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Defensive CSS

defensivecss.dev

41–50 of 73 posts

Re: Defensive CSS

#41

It's crazy that there's so much extra cruft when it comes to crafting web interfaces when a CLI is most often the most powerful and easiest way to get a job done. Am I just taking crazy pills?

The real crazy thing is that Delphi/VB got UIs right in the 90s and the JS folks keep reinventing everything.

What are examples of successful Delphi/VB UIs?

Re: Defensive CSS

#42

It's crazy that there's so much extra cruft when it comes to crafting web interfaces when a CLI is most often the most powerful and easiest way to get a job done. Am I just taking crazy pills?

The real crazy thing is that Delphi/VB got UIs right in the 90s and the JS folks keep reinventing everything.

Did it, though? I don't think I've used a Delphi/VB-based application like... ever? I've made some myself back in the day and fiddled around with my friend's university assigments, but I can't think of any real world application using it. Maybe you have some examples?

Re: Defensive CSS

#43
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But that's only one of the tips, the rest of the tips are about adapting to arbitrary screen size and content without visually breaking? Sometimes you just have to clip user-generated content, though, because you can't tell the user to "make sure the label succinct enough to fit in this menu." The user will do as they please, and the layout must adapt or break. What alternative is there? Sure, you could limit the len…

Clipping shouldn't be done at the design level. This is an application logic concern. If the application did not impose a character limit, or imposed a large one, the design must accommodate this freedom.

But what about user-agents that override font-face and font-size? Those are important accessibility features for people with poor vision or dyslexia.

Without knowing the rendered width of the text string, you can't limit the text ahead of time. Or are you saying that all designs that can't accommodate text-wrapping should be avoided?

Re: Defensive CSS

#44
post #10

Wow this is great. I could have really used some of these examples a few days ago. CSS grid combined with media queries feels like cheating to me. Am I missing something big here, or is this all safe to use in 2022?

This is worth the price ;)

Aside from the Grid-centric lessons, the Grid v Flexbox is worth watching more than once.

https://cssgrid.io/

Re: Defensive CSS

#46
post #26

Ok, the first thing I looked at is "long content" https://defensivecss.dev/tip/long-content/ and here they recommend to just clip it. Because who cares about content right? Who cares if the partial content you display is useless, as long as it looks good. And that's the kind of tip everyone here is applauding. I would like to say webdesign is in a sorry state nowawadays, except it was also that way 20 years ago. Mayb…

I used to say there are two kinds of UI designers: the ones who care about the interface, and the ones who care about the user.

Then we renamed it UX, trying to make both words about the user, and while I have spent less time navigating the post-rename world than I did the pre-rename world, my understanding of both human nature and the tech news cycle tells me that basically nothing changed.

Just like calling it Software Engineering didn't stop people from YOLOing spaghetti code and gambling on musical chairs or an air of obliviousness to get them out of the blast radius.

Re: Defensive CSS

#47
post #26

Ok, the first thing I looked at is "long content" https://defensivecss.dev/tip/long-content/ and here they recommend to just clip it. Because who cares about content right? Who cares if the partial content you display is useless, as long as it looks good. And that's the kind of tip everyone here is applauding. I would like to say webdesign is in a sorry state nowawadays, except it was also that way 20 years ago. Mayb…

IMHO, I like the original better than the after too.

However, I did think this was a handy feature to point out, just probably not the best example.

Re: Defensive CSS

#48
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clipping shouldn't be done at the design level. This is an application logic concern. If the application did not impose a character limit, or imposed a large one, the design must accommodate this freedom.

But what about user-agents that override font-face and font-size? Those are important accessibility features for people with poor vision or dyslexia. Without knowing the rendered width of the text string, you can't limit the text ahead of time. Or are you saying that all designs that can't accommodate text-wrapping should be avoided?

If the user has large text because they can’t read easily, how is clipping it short going to help them read it?

Re: Defensive CSS

#50

It's crazy that there's so much extra cruft when it comes to crafting web interfaces when a CLI is most often the most powerful and easiest way to get a job done. Am I just taking crazy pills?

The real crazy thing is that Delphi/VB got UIs right in the 90s and the JS folks keep reinventing everything.

I loved that era and it was great, but it didn’t handle resizing to fit different screen sizes well at all.

I’m still holding out for a similar interface builder that can handle responsive design.

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