WTF Bites

Atazhaia

Visited the local seller of -enhanced products so I could ogle, stroke, finger and fondle all over their lap-based offerings to see which one felt the most right.

Even the guy in the store couldn't understand the new MacBook Air and said "Most people look at the price and then buy the MacBook Pro instead." Hardly any weight difference, and you get a much more powerful computer too. I did get to compare the non-fixed keyboard of the 2017 MBP and the fixed keyboard of the 2018 MBP/MBA and the fixed version is indeed nicer. And a lot less issue-prone according to the seller.

But anyway: I decided to take a look at their website after which is the part. Their website is pretty much all screenshots of the Apple product pages, scaled down slightly to fit their narrower content areas. So you get smaller and slightly fuzzy text as well as a complete inability for any screen reader to read it out. They did also have a picture that compared all MacBooks instead of just two at a time like on the Apple site, so that's nice. But with the BTO options edited out as they only offer the base versions.

I also noticed they misspelled one of the ID tags for linking to the price, spelling it as "#pirce". But the link worked still. So that's good?

I was sorta wondering if I should buy from them, but I kinda need at least the RAM upgrade for the 13" and I'll lose my discount too so...

Lorne Kates

@Rhywden said in WTF Bites:

@dkf said in WTF Bites:

@Lorne-Kates said in WTF Bites:

You think Wordpress-- or PHP in general-- uses a log in any useful manner?

I think that Wordpress is stupid as a log. Will that do?

No. You can at least set fire to a log to keep you warm.

It's big, it's heavy, it's wood.
It's better than bad, it's good.

Lorne Kates

Oh goodie Gmail is fucking around with the UI again.

Before:

Open an email
Read it
You're now at the bottom of the email, and there's a nice, convenient textarea you can click in and start replying! One click, and we're replying!

Now:

Open an email (with hover effects flashing on and off on every fucking UI element)
Read it
You're now at the bottom of the email
- But there's no reply area!
- Instead, there's two nigh-invisible buttons "reply" and "forward"-- which are white background on white background, with a light-grey border and light grey text. So they look like disabled controls. So it's another reason your brain will automagically overlook them.
- They are positioned directly under the [...] UI that means "click me to see the quoted message". Which you almost never do. So you're already used to ignoring the bottom-left corner. Besides, your eyes (and attention) are on the bottom LEFT, because you just finished reading the last line of the email.
You look at the top of the email, because that's where the usual command buttons are. Reply, forward, delete. But there's no reply. Is my browser broken or something?
You finally see the buttons figure out to click them (even though they look disabled)
The reply box NOW shows. Except Gmail removes the Reply/Forward buttons, and replaces it with the Reply area
- This means your mouse is now hovering over the first name in the To: field. With the giant (x) to remove them. So if you happen to mis-click then (ie: a laptop), you will remove the person you're replying to from the email
- Now that you finally have a place to reply to, you can click in it.

So that's now at least TWO clicks to do a task that used to take one, with a confusing UI that exists for no reason other than to "look clean". Fuck you, Google.

pie_flavor

@Lorne-Kates
https://i.imgur.com/zNo96st.png
Perhaps you are white/black colorblind? Just a thought.

Zecc

@Lorne-Kates You should post screenshots for posterity.

Because they'll change it again (for some users) in a few days.

izzion

I present to you a live action video of the .NET Framework 4.7.1 offline installer while installing:

0_1542130434787_00e4e3b2-12e0-4ed9-b19d-a2284863603d-image.png

Lorne Kates

@Zecc said in WTF Bites:

screenshots

So we're doing this, huh? Okay.

(click to embigged, because the text isn't very legible in the thumbnail)

Here's the UI right now:
0_1542130129010_455e8d0c-55e6-4ca9-b9a2-e28b75f76703-image.png

Now here's why it sucks:

0_1542132073488_0b818f5e-66e8-48bc-87d8-552e3f28c58c-image.png

pie_flavor

@Lorne-Kates So in other words you get distracted by... absolutely nothing at all. Amazing. Also, those buttons are black on my screen. Blame FF22.

anotherusername

@Lorne-Kates Try changing the theme.

boomzilla

@pie_flavor said in WTF Bites:

@Lorne-Kates So in other words you get distracted by... absolutely nothing at all. Amazing. Also, those buttons are black on my screen. Blame FF22.

