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Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014)
71–80 of 407 posts
Re: Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014)
#72Been there done that. Conditional CSS includes, CSS selector hacks to target different browsers. Good times. We also used JAVA applets for Ajax
Re: Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014)
#73Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, I think there's some deliberate mistakes in there for understated comic effect - e.g. "To this day [1x1.gif] is the only way to vertically center elements." The joke (at least the DHTML one) is probably that only people who were developers then will know that's wrong. (Or I suppose this could have been written by someone who wasn't around at that time and this is a bit of faux nostalgia!)
I think the joke about it being "the only way to vertically center elements" is just referring to the fact that it's still kind of hard to do vertical centering and there's still no definitive, easy solution after 27 years of CSS. (It's now doable with Flexbox or CSS Grid as well as more obscure hacks, but it's still more fiddly than it should be.) Could be wrong, though. Edit: I think thejohnconway has the answer [1…
I still need to consult a cheatsheet from time to time when working with flex.
Re: Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014)
#74Let's not forget frames, the original 'solution' to the problem of having to edit the navigation bar on every page. Unfortunately, you then had to figure out what to do if someone accessed the frame page directly, since search engines could still index these parts of the page seperately. And they always felt jarring and awkward too, since the cutoff between sections was always obvious...
If you are being framed by other websites, you deploy your 'frame-buster' script. If your page is orphaned without your own frames, then you summon your 'frame-joiner' script.
Re: Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014)
#75> To this day it is the only way to vertically center elements. Not true anymore (edit: didn't see the 2014) but the productivity cost of not being able to just "vertical-align: middle;" inside divs for the last 30 years must be billions of dollars. Also does anyone remember the fade of the overline style on :hover links? It must has been around the IE4 or IE6 era. Tables were also used to make divs and buttons with…
Nowadays I just ask ChatGPT to write the CSS for me for that, and amusingly, it seems to be able to produce at least a dozen of solutions (often came with redundant rules, too: like having 5+ rules when 2 or 3 of them are enough). It's hilariously stupid.
> It's hilariously stupid.
No no, it's going to take our jobs!
/s
Re: Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014)
#76Let's not forget frames, the original 'solution' to the problem of having to edit the navigation bar on every page. Unfortunately, you then had to figure out what to do if someone accessed the frame page directly, since search engines could still index these parts of the page seperately. And they always felt jarring and awkward too, since the cutoff between sections was always obvious...
Not just that, but also the solution for having the navigation (and ads! can't forget the ads!) stay on the screen when you scroll down…
Re: Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014)
#77Honestly, in some ways, borderless tables for layout was nicer than grids and flex boxes.
Yeah, but is not responsive
Re: Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014)
#78Let's not forget frames, the original 'solution' to the problem of having to edit the navigation bar on every page. Unfortunately, you then had to figure out what to do if someone accessed the frame page directly, since search engines could still index these parts of the page seperately. And they always felt jarring and awkward too, since the cutoff between sections was always obvious...
> since the cutoff between sections was always obvious...
and not exactly the same across different browsers.
Yes kids, there was a time when not everybody was using the same browser.
Re: Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014)
#79and still it was something a lot of people would start playing with. Open Frontend, drag and drop a couple of images, write some content, done, you have a website, you can be a millionaire.
Nowadays just getting started with latest frontend framework -that became obsolete 2 hours ago- means weeks of learning, and you've not even started.
Jokes aside (yes you can start with simple HTML today too), back in the days the expectations were pretty low, which made the web ugly but accessible and fun, though awkward and hacky.
Re: Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014)
#80Wait, I still use dotted underlines and on my blog, and it does get praise for its design. The dotted underlines look nice, but I guess the is just something I used to add to work around layout quirks in Internet Explorer except I never bothered figuring out in which places they're no longer needed...
Dotted underlines weren't supported by all browsers. Chrome rendered them as dashes... or was it the IE? Regardless, they weren't "portable" unless hacked using background-image on the offset.