fulafel 5y ago
The copy and paste problem is sidestepped in android by the os native ocr, it might become common elsewhere too.
- fmakunbound 5y ago
  I can’t tell if you’re being facetious. Text is rendered to a canvas frame buffer and then the solution to text selection involves OCR?
  - davidgay 5y ago
    Amusingly, the Amiga lacked cut&paste support in most applications, so someone developed a tool that did precisely that. Leading to questions like this: http://forum.amiga.org/index.php?topic=10580.0 http://forum.amiga.org/index.php?topic=10580.0
  - fulafel 5y ago
    Cab I be facetious and factually describe the current state of affairs simultaneously?
  - wizzwizz4 5y ago
    I mean, that's how MacPaint was going to work. (They eventually ditched “edit text once it's written” entirely, for fear that people would use MacPaint for word processing, but the code was all written.)
eitland 5y ago
So basically they are recreating the problems from Flash in 2021, but now using web standards ;-) ? Here's me almost hoping that ADA lawyers will have many field days with this tech. Edit: since this time there is no good excuse for it.
- agumonkey 5y ago
  One step up, two step down. Progress
  - eitland 5y ago
    "Poor boy shuffle"
FlyingSnake 5y ago
Add to that, a11y as a 2nd class citizen.
slver 5y ago
Do you honestly believe they won’t implement copying a sentence.
- nofunsir 5y ago
  I honestly believe they WILL implement copy paste... ... along with tracking exactly what you copied, when, where you hovered your mouse, inserting all sorts of features into your copied piece of “plain text” ... along with the ability to force-turn off copying from server side whenever it benefits them. You WILL use ChromeOS (by another name) and you WILL like it
  - slver 5y ago
    All of this is done without canvas. Maybe less drama would help.
    - nofunsir 5y ago
      > All of this is done without canvas. Currently it’s pretty easy to get around such blocks. Compare with how hard it is to get around modern, proper DRM. I have faith this implementation will be modern and proper, as the fate of the ad industry and those who rely on it, rely on it.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
anthropodie 5y ago
Flutter for web is not ready and flutter devs seriously should remove those demos because it's ruining reputation of Flutter for Android, iOS and Desktop which is absolutely a delight to work with. I never developed apps for mobile being a backend developer but now I have developed few in record time. Flutter for mobile is amazing and it's going to change the game. I am not really sure about Flutter for web though.
amelius 5y ago
It's basically Flash [1]. What's old is new again. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash
NoGravitas 5y ago
They have played us for absolute fools.

by ape4 5y ago

A dystopia. You can't control-F in the page. Can't copy and paste a word you don't know into a translator or dictionary. Can't share text unofficially - like copy a sentence into a email, etc.

DrJokepu 5y ago

Also, you know, accessibility. This could be a real serious problem for people with disabilities.

