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The curious case of disappearing Polish S

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Re: The curious case of disappearing Polish S

#41

Post by chinpokomon »

qewrffewqwfqew wrote: post #11
derekp7 wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But the article explains why they override ctrl-s. It is because the users had muscle memory to keep hitting ctrl-s to save, since they were used to not having an auto-save function built in. But more than that, is the idea of a web browser as an app delivery platform. If a web browser is running an app (such as a word processor, or spreadsheet, or anything but browsing the web) it is sometimes necessary and benefici…

.. another relevant xkcd: https://xkcd.com/1479/

Pfft. Or you could just press Alt-Space, M, and then the arrow keys to "bind" the move to the mouse movement. This will let you bring the dialog back onscreen.

On second thought, I'll be glad when I don't have to know that.

Re: The curious case of disappearing Polish S

#42

Post by lmm »

acqq wrote: post #37
lmm wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've lost too much data to trust to autosave. When coding I don't want autosave, because I don't want my computer to be trying to compile all the time (I write Scala, I don't have the RAM to do that) - I want it to wait for an explicit Ctrl-S to tell it that I've finished a meaningful section and it should compile now. I have exactly the same thing on prose.io (which I write on a lot, and which looks very similar to…

What do you use actually that doesn't have "undo"? I can "undo" the whole day of my work on the file until I close it in the IDE. Whatever is "lost" I can return to the previous point.

If you're asking why I use git at all, my IDE crashes often enough that I don't want it to be my sole store of history; also I want that history available to my colleagues or my future self, weeks or months from now.

Re: The curious case of disappearing Polish S

#43

Post by chinpokomon »

qewrffewqwfqew wrote: post #10

Yet another example of why websites shouldn't be able to hijack keys that have meaning outside them (in the browser itself, or in the desktop environment). It still blows my mind that browsers permit this and don't provide an easy option to stop such abusive (and dangerous!) behaviour. The workaround is typical of web stuff as well: deal with the symptoms one by one while leaving the underlying problem unquestioned.

I feel like that's an old way of thinking. If websites are too grow up and become first class applications, and advancements in Chrome and Firefox are paving that way, we want the browser to become a very thin runtime that doesn't impose any behaviors of its own. It should be mostly transparent to the user that they are in a browser. The fact that different browsers use different shortcuts makes that all the more important, that browser shortcuts need to be invoked in other ways that won't conflict.

Re: The curious case of disappearing Polish S

#44

Post by keeperofdakeys »

blahedo wrote: post #15

I do not have sufficient profanity in my verbal arsenal for websites that override basic, fundamental browser behaviour because they think they know better than I do what I actually meant to do. I have noticed Medium being a regular perpetrator of this sort of broken behaviour before. That one of the developers at Medium could run into such a glowing example of one of the many reasons it's nasty to override browser b…

I'm not sure if it's happening now, but at one point in time F5 wouldn't work to reload the page if twitter is loaded.

And not to mention google plus, that swallows Ctrl+PgDown and Ctrl+PgUp, which happen to be shortcuts to move through tabs. So you are moving through tabs, then you suddenly stop, and you have to reach for the mouse.

Re: The curious case of disappearing Polish S

#45

Post by Sami_Lehtinen »

Noticed similar issues with official Australian VISA / immigration pages. You can't simply fill some forms with your email address using Finnish keyboard. Why? Because they block usage of AltGr button on their page. They also prevent using clipboard blocking copy paste option for that sign. User has to be smart enough to switch to US keyboard and then enter @ sign and then switch back. So this is nothing new, but it's absolutely rude from part of the site designers to vandalize basic functionality like that. Normally @ is produced by AltGr + 2. I guess they got BOFH department, let's make this really annoying and prevent people from getting their business done, laugh.

Re: The curious case of disappearing Polish S

#46

Post by dredmorbius »

Or, as I found on a BBC news page earlier today (and reported via feedback), my middle mouse button on link to open in new tab wasn't -- the page was opening in the present tab.

Don't break user controls.

Seriously. Fucking. Annoying.

The tendency of sites to also force all links to open in a new tab is similarly annoying. I've got the means to choose. Leave it to me.

Another argument for disabling JS pretty much everywhere.

Re: The curious case of disappearing Polish S

#48

Post by dredmorbius »

cezarywojcik wrote: post #25
blahedo wrote: post #15

I do not have sufficient profanity in my verbal arsenal for websites that override basic, fundamental browser behaviour because they think they know better than I do what I actually meant to do. I have noticed Medium being a regular perpetrator of this sort of broken behaviour before. That one of the developers at Medium could run into such a glowing example of one of the many reasons it's nasty to override browser b…

While for the most part I agree with you, there are sometimes when it seems... appropriate. Take, for example, Google Docs. I'm used to hitting CTRL-S when working on just about any paper. If I had the save website dialog pop up every time I hit CTRL-S, I would start to get annoyed. I'm glad that Google Docs doesn't do that. A similar case can be made here.

A website should save your work as you go.

No fucking excuse.

Re: The curious case of disappearing Polish S

#49

Post by dredmorbius »

voltagex_ wrote: post #12
seppo0010 wrote: post #7

I think the article is too verbose when knowing the context the bug is trivial: you intercepted meta+s and ctrl+s and in the way you broke alt+s. I find the save dialog useless for web browsers as well, but I think preventing its use is a bad idea in general. Overriding the browser's shortcut is uncomfortable. For example, wordpress likes to capture cmd+ to change the font style, but that's how I usually change the a…

The actual bug was trivial, the backstory was really interesting - it's the kind of thing you'd hear about on the 99% Invisible podcast. Sometimes verbosity is nice, after all, who doesn't like to share a good bug-hunt story?

It could have been written in quarter of the words.

Re: The curious case of disappearing Polish S

#50

Post by dredmorbius »

chinpokomon wrote: post #43
qewrffewqwfqew wrote: post #10

Yet another example of why websites shouldn't be able to hijack keys that have meaning outside them (in the browser itself, or in the desktop environment). It still blows my mind that browsers permit this and don't provide an easy option to stop such abusive (and dangerous!) behaviour. The workaround is typical of web stuff as well: deal with the symptoms one by one while leaving the underlying problem unquestioned.

I feel like that's an old way of thinking. If websites are too grow up and become first class applications, and advancements in Chrome and Firefox are paving that way, we want the browser to become a very thin runtime that doesn't impose any behaviors of its own. It should be mostly transparent to the user that they are in a browser. The fact that different browsers use different shortcuts makes that all the more imp…

Split the web. If you want an applications platform with HTTP transport, build one. If you want a documents platform, build that as well.

Split out commerce and media while you're at it.

The present model's working increasingly poorly for me.

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