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> - Keyboard nav. Use the left/right arrow keys to navigate through pages on my site. Please don't, this is horrible and I've previously only seen it used by c

by jsnell 2y ago

> - Keyboard nav. Use the left/right arrow keys to navigate through pages on my site. Please don't, this is horrible and I've previously only seen it used by clickbait news sites. It provides no real value, the only use case of somebody wanting to browse through just the start of each of your articles is going to be incredibly rare. But what you're doing is hijacking a key that normally has no effect into having a destructive one. All it takes is a minor keyboard fumble while trying to scroll, and you've just lost all context and confusingly taken to some totally unrelated article.

breck 2y ago
In theory is the same as in practice, in theory. But in practice, they're different. > It provides no real value, This is wrong. It provides a tremendous amount of value. Source: I use it many times a week, for many years, for many reasons. > destructive one. This is wrong. These pages are immutable with no state. If by chance you accidentally hit an arrow key on one of the rare long form pages with scroll, sure you lose about 50 milliseconds of time getting back to your prior scroll level. In years of doing this not a single person has ever complained, while instead a number have commented that they like it.
- destructionator 2y ago
  > In years of doing this not a single person has ever complained I've never used your website, but if I did and the side arrow changed things, I'd immediately close it and never come back. You wouldn't get a complaint from me; you'd just lose me instantly and permanently. It drives me absolutely nuts when sites do this, it is so disorienting.
  - breck 2y ago
    > I'd immediately close it and never come back. You wouldn't get a complaint from me; you'd just lose me instantly and permanently. Do you think this concerns me? I don't make this site for you, someone who admits they've "never used" my site. I make my site for my regular readers, some of whom have been reading the site for over 10 years. The people who regularly email me comments and feedback on my posts. People who _love_ the fact that they can flip through the entire blog in seconds using the arrow keys. > when sites do this My site is not like other sites on the web. In fact, it is such an outlier, that I've recently started a new successor to the WWW, called the World Wide Scroll, to start aggregating more sites like mine. My site is entirely public domain, has no advertising or trackers or cookies, can be downloaded in 1 click and used entirely offline, is written in a new language (Scroll) that is mathematically shown to be the simplest/most powerful language yet invented, that compiles to HTML/CSS/JSON/XML/RSS/plain text, is fully tracked by git so you can see the history of every line in every file.
    - JadeNB 2y ago
      > a new language (Scroll) that is mathematically shown to be the simplest/most powerful language yet invented This is, at best, ambiguous. To show something mathematically, you have to have a precise definition of it, and neither "simple" nor "powerful" admits a precise definition that is widely agreeable enough for any mathematical proof based on it to be worth anything.
      - breck 2y ago
        I stand by my claim. I point you to https://breckyunits.com/pcri.html https://breckyunits.com/pcri.html Further background: - https://breckyunits.com/intelligence.html https://breckyunits.com/intelligence.html - https://github.com/breck7/breckyunits.com/blob/main/research/papers/paper3/countingComplexity.pdf https://github.com/breck7/breckyunits.com/blob/main/research... - https://github.com/breck7/breckyunits.com/blob/main/research/papers/paper2/aGrammarNotationForTreeLanguages.pdf https://github.com/breck7/breckyunits.com/blob/main/research... - https://github.com/breck7/breckyunits.com/blob/main/research/papers/paper/treenotation.pdf https://github.com/breck7/breckyunits.com/blob/main/research...
oneeyedpigeon 2y ago
I was thinking about this recently as I added it to a site. The use case is slightly different because the site in question was more data-driven than a blog. One example is viewing an individual item and being able to navigate to the next item in alphabetical order. This uses link elements with the appropriate rel values. The problem of losing context can be mitigated by having the page return to the previous location on back, something which browsers kinda already do, just not very well. Alternatively, I assume you'd prefer some kind of modifier? This has problems of its own — e.g. shortcut clashes. YouTube uses comma and full stop as frame next/previous shortcuts — maybe we should standardise on those?

by jsnell 2y ago

breck 2y ago

In theory is the same as in practice, in theory. But in practice, they're different. > It provides no real value, This is wrong. It provides a tremendous amount of value. Source: I use it many times a week, for many years, for many reasons. > destructive one. This is wrong. These pages are immutable with no state. If by chance you accidentally hit an arrow key on one of the rare long form pages with scroll, sure you lose about 50 milliseconds of time getting back to your prior scroll level. In years of doing this not a single person has ever complained, while instead a number have commented that they like it.

destructionator 2y ago
> In years of doing this not a single person has ever complained I've never used your website, but if I did and the side arrow changed things, I'd immediately close it and never come back. You wouldn't get a complaint from me; you'd just lose me instantly and permanently. It drives me absolutely nuts when sites do this, it is so disorienting.
- breck 2y ago
  > I'd immediately close it and never come back. You wouldn't get a complaint from me; you'd just lose me instantly and permanently. Do you think this concerns me? I don't make this site for you, someone who admits they've "never used" my site. I make my site for my regular readers, some of whom have been reading the site for over 10 years. The people who regularly email me comments and feedback on my posts. People who _love_ the fact that they can flip through the entire blog in seconds using the arrow keys. > when sites do this My site is not like other sites on the web. In fact, it is such an outlier, that I've recently started a new successor to the WWW, called the World Wide Scroll, to start aggregating more sites like mine. My site is entirely public domain, has no advertising or trackers or cookies, can be downloaded in 1 click and used entirely offline, is written in a new language (Scroll) that is mathematically shown to be the simplest/most powerful language yet invented, that compiles to HTML/CSS/JSON/XML/RSS/plain text, is fully tracked by git so you can see the history of every line in every file.
  - JadeNB 2y ago
    > a new language (Scroll) that is mathematically shown to be the simplest/most powerful language yet invented This is, at best, ambiguous. To show something mathematically, you have to have a precise definition of it, and neither "simple" nor "powerful" admits a precise definition that is widely agreeable enough for any mathematical proof based on it to be worth anything.
    - breck 2y ago
      I stand by my claim. I point you to https://breckyunits.com/pcri.html https://breckyunits.com/pcri.html Further background: - https://breckyunits.com/intelligence.html https://breckyunits.com/intelligence.html - https://github.com/breck7/breckyunits.com/blob/main/research/papers/paper3/countingComplexity.pdf https://github.com/breck7/breckyunits.com/blob/main/research... - https://github.com/breck7/breckyunits.com/blob/main/research/papers/paper2/aGrammarNotationForTreeLanguages.pdf https://github.com/breck7/breckyunits.com/blob/main/research... - https://github.com/breck7/breckyunits.com/blob/main/research/papers/paper/treenotation.pdf https://github.com/breck7/breckyunits.com/blob/main/research...

oneeyedpigeon 2y ago

I was thinking about this recently as I added it to a site. The use case is slightly different because the site in question was more data-driven than a blog. One example is viewing an individual item and being able to navigate to the next item in alphabetical order. This uses link elements with the appropriate rel values. The problem of losing context can be mitigated by having the page return to the previous location on back, something which browsers kinda already do, just not very well. Alternatively, I assume you'd prefer some kind of modifier? This has problems of its own — e.g. shortcut clashes. YouTube uses comma and full stop as frame next/previous shortcuts — maybe we should standardise on those?