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Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014)

zachholman.com

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Re: Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014)

#161

Post by flir »

steve1977 wrote: post #129
ReleaseCandidat wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, actually, there was only a short time, when more than one had been widely used. Something like Mosaic - Netscape - IE - Mozilla/Firefox/The Browser Now Known As Vivaldi/... - Chrome

I seem to remember Netscape and IE having had similar market shares for a while at that time (the infamous first browser war), but my memories might be distorted to be honest.

Netscape was the only game in town at one point. From memory, the three big transitions have been Mosaic > Navigator > IE > Chrome.

Here's hoping for another one, just to keep them on their toes.

Re: Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014)

#162

Post by rezonant »

cqqxo4zV46cp wrote: post #128
conradfr wrote: post #10

> 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…

I think I saw something about being able to directly center block elements just come down the pike.

Yeah, it turns out vertical align works differently in tables, so you can just make a one cell table and vertical center all day.

I think there was a Chrome developers blog post about it recently.

Re: Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014)

#163

Post by flir »

sen wrote: post #114
Spare_account wrote: post #98

Not a single use of the word 'webmaster' in the whole article. Was Zach even around in the 90s? ;-)

Still got my “Webmaster” business cards from the late 90s. No one will ever understand how “cool” it was to have that title back then. Now even I cringe when looking at them but so many good memories.

Hope you had a Nokia 7110 to go with it. I know I did.

Living 15 minutes into the future. shhhhh-clunk.

Re: Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014)

#164

Post by consp »

conradfr wrote: post #10

> 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…

> Tables were also used to make divs and buttons with rounded corners, but that was true into the 2000s as well. The agony of designing and splicing them in Photoshop and putting them in table cells...

Wasn't an image with a click easier? I wasn't old enough to write very complicated html pages so my experience is lacking here.

Re: Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014)

#165

Post by thegeomaster »

[deleted] wrote: post #160
function_seven wrote: post #154

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Macromedia Fireworks? I think that’s what you’re remembering. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adobe_Fireworks

[deleted]

Photoshop itself did have a "slice tool" which allowed you to draw slices. There was a special export mode which exported all these slices for you, and IIRC, could even generate a tabletastic HTML for you. Maybe this is what you remember?

Re: Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014)

#166

Post by flir »

whizzter wrote: post #156
flir wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The agony of designing and splicing them in Photoshop and putting them in table cells... Wasn't there a Photoshop-adjacent tool that did the slicing for you? I remember a print designer on my first job feeding what was, essentially, a full-bleed leaflet design through it, and producing a "landing page" with hundreds of table cells.

Adobe Imageready , was capable of visually making image-maps (you added links to sections of an image) and also had tools to create Gif animations (later embedded into Photoshop proper). A page I have for one community project still uses those Imageready generated maps :)

That's the puppy! Thanks!

Re: Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014)

#167

Post by rezonant »

europeanNyan wrote: post #109
CM30 wrote: post #48

Let'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...

Frames are still used as underlying microfrontend technology with surprising success. Theory available at https://martinfowler.com/articles/micro-frontends.html#Run-t... and an implementation at https://luigi-project.io .

That's iframes. There is an older, even more archaic spell that lets you do iframes, but not inline. Those are, as we all know, superior.

Re: Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014)

#168

Post by shever73 »

Ah, yes, 90s web development. Somewhere, in a dark and hidden corner of archive.org lives my first website. Updated in 1996 to be "enhanced" for Netscape Navigator 2.0.

It had a lot of what this article spoke about - including a page counter, guestbook and my first attempt at this new browser language called "JavaScript".

https://imgur.com/a/4bgnCLt

Re: Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014)

#169

Post by zelphirkalt »

rekoil wrote: post #75
thrdbndndn wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

You joke, but I am pretty sure, that in some heads that idea is already spinning. When can they hire fewer people and make those fewer people simply use ChatGPT or some other model. We might see an even further decline in web quality as a result, as we get even more copy&paste devs.

Re: Only 90s Web Developers Remember This (2014)

#170

Post by tasuki »

sen wrote: post #114
Spare_account wrote: post #98

Not a single use of the word 'webmaster' in the whole article. Was Zach even around in the 90s? ;-)

Still got my “Webmaster” business cards from the late 90s. No one will ever understand how “cool” it was to have that title back then. Now even I cringe when looking at them but so many good memories.

Why do you cringe?

The titles of today, such as Site Reliability Engineer, are way more cringey...

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