I personally am a big fan of the modal behavior when I receive notifications of an upcoming meeting on my Google Calendar - having that screen come to the front clearly grabs my attention, and allows me to prepare for whatever task/call/meeting I have coming up.
Ask HN: Why do browsers still support pop up dialogs and other bad behavior?
71–80 of 84 posts
Re: Ask HN: Why do browsers still support pop up dialogs and other bad behavior?
#72> There are also sites that will kill your page history by going through a bunch of redirects to prevent you from leaving with the back button. It's 2016 and Microsoft is incapable of creating a reliable cross-site login system. Instead, we still have the disastrous mess that is live.com. Minimum 2 redirects - at least 1 of which is Javascript (seriously?) - to handle a simple login. And when your cookies go a bit wo…
The most infuriating thing is that when logging on to live.com or its friends, they hook the tab key. When you type in your email, then tab over the next field, it redirects underneath you.
This infuriates me. It also really screws with people who can't touch type, and thus don't realize it's happened until they look up after entering their password only to realize the page changed and their text was lost.
I presume what's going on is the site realizes the login won't work and redirects you to the domain where it will, but it's just terrible design all around.
Re: Ask HN: Why do browsers still support pop up dialogs and other bad behavior?
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Meanwhile, Google authentication -- which begins at accounts.google.com -- often bounces through appengine.google.com, accounts.youtube.com, and other domains. Making apps for schools, it can be a bit dodgy explaining that the school needs to whitelist a YouTube url in order to use Google SSO.
Yes, I have always wondered why this happens the way it does. I haven't experiences being redirected through them, but it seems that on logon one is being randomly selected. They all are in the same 216.58.212.* subnet (now and here) but each have distinct IP-pairs. Might it be some attempt to disspel censorship, such as the scenario you're describing? On a slightly related note, I really hate that we Internet Citize…
Isn't it for setting cookies not on the google.com domain?
Re: Ask HN: Why do browsers still support pop up dialogs and other bad behavior?
#74Earlier quoted context omitted.
Since when did two different tabs opened on the same site share any JavaScript interpreter state, or block each other when showing modal dialogs? They share cookies, sure, but that's a very different thing that JS interpreter state. But I've never heard anything about an alert in one tab blocking the JS interpreter of another tab on the same site, as that would certainly break the principle of least astonishment. Whe…
Different tabs that share an origin can get references to each other using the return value of "window.open" or the value of "window.opener". There might be other ways as well. From there all bets are off as they can execute arbitrary code on each other's global scope.
You are referring to "popups" (that is, if a site by itself opens a new window/tab, not if you open a link in a new tab).
Re: Ask HN: Why do browsers still support pop up dialogs and other bad behavior?
#75I sometimes wonder how nice life would be if we had two modes in browsers: Mode 1: Render static content; allow unobtrusive JavaScript operations (perhaps capped by total operations or CPU usage). Mode 2: Run unlimited JS operations, allow alert() and window.onbeforeunload events handers. The second mode could be called "Application Mode" and could be turned on selectively per site. This would allow you to give gmail…
Preach on my brotha!
I wrote up a similar proposal a few months ago, didn't get much love: http://www.eggplant.pro/blog/proposal-safeweb/
Re: Ask HN: Why do browsers still support pop up dialogs and other bad behavior?
#76Earlier quoted context omitted.
For those of you who don't know, the process basically goes like this: Input your email / password -> select if you want to use your personal or business profile -> enter your login info again (because, reasons) -> go through two redirects.
Until very recently, Comcast/Xfinity did something similar. On their landing page and logged out, one would click log in and enter their credentials, and the top bar shows you logged in. Click on the email link and you have to log in again. Click on the "My Account" link and log in again not once but twice, for a total of three logins to finally get there. I think they fixed it about a month ago. I have my Comcast em…
Can't you pay by phone? That's how I deal with it on Optimum.
Re: Ask HN: Why do browsers still support pop up dialogs and other bad behavior?
#77Earlier quoted context omitted.
Until very recently, Comcast/Xfinity did something similar. On their landing page and logged out, one would click log in and enter their credentials, and the top bar shows you logged in. Click on the email link and you have to log in again. Click on the "My Account" link and log in again not once but twice, for a total of three logins to finally get there. I think they fixed it about a month ago. I have my Comcast em…
HSBC's internet banking website is complete shit too. At least 2 redirects to login, and if you change your mind, the back button breaks the site completely until you manually go to the root again.
I appear to have a cookie set or something which makes the root of HSBC's site consistently 500 for me. At least the login still works.
Re: Ask HN: Why do browsers still support pop up dialogs and other bad behavior?
#78Why only web? Modal dialogs should be forbidden everywhere.
I agree, but I can't really articulate why. Does anyone have a good list of reasons? I'd love to eliminate modal dialogs in the application we're building.
Re: Ask HN: Why do browsers still support pop up dialogs and other bad behavior?
#79Earlier quoted context omitted.
If you don't use a one-time generated key for the paiement page, one that can't be reused, and a process queue, you are doing it wrong. This is a technical problem, your user should not have to bother about thinking if can reload the page of not, he/she should be able to murder the shit of the F5 boutons if he/she wants to.
Such as HN on comment submission.
Comments and charging for money don't have the same objectives at all. I can understand that a dev can decide to allow the rare situation for rare duplicate comment that you can easily delete because it saves work and is not a big deal. While with other's people money, you can't do that. It's all a question of balance.
Re: Ask HN: Why do browsers still support pop up dialogs and other bad behavior?
#80Earlier quoted context omitted.
Such as HN on comment submission.
Comments and charging for money don't have the same objectives at all. I can understand that a dev can decide to allow the rare situation for rare duplicate comment that you can easily delete because it saves work and is not a big deal. While with other's people money, you can't do that. It's all a question of balance.
Solving one solves the other.
While I executed my QED here deliberately, I've left more than a few duplicate comments on laggy connections and/or bogged-down browser sessions.
Other elements of HN's design and workflow make detecting this difficult. Rather than returning the user to the comment they'd just posted, or its parent, you're returned to the discussion root.
Catching typos, incorrect tags (I keep having to remember that _this_ doesn't emphasise content), etc., would be far easier if the renderd comment was presented.
Solving this as a browser / HTML built-in would be most ideal.
HTML though isn't stateful. By design.