They're black here, too, but I guess Canada is whiter.

Tsaukpaetra

@boomzilla said in WTF Bites:

@pie_flavor said in WTF Bites:

@Lorne-Kates So in other words you get distracted by... absolutely nothing at all. Amazing. Also, those buttons are black on my screen. Blame FF22.

They're black here, too, but I guess Canada is whiter.

Maybe they're not black until the mouse is over the message?

boomzilla

@Tsaukpaetra said in WTF Bites:

@boomzilla said in WTF Bites:

@pie_flavor said in WTF Bites:

@Lorne-Kates So in other words you get distracted by... absolutely nothing at all. Amazing. Also, those buttons are black on my screen. Blame FF22.

They're black here, too, but I guess Canada is whiter.

Maybe they're not black until the mouse is over the message?

Or you plow away the snow?

Tsaukpaetra

@boomzilla said in WTF Bites:

@Tsaukpaetra said in WTF Bites:

@boomzilla said in WTF Bites:

@pie_flavor said in WTF Bites:

@Lorne-Kates So in other words you get distracted by... absolutely nothing at all. Amazing. Also, those buttons are black on my screen. Blame FF22.

They're black here, too, but I guess Canada is whiter.

Maybe they're not black until the mouse is over the message?

Or you plow away the snow?

Snow is made of water! Water is clear! Therefore if Snow is affecting your vision it must be dirty! Dirty dirty Snow!

Gąska

@Tsaukpaetra

http://i.imgur.com/LXSVmMy.jpg

Zerosquare

@izzion said in WTF Bites:

You think that's bad? Every time I tried to run the offline .NET installer on a Windows 10 machine, I got the message "To run this program, you need to install the .NET Framework first".

Lorne Kates

@pie_flavor said in WTF Bites:

So in other words you get distracted by... absolutely nothing at all.

No, I'm saying that things that are buried in a sea of nothing, ie: copious amounts of whitespace, fade away from vision. Especially if they're very light grey. And I'm not using FF22, so there.

And it's trivial to inspect the element and see bog standard border-color properties. Oh, and the background is transparent, so it wouldn't matter what the theme was. It'd be the same color as the background.

pie_flavor

@Lorne-Kates said in WTF Bites:

No, I'm saying that things that are buried in a sea of nothing, ie: copious amounts of whitespace, fade away from vision. Especially if they're very light grey. And I'm not using FF22, so there.

Good thing they're not very light gray, then. Update your browser.

Lorne Kates

@pie_flavor said in WTF Bites:

@Lorne-Kates said in WTF Bites:

No, I'm saying that things that are buried in a sea of nothing, ie: copious amounts of whitespace, fade away from vision. Especially if they're very light grey. And I'm not using FF22, so there.

Good thing they're not very light gray, then. Update your browser.

Update your eyes.

Span:

: n-items;
: center;
background-attachment: scroll;
background-clip: border-box;
background-color: transparent;
background-image: none;
background-origin: padding-box;
background-position: 0% 0%;
background-position-x: 0%;
background-position-y: 0%;
background-repeat: repeat;
background-size: auto auto;
border-bottom-color: rgb(95, 99, 104);
border-bottom-left-radius: 4px;
border-bottom-right-radius: 4px;
border-bottom-style: none;
border-bottom-width: 0px;
border-collapse: collapse;
border-image-outset: 0 0 0 0;
border-image-repeat: stretch stretch;
border-image-slice: 100% 100% 100% 100%;
border-image-source: none;
border-image-width: 1 1 1 1;
border-left-color: rgb(95, 99, 104);
border-left-style: none;
border-left-width: 0px;
border-right-color: rgb(95, 99, 104);
border-right-style: none;
border-right-width: 0px;
border-spacing: 2px 2px;
border-top-color: rgb(95, 99, 104);
border-top-left-radius: 4px;
border-top-right-radius: 4px;
border-top-style: none;
border-top-width: 0px;
box-shadow: rgb(218, 220, 224) 0px 0px 0px 1px inset;
box-sizing: border-box;
color: rgb(95, 99, 104);
cursor: pointer;
display: flex;
font-family: "Google Sans",Roboto,RobotoDraft,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;
font-size: 14px;
font-weight: 500;
height: 36px;
justify-content: center;
letter-spacing: 0.25px;
line-height: 20px;
margin-right: 12px;
min-width: 104px;
outline-color: rgb(95, 99, 104);
outline-style: none;
outline-width: 0px;
padding-bottom: 0px;
padding-left: 12px;
padding-right: 16px;
padding-top: 0px;
position: relative;
text-decoration: none;
text-decoration-color: rgb(95, 99, 104);
text-decoration-line: none;
text-decoration-style: solid;
z-index: 0;
-moz-border-bottom-colors: none;
-moz-border-left-colors: none;
-moz-border-right-colors: none;
-moz-border-top-colors: none;
-moz-user-select: none;

