Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Evolving the Infinite Canvas

wattenberger.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 36 posts

Re: Evolving the Infinite Canvas

#21

Post by Towaway69 »

pfranz wrote: post #16
kamikaz1k wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because people will delete and create new modes as they iterate so those hash links become stale. So while the person who replied to you is technically correct, effectively it is still very unstable.

Similarly, on pages like GitLab you can link to specific line(s) of code in a file...but it often is the head of that branch. The URL will resolve in the future, but its pretty common that the chunk of code has moved. I wish it was easy to grab a URL for that specific version, with a banner at the top saying it's not the newest version of the code (something I sometimes see with documentation). I don't see why Figma…

> Similarly, on pages like GitLab you can link to specific line(s) of code in a file...but it often is the head of that branch. The URL will resolve in the future, but its pretty common that the chunk of code has moved.

On GitHub you can hit the 'y' key[1] and it will add the revision into the URL.

GitLab will most probably have something similar.

[1]=https://docs.github.com/en/get-started/accessibility/keyboar...

Re: Evolving the Infinite Canvas

#23

Post by rchaud »

evnc wrote: post #20
amelius wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: spreadsheets are Infinite Canvases, and are quite successful ...

This is an interesting point, because they are kinda infinite spaces but they also impose a structure on the space, which I would assert is a part of why they are so successful, in contrast to the "infinite structureless blank paper" that the OP is talking about. The trick is getting the amount of structure just right, not too much to be too restrictive and not so little that users are lost in the way the person you'…

Infinite canvases require panning and zooming with the mouse and tracking motion visually. A lot of users probably don't like the cognitive load of that compared to other types of apps.

Excel handles this better because navigating around a large sheet feels more like "snapping" as there's no UI motion as your view zooms in and out. Plus with shortcuts like CTRL + rArrow, which immediately snaps your selected cell to the rightmost end of the current range of cells, the infinite canvas feels downright zippy. Excel sheets also have tabs that signal to the users about how they can split up their data instead of filling up Sheet1 with every scenario. Infinite canvases make you create a new file.

Re: Evolving the Infinite Canvas

#24

Post by ssgodderidge »

teucris wrote: post #9

I used to be an infinite canvas fanatic, even building products that leveraged the concept, but ultimately I’ve abandoned it. There are too many issues with having an infinite canvas that make it untenable. This isn’t to say they should never be used, but rather that I believe there are good reasons why they aren’t used more. 1. Ambiguous structure - users cannot easily glean the structure of content from the layout…

> Also, without a representation of the underlying structure, an infinite canvas is fundamentally inaccessible.

This is really difficult to overcome without some kind of structure. I was really enthusiastic about infinite canvases, but I lost interest when I realized that screen readers would not do well

Re: Evolving the Infinite Canvas

#25

Post by technojamin »

smokel wrote: post #22

One nice implementation of an infinite canvas is Kinopio [1]. Not affiliated, just a fan. [1] https://kinopio.club/

I've seen this in the past, but it looks like the "magic paint" feature was added since then, and it really delighted me when I discovered it. It's such an intuitive way to implement multi-select on a canvas.

Re: Evolving the Infinite Canvas

#26

Post by gherkinnn »

Excellent exploration and beautiful execution.

Infinite canvases match the way I think. Back in the day, I would use Illustrator over Photoshop for UI work, as it gave me a (near) infinite canvas on which to doodle and explore. Sketch and now Figma continued this approach so I can't be alone here.

Re: Evolving the Infinite Canvas

#27

Post by esafak »

nicksergeant wrote: post #7

Infinite canvases like Figma give me infinite anxiety. There's no way to easily and sensibly hyperlink to specific areas/contexts within the canvas, and it's really difficult to find things unless you know exactly where to look. It's like the manifestation of a cluttered desk of papers in the digital world - exactly what we tried to avoid when building new digital interfaces for so many decades. Edit: there is a way…

You can link to sections. The hard part is searching. How do you search for a visual artifact?

Re: Evolving the Infinite Canvas

#28

Post by Varriount »

defart wrote: post #19
amelius wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Counterpoint: spreadsheets are Infinite Canvases, and are quite successful ...

You are usually not dropped in the middle of a spreadsheet with infinite rows/cols in each direction. You start at topleft which makes navigating much less 'exploratory'

If I recall correctly, Lego Mindstorm's GUI-based programming application (along with its various iterations) did something similar too, starting at a "leftmost" side of an infinite canvas.

Re: Evolving the Infinite Canvas

#29

Post by rsweeney21 »

In 2007 I worked in Office Labs at Microsoft. We explored the idea of creating presentations on an infinite canvas. It was pretty cool. It took inspiration from Seadragon. It was called Plex or PowerPoint Plex.

Unfortunately, all the demo videos were uploaded to Microsoft's YouTube competitor, which is now gone. But here's a video demo of Seadragon to give you an idea of what it was like:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PKwTurQgiak

Re: Evolving the Infinite Canvas

#30

Post by Am4TIfIsER0ppos »

amelius wrote: post #18
teucris wrote: post #9

I used to be an infinite canvas fanatic, even building products that leveraged the concept, but ultimately I’ve abandoned it. There are too many issues with having an infinite canvas that make it untenable. This isn’t to say they should never be used, but rather that I believe there are good reasons why they aren’t used more. 1. Ambiguous structure - users cannot easily glean the structure of content from the layout…

Counterpoint: spreadsheets are Infinite Canvases, and are quite successful ...

Are they? Don't they only go to ZZ?
Post reply on HN