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All you may need is HTML

fabiensanglard.net

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Re: All you may need is HTML

#71

Post by j45 »

low_tech_love wrote: post #58
bombcar wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Reminds me of http://motherfuckingwebsite.com and http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com But the key, underlying point to ALL this stuff is that you do NOT NEED TO WORRY ABOUT PRESENTATION until you have the CONTENT. A huge temptation is to spend hours and hours tweaking the presentation as a way of avoiding actually creating the content; this is the real danger. (should mention https://thebestmotherfucking.website of…

Wow, thanks for those links! No joke; the CSS on the better site is literally going to become my default CSS from now on.

It's a great example of how a little can do a lot.

The balance between design & function can be at odds when the mission of the page is not clear.

For consumption, these are awesome, your brain almost relaxes as it's easier than the usual onslaught.

Re: All you may need is HTML

#73

Post by j45 »

throwntoday wrote: post #53
criticalstone wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree, I get the idea that a blog doesn't have to be fancy, but a simple css theme with nice spacing and good font size goes a long way. The examples they show makes me click away instantly, because it is so damn hard to read.

In his examples the content is so niche the reader is probably willing to put up with no design to get the information.

Also possible the typeface is compatible with the readers and the content they regularly consume.

Hell, that typeface is something anyone is subjected too if you do anything long enough.

The experience of getting to imagine how much thought goes into laying out text on a typewriter is something I think should be for everyone to try at least a few times.

Re: All you may need is HTML

#74

Post by myfonj »

kevincox wrote: post #16
qbasic_forever wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my experience the default fonts on Apple devices are far and away the best fonts, period. They're better than almost every custom font, especially for readability.

I don't have an Apple device to test but does that mean that the author's point about the default `monospace` font "Courier New, is not legible" is out of date or just a rare opinion?

Probably very subjective. I, for one, am still using Courier New as my main monospace font, especially for code, and actually prefer having typewriter-y "serifs". No other serif-y monospace I've found fitted.

I don't mind Consolas, and I like what is author using now (DejaVu Sans Mono), but their stance about varying reading experience depending on the OS makes me really, really devastated, because it just reflects a sad state of IT literacy and general adoption of basic philosophy of the web, which was built on premise that how content looks like depends both on author and user (through user agent) and fact that generic font family looks ugly is in other words defaults are bad combined with users have a bad taste and set bad default values.

As was said, we are supposed to express our preferences in (through) our (user) agent's preferences.

Most probably your browser will use four distinct fonts on this page, *all* of them (and more) you can define in your browser's or operating system's settings:

    data:text/html,iiiiiiiiiiii
It's sad that it is not a general knowledge.

Re: All you may need is HTML

#75

Post by nonethewiser »

kevincox wrote: post #19
tolmasky wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love that you went with easiness to read and not "wait, how does anyone navigate on your site without links in plain text files?"

If I can't read your site non-clickable links is not going to be an issue as I will never get that far!

But the claim was it wouldn’t be easy on mobile. So it’s fine desktop and not necessarily unreadable on mobile.

Re: All you may need is HTML

#76

Post by smm11 »

tolmasky wrote: post #3

You may not even need HTML. HTML is subject to different renderings on different browsers, confusing features that may not be supported on different browses, and may tempt you to use JavaScript (which can throw "errors" if written incorrectly). If you stick to text files, you'll never have to go to caniuse.com ever. Need styles? Just make a PDF and throw that online. During the "XML HTML" phase the web went through,…

Get Display Postcript working and I may be with you.

Re: All you may need is HTML

#77

Post by j45 »

kevincox wrote: post #4

> Originally this website's font-family simply requested monospace. This approach resulted in varying reading experience depending on the OS. Windows browsers got Consolas, Linux users got DejaVu Sans Mono, and macOS people got Courier. I find it so sad that our browsers have such bad default fonts that all websites feel the need to override them to get an acceptable look. It would be great if browsers had decent def…

The bad fonts can be tweaked ever so slightly to remain eminently familiar and inviting, but slightly adjusted in positive ways.

It could be kerning, leading, default font size, all come together in very powerful ways before finding a very specific font to enhance the brand experience.

If we look at HN, the window we type a comment into continues to use a font when writing that can help induce more awareness of writing. Maybe it would be slightly different if it was a blinking square cursor. Or a slightly taller box.

Re: All you may need is HTML

#78

Post by shiomiru »

bombcar wrote: post #46
truculent wrote: post #18

I sympathise with the main thrust of the post but, to nitpick, this is just plain wrong: > But mostly css appeals to our vanity and ego. Design isn't just about aesthetics. Good information design, clear visual hierarchy, accessibility, etc. all help with communication. The author's effective use of spacing, bold, and code tags show us that they know this intuitively, despite what they write.

Reminds me of http://motherfuckingwebsite.com and http://bettermotherfuckingwebsite.com But the key, underlying point to ALL this stuff is that you do NOT NEED TO WORRY ABOUT PRESENTATION until you have the CONTENT. A huge temptation is to spend hours and hours tweaking the presentation as a way of avoiding actually creating the content; this is the real danger. (should mention https://thebestmotherfucking.website of…

Clicking on the first website, I can't even view it because it's asking for captcha.

So, to extend your comment: you do not need to worry about content if your website isn't even reachable. A GET request should never result in the client being bombarded with captchas. Unless you have a sure fire way to determine if said client is a human or an evil AI taking over the world (nobody does), just serve the damn page.

Re: All you may need is HTML

#79

Post by singpolyma3 »

kerkeslager wrote: post #66
ghusto wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Good information design, clear visual hierarchy, accessibility, etc. all help with communication Isn't that what HTML gives us?

Well, that was what HTML was on track to give us. But once JS and CSS were introduced, semantic HTML that was actually semantic stopped developing, under the assumption that if someone needed, for example, a tab area or slide show, they could develop those themselves with CSS/JS. What we've gotten instead is extremely vague elements like "section" that don't communicate what the elements are . If HTML were truly sema…

I agree with you, but also I think the section tag is one of the biggest leaps forward we've had. Putting an id on a whole section instead of a name= crap for references, and actually using nesting for hierarchy.

All the HTML5 input types are also an example of semantics impriving. It could be way better, but it's not a total stalemate

Re: All you may need is HTML

#80

Post by nonethewiser »

mapierce2 wrote: post #70

This is another post illuminating the new minimalist trend in website design. The old minimalism was about "elegance", but this new trend is more about utility: we don't need CSS, just content, so why bother! I don't like this utilitarian take. It's fun to design a website.

Pretty sure it only comes from engineers. Not sure it’s a new trend.

I appreciate it personally. I think most styling is about UX and not communicating information (although it can improve that). But I think it’s at least jaded and probably even a terrible idea to suggest websites should generally be implemented this way.

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