Any examples of websites with ZUIs? Looks interesting!
Not a website, but pretty wild: http://eaglemode.sourceforge.net/
Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?
121–130 of 364 posts
Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?
#122A while back, just for kicks, I built a site whose UI is essentially a slideshow that takes the form of a draggable map. The content is sort of like a PowerPoint presentation, but user interaction is more like Google Maps.
http://www.youmightbe.pressbin.com
It's not a particularly efficient way for users to traverse the content, but I think it's fun.
The site gives an intro to Distributism, a "third way" economic model that is neither Capitalism nor Socialism nor a mishmash of the two.
Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?
#123This is a bit of an odd answer, even in a question that expects odd answers. That is because it sounds so normal, yet I have Googled for it and almost no one advocates for it. They do maybe advocate for it in terms of design, but I mean in making actual static websites. Enter Google Slides: the product for your uncle Joe and aunt Lysa to create their own websites without knowing how to code! I even have an example we…
Hey, I had the same idea long ago: creating a website-like functioning slide show. There was no Google Slides back then so I used Powerpoint and I had no way of putting the "website" on internet.
Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?
#124Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?
#125Craigslist. Here is something novel: let html and browsers do their job. Let your browser process simple html at light speed. Let GET be idempotent. Let users be anonymous while getting information.
That doesn't sound like it will let someone spend <2 years building their resume without regard to the consequences before moving on to repeat the process at a different SV company though.
Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?
#126I've heard that some people build UIs with thousands of dependencies, in JavaScript that hits the server for text that is then parsed to object that are then passed through all sorts of classes that each spit out HTML. They also do some weird stuff with events like key-ups in order to re-render input fields based on objects rather than letting the browser manage those kinds of things. Sounds pretty weird to me.
Yes! Web development is "weird" because we (developers) are basically constantly trying to put square pegs into round holes. Over the past ~25 years, a document delivery system has been perverted into a application delivery system. The underlying, fundamental technologies were not intended for "UI" app development.
The web is "weird" because it's not a platform with a monopoly owner, but the place where platform would-be monopolists fight. Microsoft had a go with ActiveX and lost. Then came back with IE6's incompatibilities and lost again. Adobe had a longer go with Flash and lost. Sun kind of tried with Java applets.
Now we can see the two big vendors Google and Apple trying to slip in features that help their apps or platforms. This is partly why some people worry about the dominance of Chrome; once it's totally dominant, Google can e.g. interfere with adblockers without worrying about losing users to the competition.
Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?
#127Craigslist. Here is something novel: let html and browsers do their job. Let your browser process simple html at light speed. Let GET be idempotent. Let users be anonymous while getting information.
Just give me web access to your FTP server ffs.
Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?
#128Craigslist. Here is something novel: let html and browsers do their job. Let your browser process simple html at light speed. Let GET be idempotent. Let users be anonymous while getting information.
But then what will your rockstar engineers do?
Didn't some of them work on Perl itself?
Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?
#129I haven't seen this on a page, but David Gelernter wrote about Lifestreams[1] in "Mechanical Beauty," which is a good read.
Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?
#130How about exe in the URL? I can only imagine whats going on behind the scenes. https://www.example.com/searchUtility.exe?a=1
Compiled language CGI running on IIS. Unusual, but not that weird.
Probably an old setup, nowadays the .exe would be hidden with a rewrite rule and you would be none the wiser.