bryanrasmussen 5y ago
I'm hoping for a revamped EU accessibility act https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1202 https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1202 that also covers document and office applications, and with GDPR sized fines.
- Silhouette 5y ago
  We have to be careful not to throw the baby out with the bathwater here, though. Obviously accessibility is an important issue for both commercial and ethical reasons, but if you're talking about writing laws and severe penalties for breaking them then you will always have to choose what minimum standards you will always require and then accept that it might be unreasonable for a software developer to go further. For example, suppose the entire purpose of a certain office application is to draw some clever visualisation that helps the office workers to understand complex relationships in their business data. Maybe that presentation style has been chosen based on years of experience and saves a lot of time and avoids a lot of mistakes compared to a simple text report or table of figures. However, maybe it also doesn't work for someone whose vision is too limited to usefully see or interact with the visualisation. Perhaps you could present the same data and relationships in a different way, a format that would be more amenable to sound- or touch-based interfaces for those with severely limited or no vision. In reality, that might mean writing a second entirely separate application, one that might cost more than the original to implement and support, for an audience that will usually be very small and often empty. So where should the line be drawn? In an ideal world we want to be as inclusive as possible regardless of anyone's individual limitations, but we also want to provide the most effective presentation possible to those who don't have the same limitations. In general doing both might be prohibitively expensive, so how do you make realistic, ethical decisions in this space, and given that every software application is different, how do you codify the standards you want to make mandatory for the accessibility reasons?
- anticensor 5y ago
  The website says: Cannot read property 'match' of undefined TypeError: Cannot read property 'match' of undefined at /var/app/current/routes/avs.js:44:29 at Layer.handle [as handle_request] (/var/app/current/node_modules/express/lib/router/layer.js:95:5) at next (/var/app/current/node_modules/express/lib/router/route.js:137:13) at Route.dispatch (/var/app/current/node_modules/express/lib/router/route.js:112:3) at Layer.handle [as handle_request] (/var/app/current/node_modules/express/lib/router/layer.js:95:5) at /var/app/current/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:281:22 at param (/var/app/current/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:354:14) at param (/var/app/current/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:365:14) at param (/var/app/current/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:365:14) at Function.process_params (/var/app/current/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:410:3)
mumblemumble 5y ago
This is 100% the reason why I decided not to use Flutter back when I was shopping. It probably would have reduced my developer effort considerably compared to basically every other option that made it to my short list, but I can't in good conscience build something that isn't accessible.
- brabel 5y ago
  Flutter claims to be fully accessible: https://flutter.dev/docs/development/accessibility-and-localization/accessibility https://flutter.dev/docs/development/accessibility-and-local... Did you actually try it?
  - mumblemumble 5y ago
    No, I just looked at the documentation and saw that it isn't supported on all the platforms I'd be targeting. For example, that page you link is specific to iOS and Android targets. Nary a mention of what to do when you're targeting the Web. But it's also, at least as of when I did my comparison, explicitly not supported on at least some desktop targets.
  - blackbrokkoli 5y ago
    Thank you for saying "claims to". Copy pasting a response I made elsewhere: This is making a mockery of accessibility. It's the equivalent of having a company that actively discriminates against everyone not passing a internally developed test to check whether you are a "neurotypical" and then respond to criticism by pointing at the wheelchair ramp you installed on one of your entrances. If I can't copy paste words from your websites to put them into a translator, if I can only use your website when I use one of the two corporate-affiliate-selected screen readers (not even platform-agnostic ones), when I can't look at your website from anything that does not have 4+ cores and a 4G or better connection...saying accessiblity is a "first class citizen" or even citizen at all is laughable at best.
    - brabel 5y ago
      I said "claims to" because I don't know how I can verify if it is. The other person responding to me correctly mention how they suggest tools to scan for accessibility issues on iOS and Android, but they don't say how to do that on the web... have you managed to somehow figure out what is not currently working, exactly? Regarding performance: Chrome uses Skia to render the DOM, why do you think rendering Flutter, also based on Skia, should be so much worse?
calderwoodra 5y ago
Accessibility is a first class citizen in flutter. https://flutter.dev/docs/development/accessibility-and-localization/accessibility https://flutter.dev/docs/development/accessibility-and-local...
- zffr 5y ago
  I wish that page mentioned how accessibility works for Flutter websites. Seems to only mention Android and iOS.
- blackbrokkoli 5y ago
  This is making a mockery of accessibility. It's the equivalent of having a company that actively discriminates against everyone not passing a internally developed test to check whether you are a "neurotypical" and then respond to criticism by pointing at the wheelchair ramp you installed on one of your entrances. If I can't copy paste words from your websites to put them into a translator, if I can only use your website when I use one of the two corporate-affiliate-selected screen readers (not even platform-agnostic ones), when I can't look at your website from anything that does not have 4+ cores and a 4G or better connection...saying accessiblity is a "first class citizen" or even citizen at all is laughable at best.
  - threatofrain 5y ago
    You're talking about very different issues of accessibility, one of which is the financial accessibility of client technology and reliable web connection. That is attacked through very different means. For example, FB being free and ad funded addresses that issue; but this is a business model and not a technological standard. Society subsidizing technology is another possibility. But these very serious issues of access and the solutions to negotiate with them are very different from purely technical solutions to access.
    - wizzwizz4 5y ago
      HyperText Markup Language is accessible, doesn't require a powerful computer, and can be copy-pasted into a translator. If your website is unreadable in view-source:, it's probably inaccessible in some way. It's not hard to make an accessible website. If it's hard to make that accessible website look the way you want? Tough luck; hire a competent web designer, or scale back your artistic vision, because you sure ain't sacrificing the ability for people to actually use your website for some pretty colours, are you now?
bluetwo 5y ago
Due to Section 508, this sounds like it would make Google Docs unsuitable for government work.

fulafel 5y ago

The copy and paste problem is sidestepped in android by the os native ocr, it might become common elsewhere too.

fmakunbound 5y ago
I can’t tell if you’re being facetious. Text is rendered to a canvas frame buffer and then the solution to text selection involves OCR?
- davidgay 5y ago
  Amusingly, the Amiga lacked cut&paste support in most applications, so someone developed a tool that did precisely that. Leading to questions like this: http://forum.amiga.org/index.php?topic=10580.0 http://forum.amiga.org/index.php?topic=10580.0
- fulafel 5y ago
  Cab I be facetious and factually describe the current state of affairs simultaneously?
- wizzwizz4 5y ago
  I mean, that's how MacPaint was going to work. (They eventually ditched “edit text once it's written” entirely, for fear that people would use MacPaint for word processing, but the code was all written.)

eitland 5y ago

So basically they are recreating the problems from Flash in 2021, but now using web standards ;-) ? Here's me almost hoping that ADA lawyers will have many field days with this tech. Edit: since this time there is no good excuse for it.

agumonkey 5y ago
One step up, two step down. Progress
- eitland 5y ago
  "Poor boy shuffle"

FlyingSnake 5y ago

Add to that, a11y as a 2nd class citizen.

slver 5y ago

Do you honestly believe they won’t implement copying a sentence.

nofunsir 5y ago
I honestly believe they WILL implement copy paste... ... along with tracking exactly what you copied, when, where you hovered your mouse, inserting all sorts of features into your copied piece of “plain text” ... along with the ability to force-turn off copying from server side whenever it benefits them. You WILL use ChromeOS (by another name) and you WILL like it
- slver 5y ago
  All of this is done without canvas. Maybe less drama would help.
  - nofunsir 5y ago
    > All of this is done without canvas. Currently it’s pretty easy to get around such blocks. Compare with how hard it is to get around modern, proper DRM. I have faith this implementation will be modern and proper, as the fate of the ad industry and those who rely on it, rely on it.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

anthropodie 5y ago

Flutter for web is not ready and flutter devs seriously should remove those demos because it's ruining reputation of Flutter for Android, iOS and Desktop which is absolutely a delight to work with. I never developed apps for mobile being a backend developer but now I have developed few in record time. Flutter for mobile is amazing and it's going to change the game. I am not really sure about Flutter for web though.

amelius 5y ago

It's basically Flash [1]. What's old is new again. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Flash

NoGravitas 5y ago

They have played us for absolute fools.