ASCII Art Weather • Hacker News Board

Re: ASCII Art Weather

#51

Post by mediumdeviation » Thu, Apr 14, 2016, 11:30 AM UTC

developer2 wrote: post #48

mediumdeviation wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try looking at the source of the page. There's no way in hell anyone would call that "just" the data necessary to convey the information. The site is also unusable on mobile, because ASCII art unlike proper semantic HTML is not easily rescalable by the browser. And it's inaccessible by users relying on screen readers, ironically because of all the ASCII cruft.

On iOS the page scales as expected. The only visual glitch with columns not matching up is something I'm getting on non-zoomed desktop as well. Presumably this is from specific source text of as-of-yet unexpected lengths not being handled properly during calculation of the maximum columns. The accessibility issue would be resolved by using workarounds typical of screen-reader solutions: ARIA markup, tricks like Boots…

On Android the browser renders the page at full width, making the icon and text unreadablely small. You can zoom in, but that shouldn't be necessary in the first place if the site was responsive.

Bootstrap's screens reader only classes are somewhat of a hack, and does the opposite of what you're suggesting anyway (aria-hidden is the proper way to go, but as you said that will mean adding a ridiculous amount of markup to the page), while images support screen readers natively via the alt attribute - no messy markup needed.

Re: ASCII Art Weather

#52

Post by akerro » Thu, Apr 14, 2016, 11:34 AM UTC

mediumdeviation wrote: post #29

dredmorbius wrote: post #19

What's impressed me about this is how much faster it is than Web pages or Android apps. Really: just transmit the data necessary to convey your information. Your app is in the way. wttr.in on Android using Termux is actually pretty awesome.

Try looking at the source of the page. There's no way in hell anyone would call that "just" the data necessary to convey the information. The site is also unusable on mobile, because ASCII art unlike proper semantic HTML is not easily rescalable by the browser. And it's inaccessible by users relying on screen readers, ironically because of all the ASCII cruft.

>The site is also unusable on mobile

Not everyone wants their webpages to be seen on mobile, this one works perfectly in lynx. Does your website work in lynx?

Re: ASCII Art Weather

#53

Post by panic » Thu, Apr 14, 2016, 12:00 PM UTC

Neat idea! The social buttons on the bottom kinda ruin the aesthetic, though (at least for me).

Re: ASCII Art Weather

#54

Post by thecryof » Thu, Apr 14, 2016, 12:02 PM UTC

Plain, cool.

Re: ASCII Art Weather

#55

Post by mediumdeviation » Thu, Apr 14, 2016, 12:20 PM UTC

akerro wrote: post #52

mediumdeviation wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Try looking at the source of the page. There's no way in hell anyone would call that "just" the data necessary to convey the information. The site is also unusable on mobile, because ASCII art unlike proper semantic HTML is not easily rescalable by the browser. And it's inaccessible by users relying on screen readers, ironically because of all the ASCII cruft.

>The site is also unusable on mobile Not everyone wants their webpages to be seen on mobile, this one works perfectly in lynx. Does your website work in lynx?

I would go out on a limb and say yes. Any website designed with screen reader accessibility in mind would work with Lynx, which is a more capable browser than screen readers.

Re: ASCII Art Weather

#56

Post by ninjakeyboard » Thu, Apr 14, 2016, 12:22 PM UTC

cool! wind direction causes column alignment issues a bit in chrome.

Re: ASCII Art Weather

#57

Post by ape4 » Thu, Apr 14, 2016, 12:25 PM UTC

dredmorbius wrote: post #19

What's impressed me about this is how much faster it is than Web pages or Android apps. Really: just transmit the data necessary to convey your information. Your app is in the way. wttr.in on Android using Termux is actually pretty awesome.

It could be argued that you don't need an ascii icon for "sunny", etc.

Re: ASCII Art Weather

#58

Post by yaronn01 » Thu, Apr 14, 2016, 1:06 PM UTC

To visualize weather in the terminal you can also use:

$> a=$(curl -Ls "bit.ly/1OuRPDJ"); curl --data "$a" "tty.zone?cols=${COLUMNS}"

(via https://github.com/yaronn/wopr)

Re: ASCII Art Weather

#59

Post by emcrazyone » Thu, Apr 14, 2016, 1:19 PM UTC

mediumdeviation wrote: post #29

dredmorbius wrote: post #19

What's impressed me about this is how much faster it is than Web pages or Android apps. Really: just transmit the data necessary to convey your information. Your app is in the way. wttr.in on Android using Termux is actually pretty awesome.

Try looking at the source of the page. There's no way in hell anyone would call that "just" the data necessary to convey the information. The site is also unusable on mobile, because ASCII art unlike proper semantic HTML is not easily rescalable by the browser. And it's inaccessible by users relying on screen readers, ironically because of all the ASCII cruft.

FYI: It scaled perfectly fine on my Android/Galaxy S5 so while it's scalable, I can't comment on how "easily scalable" it is nor if screen readers would have a problem.

I would think screen readers would have no impact. Text is pretty much text (utf8, etc...) and the scaling is handled by your font choice not your text choice.

^^shrug^^

Re: ASCII Art Weather

#60

Post by a3n » Thu, Apr 14, 2016, 1:28 PM UTC

It even looks good when I turn off CSS, just lose color, and presentation of the badges at the bottom. Looks really nice in the terminal (urxvt/linux).