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Why our website looks like an operating system

posthog.com

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Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#471

Post by codethief »

em-bee wrote: post #323
jolmg wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> i have two dozen tmux windows in half a dozen sessions locally. > i have yet to find a window manager that lets me group so many terminals into sessions all on the same workspace. Locally-speaking, I don't really see the point of mixing tmux sessions and tmux windows. I wonder if you mean "sessions" -> tmux windows and "windows" -> tmux panes. What about i3/sway? You can have a tabbed container (functions like tmux…

I don't really see the point of mixing tmux sessions and tmux windows. sessions let you group windows. i have a group/session for each project/purpose. one session is for all remote connections. one for my personal stuff, diary, etc. one for my hobby. one for personal dev projects, one for client work. sessions also means that i can connect to tmux from multiple terminal windows. i generally have two windows, one for…

> one session is for all remote connections. one for my personal stuff, diary, etc. one for my hobby. one for personal dev projects, one for client work.

Why would you have all those open at the same time, though? Isn't that incredibly distracting? (Disclaimer: I have no experience with tmux to speak of, beyond briefly trying it once or twice.)

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#472

Post by codethief »

NicuCalcea wrote: post #315
keyle wrote: post #13

It's neat but it runs like a dog. I opened a couple of things and tried to move the window... I'd take a statically generated bunch of webpages over this. If you're going to make one of those multi window webpages looking thing, make it good. To note, in the past, this was a big no-no because SEO was important. You had to have good SEO for search engines to index your content efficiently and show up well ranked in se…

It took a good 20 seconds for it to fully load in Firefox on Android.

Another FF on Android user here. Out of the many issues I've run into with this website, performance hasn't really been one of them. It's not perfect and it did lag once or twice but your average newspaper site is a lot worse.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#473

Post by ninetyninenine »

nonethewiser wrote: post #460
ninetyninenine wrote: post #420

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why don’t you read why they did that. Instead you responded with your own reasoning without countering or responding to there reasoning. I actually agree with you but the article has actual points that you didn’t bother to read or reference. Like this: Frankly for a site like this efficient use of space and multi tasking isn’t as important for a front page. A front page needs to be optimized to be in your face to und…

Multi-tasking? With About pages, Blog posts, pricing, etc. I have no doubt there is a subset of features here that could be implemented as a single page app.

Disagree. Most people don’t care about blog posts. Most of those are for SEO. It’s the beginning of a pipeline that flows from multiple endpoints.

A person can directly enter in the url that’s one endpoint. Another person can do a Google search and fine the blog that’s another end point.

All of those flows funnel the person in a singular direction with a single purpose: a purchase. Like what else do you want the customer to do? Go off on a tangent?

You can have multiple flows that loop back to a purchase but it’s much less predictable that way. Better to have a singular proven flow all the way to a purchase and that flow has to provide clarity on what the product is.

I come to the posthog website and I’m confused. This is a toy. It’s cool I can meander around and in time discover what the site does. I mean it’s ok.

A better site is one where I just look at the site I know what it’s for and I know the product. As I scroll down I see other tidbits or widgets that are like testimonials or proven examples and other things that convince me to buy. Finally I hit the pricing page.

That’s a better way to sell. Post hog is a cool site but not an efficient one. Not an efficient site for selling a product.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#474

Post by em-bee »

codethief wrote: post #471
em-bee wrote: post #323

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't really see the point of mixing tmux sessions and tmux windows. sessions let you group windows. i have a group/session for each project/purpose. one session is for all remote connections. one for my personal stuff, diary, etc. one for my hobby. one for personal dev projects, one for client work. sessions also means that i can connect to tmux from multiple terminal windows. i generally have two windows, one for…

> one session is for all remote connections. one for my personal stuff, diary, etc. one for my hobby. one for personal dev projects, one for client work. Why would you have all those open at the same time, though? Isn't that incredibly distracting? (Disclaimer: I have no experience with tmux to speak of, beyond briefly trying it once or twice.)

not being distracted is the whole point. if i have everything in a window, then i would have 20 windows. that would be distracting. with tmux i only have one visible window and all other windows are hidden, and i switch to the window i want to use. (ok, i could do that with gui windows too, i am just making a point)

these things are open because otherwise i would have to open them and close them every time i want to use them. by keeping them open i can switch back and forth faster. but, while i am not using them they are invisible. and i don't notice that they are there.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#475

Post by Twey »

badsectoracula wrote: post #380
Twey wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh no I get that the in-site MDI is a funny stylistic choice, and I've no problem with it. But the thing it's poking fun at is in-browser MDI, hence the comment. I stand by the anti-pattern comment. I think there are very, very few cases where ‘MDI’ is appropriate, and I put it in quotes because the things being managed in that case are almost never ‘documents’ in any meaningful sense (rather they're some kind of gra…

Well, i already mentioned an example: image editors. IMO image editing is one of the perfect cases for MDI because not only you can have multiple images visible at the same time, but also multiple views of the same image (useful for pixel art, for example). Most MDI applications allow you to dock and/or float stuff in the edges/over the windows which is useful to avoid repeating the same chrome at every window (which…

There's nothing stopping a window manager from supporting docking windows to each other, or the more common option in tiling window managers of having nested tiling groups so you can arrange your editor windows however you like and manipulate them together. Metisse [1] takes it even further, letting you slice a ‘palette’ out of one window and put it in another. In practice I, like you and I suspect a lot of other people, use workspaces in lieu of task groups, which works fine for simple use cases and small monitors.

The only applications that really need MDI are those that do something with their windows other than window management, which (loosely) implies that those things are something other than windows.

[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metisse

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#476

Post by Twey »

dheerajvs wrote: post #318
Twey wrote: post #3

I've always thought ‘multi-document interfaces’ as we used to call them are an anti-pattern. I have a perfectly good window manager; why does every app need its own incompatible, usually inferior window manager built in? (Mind you on mobile I very much don't have a perfectly good window manager, and indeed can't even open multiple instances of most apps…)

Would you extend that argument to tabbed interfaces as well? Why should browsers support tabs (and an inconsistent interface by each vendor), when you can just open a new window instead?

Even better, WMs can (and sometimes do) support tabs!

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#477

Post by Nevermark »

maksimur wrote: post #230
hliyan wrote: post #149

Why this feels so incredibly appealing compared to prevailing designs is probably something for a psychologist / cognitive scientist / neurologist (?) to answer -- there is certainly something here that warrants better study than what we in the software industry do in rushed blog posts. But I can personally speak to at least one aspect, having worked for a company that does high end web sites and strategy for large S…

I would be more cautious in generalizing this feeling. To me that interface feels daunting and cognitively taxing, compared to a CLI or command palette.

I am trying to re-imagine the site as a beautiful CLI.

If anybody could do it, I expects its Posthog.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#478

Post by NicuCalcea »

codethief wrote: post #472
NicuCalcea wrote: post #315

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It took a good 20 seconds for it to fully load in Firefox on Android.

Another FF on Android user here. Out of the many issues I've run into with this website, performance hasn't really been one of them. It's not perfect and it did lag once or twice but your average newspaper site is a lot worse.

It didn't lag once it loaded, it just took a long time to load. The top navbar and other elements loaded fairly quickly, but the text only popped in after about 20 seconds.

Re: Why our website looks like an operating system

#480

Post by lpln3452 »

My goal on a webpage for specific product information is simply to extract data and leave. I have zero interest in learning a new immersive UX for a task that should take seconds.

The modern web's obsession with maximizing engagement and time on page is fundamentally user hostile. It creates a frustrating experience for anyone viewing the web as a utility rather than just a source of entertainment.

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