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Hardest problem in computer science: centering things

tonsky.me

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Re: Hardest problem in computer science: centering things

#201

Post by Akronymus »

mike_hearn wrote: post #177
yurishimo wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mean, semantics are also good! Yes, CSS grids are a lot like tables in some ways, but not having to add 25% more DOM elements to fake a table layout (display: table/table-row/table-cell; that's 3 divs for one row!) is also a thing to be celebrated. Plus, in practice, grid is a lot more powerful than doing a few common layouts. Grid took so long precisely because they were trying to think a little further ahead rath…

Nah, semantics are worthless. The whole semantic web idea never took off for good reasons, HTML5 semantic tags don't have any meaningful semantics and you can't even reliably remove boilerplate from HTML without ML pipelines (a basic use case you'd expect any "semantic" document format to nail easily). Then the invention of LLMs killed it twice over. HTML is a graphics rendering language in denial about its true natu…

CSS tables can have grid-auto-flow as dense, which is quite helpful at rare times. You obviously could do that wit tables + js, but it's nice to not have to worry about the implementation details.

Re: Hardest problem in computer science: centering things

#202

Post by cwillu »

Semaphor wrote: post #130

In case the author reads this: Please respect prefers-reduced-motion for your cute mouse cursors that wander over the screen in a very distracting fashion. In the meantime, as a fix for others, in uBo add tonsky.me##.pointers

I disagree, as that implicitly endorses this sort of distracting nonsense, because “there's a setting to turn it off if it bugs you”.

Re: Hardest problem in computer science: centering things

#203

Post by checkyoursudo »

GoblinSlayer wrote: post #163
dr_kiszonka wrote: post #78

Don't read this article, if you are not in web dev. Once you start seeing it, you can't stop seeing it, and it will drive you crazy forever. It is the same for noticing misalignment, recognizing color oversaturation, high quality speakers/headphones, etc. (It is a good article!)

motherfuckingwebsite.com is centered alright to the whole width of the browser windows right in the middle of the browser window.

As great as it is, it still sucks because on my full-screen browser, the text spans the entire monitor width, which makes text hard(er) to read. But as soon as you start forcing narrower columns for better readability, you start to run into positioning and precision problems again.

Literally cannot win.

Re: Hardest problem in computer science: centering things

#204

Post by coldtea »

yurishimo wrote: post #169
TeMPOraL wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And then it took some 20-ish years for CSS to finally realize that aligning to a grid is a good idea and, through a long, painful, incremental process, eventually reinvent tables for layout.

I mean, semantics are also good! Yes, CSS grids are a lot like tables in some ways, but not having to add 25% more DOM elements to fake a table layout (display: table/table-row/table-cell; that's 3 divs for one row!) is also a thing to be celebrated. Plus, in practice, grid is a lot more powerful than doing a few common layouts. Grid took so long precisely because they were trying to think a little further ahead rath…

>I mean, semantics are also good! Yes, CSS grids are a lot like tables in some ways, but not having to add 25% more DOM elements to fake a table layout (display: table/table-row/table-cell; that's 3 divs for one row!) is also a thing to be celebrated.

Semantics in the context of CSS is a stupid idea web designers came up with. They heard the concept of "semantic", and had to fit it in, to appear smart. Should have asked actual developers.

(the so-called "semantic web" was another such failed idea dragged on for an eternity for research grands. Remember RDF? What fun!)

The semantics is not the job for HTML, which is the final artifact for display, and not a data interchange format, nor the format you store your info as. So there's no need for it to be semantically clean and "parsable/reusable" (to do what? web-scrap it? As for screen-readers, there are official metadata annotations for those - not to mention they wouldn't know to do anything special for each ad-hoc different "semantic" tag soup people come up with with the severely limited for that reason HTML5 tags, or worse divs).

The semantics belong to whatever backend and metadata you have your content in, before it gets rendered as HTML.

