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The ideal viewport doesn't exist

viewports.fyi

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Re: The ideal viewport doesn't exist

#151

Post by bobthepanda »

zlg_codes wrote: post #132
calderwoodra wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd think that eventually we'd have a large enough cohort of folks that know web dev well since the barrier is so low, but I think most people try to get out of frontend development asap.

I'm trying to learn some JS in my spare time, if only to show in interviews that I can do it, but I understand why one wouldn't want to. I'm just doing bare JS for now, but even with a framework, there is so much to manage in the DOM to make consistent interfaces, and CSS3 is so much more complex (but also convenient, in some ways!), putting together good interfaces is legitimately hard. Responsiveness is the big hur…

JS and DOM are popular mostly because they exist everywhere, and there's a large ecosystem of support. In practice, given (until recently) difficulty in hiring, places found it easier to have one JS team than to have one native team for every possible platform (Windows, Mac, iOS, Android, maybe even Linux). And it also does not help that each native platform can have wildly divergent frameworks and practices.

Re: The ideal viewport doesn't exist

#152

Post by beeslol »

> If you’re on a desktop device reading this, how many windows are filling the entire screen? How much screen space does the browser you’re reading from take up?

> It’s safest to presume that users on desktop or laptop devices are not filling their entire screen with a browser.

Is this true? If you're reading this casually (and you are reading this casually) is your browser not at full size? I almost exclusively use my desktop and laptop with windows maximized unless I'm doing some work which requires me to split up my screen (for example writing while looking at docs or program output). Am I the outlier here?

Re: The ideal viewport doesn't exist

#154

Post by depressedpanda »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #93
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #15

> "The main point we’re trying to get across is that you simply do not know how users are going to visit your website or web app. Instead of making design decisions on strict, limited breakpoints, keep in mind the sheer amount of fragmentation there is in viewports." I don't know how useful this is. setting breakpoints allows some sanity in the build and testing process otherwise you have an infinite scope for issues…

> and dont do stuff like hijacking the scroll, zoom or other common behaviours. The hijacking of scrolling pisses me off so god damn much that I've considered building Firefox from source and modifying the code to completely eliminate a website's ability to set the scroll position.[0] Front end devs, I implore you. Stop acting like you think you know what the user wants in regards to scrolling behavior . Smooth scrol…

> I'd pinch to zoom in...but some moron front-end dev has adopted the beyond-bone-headed mentality of "removing features is a feature!" and makes their site tell the browser to not allow zooming because...why? Someone please, tell me why.

For sites that have no business disabling zoom: no idea, and it annoys me too. I just chalk it up to dev, designer and/or managment incompetence, close the tab and never return again.

/Moron frontend dev

Re: The ideal viewport doesn't exist

#155

Post by aendruk »

beeslol wrote: post #152

> If you’re on a desktop device reading this, how many windows are filling the entire screen? How much screen space does the browser you’re reading from take up? > It’s safest to presume that users on desktop or laptop devices are not filling their entire screen with a browser. Is this true? If you're reading this casually (and you are reading this casually) is your browser not at full size? I almost exclusively use…

I almost exclusively use my laptop split-screen unless I’m doing some work that requires maximization.

Over the last few years increasingly many websites when allocated half the laptop screen have needlessly contorted into less functional layouts appropriate for a phone, but stretched huge.

Re: The ideal viewport doesn't exist

#156

Post by drewrbaker »

Sohcahtoa82 wrote: post #93
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #15

> "The main point we’re trying to get across is that you simply do not know how users are going to visit your website or web app. Instead of making design decisions on strict, limited breakpoints, keep in mind the sheer amount of fragmentation there is in viewports." I don't know how useful this is. setting breakpoints allows some sanity in the build and testing process otherwise you have an infinite scope for issues…

> and dont do stuff like hijacking the scroll, zoom or other common behaviours. The hijacking of scrolling pisses me off so god damn much that I've considered building Firefox from source and modifying the code to completely eliminate a website's ability to set the scroll position.[0] Front end devs, I implore you. Stop acting like you think you know what the user wants in regards to scrolling behavior . Smooth scrol…

As the poor sap who’s had to build lots of these types of sites, I’ll tell you that it’s not the devs that want this. It’s the damn client that keeps complaining about the “gravity” or the “momentum” or the “scroll speed” of the site. Locomotive.JS being the main thing clients want us to use… no amount of explanation of all your valid points will persuade them if “this one cool site we like had it”.

I will say this… the scroll speed being different between Chrome, Safari and Firefox doesn’t help our cause… wish these were normalized at the very least so we can avoid “it feels better in X, but we use Y browser” notes.

Allowing an easing function API for scroll would be a middle ground I could live with. It’s better than what we have now (a bunch of award winning sites emulating scroll with translates).

Re: The ideal viewport doesn't exist

#157

Post by pdabbadabba »

beeslol wrote: post #152

> If you’re on a desktop device reading this, how many windows are filling the entire screen? How much screen space does the browser you’re reading from take up? > It’s safest to presume that users on desktop or laptop devices are not filling their entire screen with a browser. Is this true? If you're reading this casually (and you are reading this casually) is your browser not at full size? I almost exclusively use…

For me, it varies by OS. I'm currently reading this on a Mac, and the window is not filling my entire screen. If I were using my Windows PC, however, I would be much more likely to have the window maximized. I find that Windows makes is easier to track all the windows I have open even when one is maximized.

Re: The ideal viewport doesn't exist

#158

Post by aendruk »

throwaway14356 wrote: post #141
paulddraper wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would love to see your maps app that doesn't touch zoom.

No offense, I had to try that.. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3d/LARGE_el... Look how fast and responsive it is!

With progressive decoding and spatial range requests this could actually be a reasonable replacement for a slippy map.

Re: The ideal viewport doesn't exist

#159

Post by pdabbadabba »

RugnirViking wrote: post #3

Nice web design but this jumped out at me: (they have 120000 viewpoints): "Wembley stadium has a capacity of 90,000, so our datapoints could fill Wembley once and still fill another third of the available capacity." the way this is written adds to confusion rather than enlightens. "another third of the available capacity" makes it sound like there is space left over in wembley i.e. you haven't fully filled it. I thin…

> I think people know how big 120.000 is, but if you must, just say its more than wembley

Agreed. And if you must compare to a stadium, why not just pick a bigger stadium? You can pack at least 115,000 into Michigan Stadium, which would get you a lot closer than Wembley.

(What's that you say? You've never been to Michigan Stadium? That's probably another reason not to rely on this kind of comparison! I, for example have never been to Wembley and have no idea how big it is.)

Re: The ideal viewport doesn't exist

#160

Post by pie_flavor »

My favorite viewpoint anecdote: Many sites like to assume (like the article mentions) that a good 'mobile view' cut point is 768px. And some of those sites, in particular NodeBB (back when I used it), use the particular media queries `max-width: 767px` and `min-width: 768px`. On the right laptop, on the right version of everything, if you drag the title bar to one side of the screen so it resizes to fit half the screen, Chrome will report the width 767.5px and the site will immediately break fantastically.
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