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Infinite scrolling makes the contents of the page unlinkable, breaks searchability and caching. It always makes the experience worse for unclear benefits. What'

Infinite scrolling makes the contents of the page unlinkable, breaks searchability and caching. It always makes the experience worse for unclear benefits. What's the problem it solves? Not resending the header and the footer on changing pages? Really?

sodapopcan 4y ago
Pagination also makes things unlinkable, though. Not that I’m not necessarily defending infinite scrolling, but it’s a tough problem.
- daptaq 4y ago
  Not necessarily, if the URL has some absolute position like the ID of the first item instead of the relative number of pages between the newest item and the current page. I believe that Reddit does something like that (of course, only if you sort by new).
  - sodapopcan 4y ago
    It’s situational ya but I was talking more like a product catalogue where items could get shifted around for promotional reasons or whathaveyou.
    - spookthesunset 4y ago
      Not just product catalogs but sites like HN. “Page 2” on this site changes constantly. … and honestly what does “page 2” even mean on a site like this? It’s almost a completely arbitrary distinction because the amount of items on each page is just a magic number. And your “page 2” is nothing more than snapshot in time… sharing a URL for “page 2” to somebody else is pointless because they won’t see the same content you did. Bookmarking “page 2” is pointless since it will change almost every load. Having a search engine index “page two” is pointless because “page two” won’t even say the same stuff by the time it gets exposed in the search page (you see this sometimes with SEO results that link to a “stories” page). In fact you might as well forbid search engines from indexing anything after “page 1” And once you start thinking about it you might just say “fuck it… everything is the same ‘page’”. Instead of a “page” you have a viewport into a infinite, constantly changing pane of content. But since it is impractical to load an infinite list of items at once, you’ve got to load chunks of it on demand. And suddenly you’ve invented infinite scroll.
  - lelandfe 4y ago
    Terms to Google for are "offset pagination" vs. "cursor pagination." There are tradeoffs in using either approach. Recent HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32495846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32495846
- donohoe 4y ago
  Um, no. Pagination absolutely makes things linkable. Again, details matter here, but it is easily solvable.
  - sodapopcan 4y ago
    "Um, yes". As a catalog grows, past items get pushed to later pages making page-linking useless.
    - bluefirebrand 4y ago
      This is assuming things are added to the front of the catalog and not the back. That's the usual default, but there are usually sort options along with pagination that can make an items place in a list more or less fixed.
      - 0x457 4y ago
        Sorting could be anything. If it's a storefront, then the first page will definitely change from time to time. Paginated pages are about as linkable as properly implemented infinite scrolling.
    - Schroedingersat 4y ago
      myitems.foo?first=thebananasid&sort=juiciest&count=999 Maybe if you're linking to the page with the dragonfruit on it and a bunch of items get added between that and the banana it might be off by a page, but it'll be close enough to be useful.
    - romwell 4y ago
      It's not useless for the user who has accidentally closed the page or clicked the "back" button. Or wants to send a link right now to be opened right now ("Hey honey, which one of these things should I get?"). Links are inherently ephemeral: content changes and expires, and there's nothing that guarantees against that. Doesn't make them useless.
- Findecanor 4y ago
  Pages are linkable if the order of the collection of items that gets paginated does not change.
  - sodapopcan 4y ago
    Right, “if”.
    - int_19h 4y ago
      That's strictly better than infinite scrolling, where it's always broken.
      - sodapopcan 4y ago
        You can still have pages with pushState for infinite scroll (which I've implemented at a past job) but yes, without that you're certainly right.
- bee_rider 4y ago
  Pagination doesn't make things any less linkable than "infinite scrolling with <X> content present," it just makes the limitation more apparent because a page seems like it ought to be linkable.
- ZoomZoomZoom 4y ago
  Display ascending, ID descending, index redirects to the highest ID and becomes page 2/Max(ID)-1 when filled. So tough.
donohoe 4y ago
No. Only if you do a bad job of implementing it. All those issues are avoidable.
cylon13 4y ago
It's not solving a technical problem. It's trying to avoid points where the user has to make an active decision to continue looking at whatever is being served and thus have a chance to decide to leave.
alphabettsy 4y ago
Apparently it keeps people on page longer which is good for ad supported businesses. It’s user hostile though.
gjvnq 4y ago
Not if you keep changing the URL through JS to reflect the current offset. Like: exampe.com/products#offset-999
- cudgy 4y ago
  This only works if the data is static. As soon as any item before 999 is deleted or added, offset 999 no longer points to the same data.

