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Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?

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Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?

#351

Post by mpfundstein »

jetti wrote: post #232
melvinroest wrote: post #21

This 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…

My wife was actually going to do this for a website. She is a teacher and wanted a small site for her classroom so that the kids and parents could keep up to date with the goings on in the classroom and she wanted to use Google Slides for this since she has used it for work before. I was shocked and was trying to talk her out of it. At the end of the day, she decided the site wasn't necessary or worth the effort so n…

I bet if you wouldn’t have crushed her creative spirit, this side would exist now. Made with google slides.

Why did you try to talk her out of it? What was the gain? Feeling superior?

Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?

#352

Post by mwcampbell »

miki123211 wrote: post #289

repl.it's jobs page[1] is basically a bash terminal running on the web. You navigate it by using standard commands like cd and ls, and read files with cat, more or similar. This is NOT a bash emulator, this is an actual bash, running in a Docker container somewhere. repl.it lets you build an app, in almost any language, on the web, and run it. If it's a console app using stdin/stdout, they even provide you with a ter…

Have you found any practical way to use this web-based terminal with a screen reader? I haven't.

Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?

#353

Post by quickthrower2 »

collyw wrote: post #141
mosselman wrote: post #10

I'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.

Server side rendering is very underrated.

Because it works. Things that just work and aren't new are underrated. Like HTML tables.

Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?

#354

Post by jaimex2 »

alluro2 wrote: post #217
jaimex2 wrote: post #88

Back in the days of Flash the web was full of interesting and weird UIs with tons of art and animation. ie - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N-2sKZjawq4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHbQmqmmIFk Now its just the same boring Bootstrap/Material design cookie cutter crap everywhere.

Ooh, 2advanced - as a high-school kid, I must have starred at versions of their "website" for more than 15h in total, in awe, and trying to soak in the pure awesomeness, hoping that it would affect how good early versions of my site will turn out :) Where "my site" was approx 200h of work over something like 15 revisions and complete redo's for a "portfolio" site with 1 design in it :D Good times - I think my parents…

Same, it really set the bar on what I would try and create during that time. I really liked Flash and its creative tools - I was really hoping the web would continue to make awesome sites with even better tools based on pure HTML.

Mobiles pretty much destroyed all of it as we focus on making sites that can render well on any screen size now.

Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?

#355

Post by debaserab2 »

diminoten wrote: post #349
debaserab2 wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sounds like in your case lambda might be a good fit? I'm not really sure because you're not really explaining your use case. For the vast majority of crud based web apps that I've seen or worked on in the last decade, lambda would not have been a good fit. There's a lot of people drinking the serverless koolaid right now and applying it to scenarios that don't fit it well.

Just sounds like you're drinking the same koolaid, just the opposite flavor. Have you actually built a lambda backed web service? Guessing no, or you'd know better than to complain about price. Plenty of better arguments to be had than the one lambda actually does decently on...

Yes, I have written lambda functions. In our case it was very cost effective because it was a batch processing job that was relatively infrequently accessed.

I'm not drinking any kool-aid, I've just broken down the math to see what it would actually cost. You can too if you know what your traffic looks like.

https://blog.binaris.com/lambda-pricing-pitfalls/

Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?

#356

Post by p_l »

htfu wrote: post #215
ehnto wrote: post #206

Vimium may not be a web UI itself but it layers on top of them, and I have found it to be a way more efficient and concise way to navigate the web.

The issue for me is, since it hooks into the current page, hence doesn't work if it's blank, slow loading etc, you end up reverting to basic shortcuts often enough, breaking flow. Still well worth it just for d u j k and f, though :)

Vimperator had no such limitation, but the APIs necessary for such functionality had been jettisoned by Firefox

Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?

#357

Post by pmarreck »

tripzilch wrote: post #286
pmarreck wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> When intranet webapps came along everyone breathed a huge sigh of relief Not so fast. As a web developer we still had to contend with the horror of IE5/6/7 for a few more years, and initially WITHOUT anything resembling the utility of something like JQuery!

I remember being happy when IE7 came out, because it fixed a bunch of CSS bugs in IE6, and also finally supporting PNG transparency meant that whole new kinds of design were actually possible ... feels so weird knowing what we can do today with CSS and be reasonably sure it works in three major browsers.

I was building "IE-only" internal web apps at the time (with increasing disgust) and having to support legacy browsers even if you knew they were just IE was hell. When I finally broke out into open-source and STILL had to support IE BUT ALSO firefox, safari and chrome (did chrome even exist yet? Mozilla maybe?)... it was not a happy time

Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?

#358

Post by collyw »

mrighele wrote: post #221
collyw wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hacker News is pretty minimal in terms of UI. I like it for that.

The UI could be improved on mobile. The links are quite close one to each other and I regularly tap the wrong one, especially when I want to hide a tree of comments or a topic on the main page.

That's true, it's crap on mobile.

Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?

#359

Post by diminoten »

debaserab2 wrote: post #355
diminoten wrote: post #349

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just sounds like you're drinking the same koolaid, just the opposite flavor. Have you actually built a lambda backed web service? Guessing no, or you'd know better than to complain about price. Plenty of better arguments to be had than the one lambda actually does decently on...

Yes, I have written lambda functions. In our case it was very cost effective because it was a batch processing job that was relatively infrequently accessed. I'm not drinking any kool-aid, I've just broken down the math to see what it would actually cost. You can too if you know what your traffic looks like. https://blog.binaris.com/lambda-pricing-pitfalls/

"Would" is not a phrase you'd use if you've actually written lambda functions the way we're talking about.

I have. It's pennies, literal pennies. None of those pitfalls actually end up adding up to more than pennies, everything there is entirely theoretical and does not actualize with substantial consequence, in my experience.

Re: Ask HN: What are weird and/or novel ways to do web UIs?

#360

Post by [deleted] »

diminoten wrote: post #359
debaserab2 wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I have written lambda functions. In our case it was very cost effective because it was a batch processing job that was relatively infrequently accessed. I'm not drinking any kool-aid, I've just broken down the math to see what it would actually cost. You can too if you know what your traffic looks like. https://blog.binaris.com/lambda-pricing-pitfalls/

"Would" is not a phrase you'd use if you've actually written lambda functions the way we're talking about. I have. It's pennies, literal pennies. None of those pitfalls actually end up adding up to more than pennies, everything there is entirely theoretical and does not actualize with substantial consequence, in my experience.

[deleted]
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