And if you need to also give it to users in parsable/reusable form, allow them to query a JSON (or structured) version.

Re: Hardest problem in computer science: centering things

#205

Post by creatonez »

dkjaudyeqooe wrote: post #2

First time probably ever that I've had to disable Javascript because of the creepy and distracting mouse thing. It really feels like you're invading other people's privacy, and if it doesn't, having things randomly move across your field of vision makes it difficult to read.

Sounds like your web browser vendor has decided to give websites your mouse cursor position :)

Re: Hardest problem in computer science: centering things

#206

Post by another2another »

Maxion wrote: post #98
dr_kiszonka wrote: post #78

Don't read this article, if you are not in web dev. Once you start seeing it, you can't stop seeing it, and it will drive you crazy forever. It is the same for noticing misalignment, recognizing color oversaturation, high quality speakers/headphones, etc. (It is a good article!)

The same happens when you: - Install flooring - Install trim in your own home - Build / install cabinets You will now see: - Odd flooring patterns and uneven floors - Know what it looks like when trim isn't coped - Uneven gaps between doors

I thought the tiles on my bathroom floor were perfectly flat and even on the ground, until I switched off the light and used that damn laser on the Dyson vacuum cleaner.

What greeted me was an uneven landscape of tiles that the naked eye just didn't see.

Re: Hardest problem in computer science: centering things

#207

Post by coldtea »

Moru wrote: post #106
bazoom42 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is a weird myth that CSS somehow discourages tables. CSS have supported styling html tables and ‘display:table’ (allowing a table-like layout without html-tables) for 25 years. Float and clear was grandfathered into CSS since they were added to HTML by Netscape. They are fine for their intended purpose: placing images in a text and have the text flow around. Other positioning systems you mention does not solve the…

When people say not to use tables they mean for layout of the entire page

They should not have advised against that either.

It was a much saner, simpler, and more efficient mechanism that the clear/float monstrocities imposed upon people in the period before grid, which reinvented the same thing (table layout) just without the actual tags.

Re: Hardest problem in computer science: centering things

#208

Post by 6510 »

watwut wrote: post #155
ozim wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think it was that tables were bad. They were too formulaic and too strict and it was hard to do something that would stand out. With CSS it wasn’t dumping problem on the others, it was giving the freedom. Problem with freedom is that it is never free and you also have to fix additional problems that come with it.

The issue with CSS is not too much freedom. It is that as an API, it is frankly, retarded, horrible and ridiculous.

Long ago I made interfaces with image maps. Just one giant jpg with all links boxes and text on it.

https://www.w3schools.com/htmL/html_images_imagemap.asp

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTML/Element/ma...

I've seriously considered doing websites in pdf too but still have to run into a situation dramatic enough for it to be worth it. Now that I think about it again "installing" a pdf on a pc could cover a lot of app like functionality. Most important is to make it as convenient as possible to remember your business exists and interact with it.

http://fpdf.org/en/script/ex95.pdf

Re: Hardest problem in computer science: centering things

#210

Post by bandrami »

bazoom42 wrote: post #95
Animats wrote: post #72

That's because CSS layout was designed by people who thought "float" and "clear" were a good idea, tables were bad, and, when in doubt, make it Turing-complete and dump the problem on someone else. 2D and 3D tools get this right. CAD programs, game engines, and animation programs are all far better at positioning things. They have far better layout engines and constraint systems. This is really a constraint problem.…

It is a weird myth that CSS somehow discourages tables. CSS have supported styling html tables and ‘display:table’ (allowing a table-like layout without html-tables) for 25 years. Float and clear was grandfathered into CSS since they were added to HTML by Netscape. They are fine for their intended purpose: placing images in a text and have the text flow around. Other positioning systems you mention does not solve the…

I absolutely remember a ton of pieces about how we all needed to stop using tables (and 1x1 transparent gifs, too) for page layout because CSS was The Right Way
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