sodapopcan 4y ago

Pagination also makes things unlinkable, though. Not that I’m not necessarily defending infinite scrolling, but it’s a tough problem.

daptaq 4y ago
Not necessarily, if the URL has some absolute position like the ID of the first item instead of the relative number of pages between the newest item and the current page. I believe that Reddit does something like that (of course, only if you sort by new).
- sodapopcan 4y ago
  It’s situational ya but I was talking more like a product catalogue where items could get shifted around for promotional reasons or whathaveyou.
  - spookthesunset 4y ago
    Not just product catalogs but sites like HN. “Page 2” on this site changes constantly. … and honestly what does “page 2” even mean on a site like this? It’s almost a completely arbitrary distinction because the amount of items on each page is just a magic number. And your “page 2” is nothing more than snapshot in time… sharing a URL for “page 2” to somebody else is pointless because they won’t see the same content you did. Bookmarking “page 2” is pointless since it will change almost every load. Having a search engine index “page two” is pointless because “page two” won’t even say the same stuff by the time it gets exposed in the search page (you see this sometimes with SEO results that link to a “stories” page). In fact you might as well forbid search engines from indexing anything after “page 1” And once you start thinking about it you might just say “fuck it… everything is the same ‘page’”. Instead of a “page” you have a viewport into a infinite, constantly changing pane of content. But since it is impractical to load an infinite list of items at once, you’ve got to load chunks of it on demand. And suddenly you’ve invented infinite scroll.
- lelandfe 4y ago
  Terms to Google for are "offset pagination" vs. "cursor pagination." There are tradeoffs in using either approach. Recent HN post: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32495846 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32495846
donohoe 4y ago
Um, no. Pagination absolutely makes things linkable. Again, details matter here, but it is easily solvable.
- sodapopcan 4y ago
  "Um, yes". As a catalog grows, past items get pushed to later pages making page-linking useless.
  - bluefirebrand 4y ago
    This is assuming things are added to the front of the catalog and not the back. That's the usual default, but there are usually sort options along with pagination that can make an items place in a list more or less fixed.
    - 0x457 4y ago
      Sorting could be anything. If it's a storefront, then the first page will definitely change from time to time. Paginated pages are about as linkable as properly implemented infinite scrolling.
  - Schroedingersat 4y ago
    myitems.foo?first=thebananasid&sort=juiciest&count=999 Maybe if you're linking to the page with the dragonfruit on it and a bunch of items get added between that and the banana it might be off by a page, but it'll be close enough to be useful.
  - romwell 4y ago
    It's not useless for the user who has accidentally closed the page or clicked the "back" button. Or wants to send a link right now to be opened right now ("Hey honey, which one of these things should I get?"). Links are inherently ephemeral: content changes and expires, and there's nothing that guarantees against that. Doesn't make them useless.
Findecanor 4y ago
Pages are linkable if the order of the collection of items that gets paginated does not change.
- sodapopcan 4y ago
  Right, “if”.
  - int_19h 4y ago
    That's strictly better than infinite scrolling, where it's always broken.
    - sodapopcan 4y ago
      You can still have pages with pushState for infinite scroll (which I've implemented at a past job) but yes, without that you're certainly right.
bee_rider 4y ago
Pagination doesn't make things any less linkable than "infinite scrolling with <X> content present," it just makes the limitation more apparent because a page seems like it ought to be linkable.
ZoomZoomZoom 4y ago
Display ascending, ID descending, index redirects to the highest ID and becomes page 2/Max(ID)-1 when filled. So tough.

donohoe 4y ago

No. Only if you do a bad job of implementing it. All those issues are avoidable.

cylon13 4y ago

It's not solving a technical problem. It's trying to avoid points where the user has to make an active decision to continue looking at whatever is being served and thus have a chance to decide to leave.

alphabettsy 4y ago

Apparently it keeps people on page longer which is good for ad supported businesses. It’s user hostile though.

gjvnq 4y ago

Not if you keep changing the URL through JS to reflect the current offset. Like: exampe.com/products#offset-999

cudgy 4y ago
This only works if the data is static. As soon as any item before 999 is deleted or added, offset 999 no longer points to the same data.