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

Why our website looks like an operating system

posthog.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

441–450 of 504 posts

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#441

Post by nayuki »

> I’ll want to refer to different pages at the same time. So I’ll CMD + click “a couple times” while browsing around and before I know it, I have 12 new tabs open

> You can multitask, open a few articles simultaneously, and move them around as you please.

> It has window snapping, keyboard shortcuts, and a bookmark app. It works as well as you’d expect an operating system to work in a browser.

> You can be reading the latest newsletter from Product for Engineers while watching a demo video in the corner and also playing Hedgehog Mode, the game.

Please stop that; you're creating the https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inner-platform_effect a second time. The fact that a web browser is an inner platform with respect to the bare-metal operating system is bad enough already.

> I have 12 new tabs open – all indistinguishable from each other because they share the same favicon.

Nothing precludes you from declaring a different favicon per page or per author. That's a site design problem, not a browser software problem.

> It has [...] keyboard shortcuts

Yet, I can't even scroll your page using my usual keys of Up/Down/Space/Shift+Space/PgUp/PgDn. That is rather disrespectful to my preferences, before you throw in all that unnecessary inner window chrome.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#442

Post by scosman »

sgustard wrote: post #389
scosman wrote: post #356

Usability and perf experience for me: - I'm getting about 5 FPS scrolling on a M4 Pro - Moving a "window" around takes 29% of my CPU, and renders at about 2 fps - I'm losing about 40% of my screen height for reading (14" laptop screen). So much so none of the article is visible above the fold, just the title and by-line. - My browser's CMD-F finds things on layers hidden under the current window - Changing window siz…

No FPS or CPU issues on my M3, it's all very smooth. Same slow spreadsheet load as sibling, but that seems like a backend issue.

Interesting. I’m in safari.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#444

Post by troupo »

9rx wrote: post #425
troupo wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> But since we're talking about in the context of browsers specifically... ... then we all know it only cookies that matter? I don't understand the ellipsis

Cookies don't matter. There are many different ways to track users without using cookies even when talking about browsers specifically. But what does matter was already discussed. Are you reading comments in complete isolation again or what? There is a context that has been built up.

> Cookies don't matter. There are many different ways to track users without using cookies

Oh look. Here's what I wrote:

--- start quote ---

The law isn't about browsers or websites. It equally applies to all tracking. E.g. in apps. Or in physical stores.

--- end quote ---

> But what does matter was already discussed. Are you reading comments in complete isolation again or what? There is a context that has been built up.

This is literally the only thread around your comment. There are dozens of other discussions, yes. I was specifically replying to your comment, and expecting replies within the context of your comment.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#445

Post by Gormo »

nonethewiser wrote: post #369
arghwhat wrote: post #357

Oh god. It has a pleasant color scheme, but this is an awful idea. By trying to recreate windows and bookmarks in the web app you're at best just implementing redundant features and getting in the way of the native browser features by trying to showcase yours, at worst breaking regular web usage entirely. Take their right click menu for items to select whether you want an in-app tab or real browser tab. Congrats, you…

Without a doubt. Interesting idea and nice looking UI. But like you said it's creating a browser within a browser, without all the native browser support. I found the navigation to be scattered and disorienting. In general clicking links opens new windows. In one case it navigated away from the current "page" and what I believe to be the back button (looks more like undo) didn't do anything. Why am I guessing what co…

> I found the navigation to be scattered and disorienting.

I find to be significantly less scattered and disorienting than the vast majority of "modern" websites.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#448

Post by kulahan »

arghwhat wrote: post #357

Oh god. It has a pleasant color scheme, but this is an awful idea. By trying to recreate windows and bookmarks in the web app you're at best just implementing redundant features and getting in the way of the native browser features by trying to showcase yours, at worst breaking regular web usage entirely. Take their right click menu for items to select whether you want an in-app tab or real browser tab. Congrats, you…

It's doubly crazy because who's ever heard of software devs not following standards? They're called engineers for a reason! ;)

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#449

Post by leri1212 »

scosman wrote: post #442
sgustard wrote: post #389

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No FPS or CPU issues on my M3, it's all very smooth. Same slow spreadsheet load as sibling, but that seems like a backend issue.

Interesting. I’m in safari.

I'm also in Safari on my MacBook Air M1, but the performance is pretty good though...

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#450

Post by kldg »

This is a very neat design; it's quite complicated, but I don't see anything particularly unnecessary. I use DPI scaling, so I was impressed because it's something I tend to have a hassle with in testing frontends which need to be aware of dimensions of objects and calculate where the user's cursor is. The "close all" button in window manager is pretty good.

This will be good to study from, if nothing else for me personally. I appreciate that it's almost wholly unobfuscated.

Post reply on HN