Building a website like it's 1999

Post by foobarbecue » Sun, Dec 25, 2022, 3:38 PM UTC

la64710 wrote: post #48

Frankly speaking I do not understand why a blog like yours is getting so many hits , whereas surely something like this written by me or 99 percent of the users in HN can never get such traction. I understand the reason for this is that you are somebody whereas we are nobodies. That’s why I don’t think that outside this niche of people who appreciate this idea it wound really take off. We are not going to wake up tom…

Post by doubled112 » Sun, Dec 25, 2022, 4:06 PM UTC

chrisco255 wrote: post #49

marginalia_nu wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's solvable with vw/vx-units in CSS. I think the range in aspect ratios is the bigger problem. It's hard to get around without resulting in a nasty reactive design where everything keeps shuffling around as you resize the window.

Sure, very solvable nowadays with media queries, flex box, grid, screen width and height units, etc. These features didn't exist in 90s CSS. But even though the tools exist today, it is still challenging to do well. Agreed that aspect ratio variability is a bigger problem (we can no longer count on 4:3 as the standard).

Post by [deleted] » Sun, Dec 25, 2022, 4:33 PM UTC

nonesuchluck wrote: post #39

This is fantastic, but not fully in the spirit of the old web. Personal pages looked like they did because they were essentially outsider art: the product of experimentation by teenagers and rank amateurs, who had no idea what we were doing. In 1999 we were using Netscape Composer and FrontPage Express, because they came with our browsers and were fun to explore. Only a web professional could use these tricks today t…

Post by andai » Sun, Dec 25, 2022, 5:33 PM UTC

Alpi wrote: post #6

Ok you got me, I feel nostalgic. What strikes me most is that those people from 90th were putting their creativity into something only handful of people will ever see, they were effectively shouting to void. I would love to be still able to discover low-ranging websites like this. I remember somebody shared some alternative search engine?

Post by giantrobot » Sun, Dec 25, 2022, 6:23 PM UTC

marginalia_nu wrote: post #36

chrisco255 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's so much harder to pull it off with the huge range in screen sizes and resolutions. Back then you could make an 800x600 (or maybe even up to 960 width) design and it would work on 99% of the monitors (rarely did anyone have more than 1024x768).

That's solvable with vw/vx-units in CSS. I think the range in aspect ratios is the bigger problem. It's hard to get around without resulting in a nasty reactive design where everything keeps shuffling around as you resize the window.