Span::before

background-image: url("https://www.gstatic.com/images/icons/material/system/1x/reply_all_black_20dp.png");
background-position: 50% 50%;
background-position-x: 50%;
background-position-y: 50%;
background-repeat: no-repeat;
background-size: 20px auto;
border-collapse: collapse;
border-spacing: 2px 2px;
color: rgb(95, 99, 104);
content: "";
cursor: pointer;
display: block;
font-family: "Google Sans",Roboto,RobotoDraft,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;
font-size: 14px;
font-weight: 500;
height: 20px;
letter-spacing: 0.25px;
line-height: 20px;
margin-right: 8px;
opacity: 0.54;
width: 20px;

span ::after

: ound-attachment;
: scroll;
background-clip: border-box;
background-color: rgb(128, 134, 139);
background-image: none;
background-origin: padding-box;
background-position: 0% 0%;
background-position-x: 0%;
background-position-y: 0%;
background-repeat: repeat;
background-size: auto auto;
border-bottom-left-radius: 4px;
border-bottom-right-radius: 4px;
border-collapse: collapse;
border-spacing: 2px 2px;
border-top-left-radius: 4px;
border-top-right-radius: 4px;
bottom: 0px;
color: rgb(95, 99, 104);
content: "";
cursor: pointer;
display: block;
font-family: "Google Sans",Roboto,RobotoDraft,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;
font-size: 14px;
font-weight: 500;
left: 0px;
letter-spacing: 0.25px;
line-height: 20px;
opacity: 0;
position: absolute;
right: 0px;
top: 0px;
transform: matrix(0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0);
transition-duration: 0.15s;
transition-property: transform, opacity;
transition-timing-function: cubic-bezier(0.4, 0, 0.2, 1);
z-index: -1;

And no I don't have gstatic blocked

0_1542147027142_cb394ec5-1c89-414e-9ccf-b1f56fdee36f-image.png

pie_flavor

@Lorne-Kates Did you actually look at my screenshot?

anotherusername

@Lorne-Kates you could at least try some of the themes before you say that they won't help. The button border/icon/text is darker in some themes than in others.

Tsaukpaetra

@Lorne-Kates said in WTF Bites:

No, I'm saying that things that are buried in a sea of nothing, ie: copious amounts of whitespace, fade away from vision. Especially if they're very light grey.

0_1542149502406_af3d2408-74f2-46aa-99e5-347e8203eed2-image.png

Man, that sea of nothing really makes seeing the Google Search button impossible to make out...

Zecc

@Lorne-Kates I see you don't use colors in your ~~tags~~ labels. You should starting using colors in your ~~tags~~ labels.

For extra distraction.

Zecc

As someone who is on a computer with an alternate keyboard layout¹ and remoting to a computer with an alternate keyboard layout², my wish for the world is that everyone at Microsoft is forced to have a very different alternate keyboard layout installed, even if they don't use it.

I'm trying to edit text remotely and within five minutes I have twice started mistyping symbols, first because the remote layout was "helpfully" changed, then because the local layout was "helpfully" changed.

¹ It's not like my physical layout ever changes, and I don't need to change the logical layout either, but <> having an OS language different from the keyboard layout you use? Impossibru!</>

² My second wish for the world is for RDP to be able to transparently send the right scan codes for alphanumsymbolical³ keys. Or maybe keyboards should start sending Unicode code numbers already.

³ IYKWIMITYKWIM

cvi

@Zecc said in WTF Bites:

t's not like my physical layout ever changes, and I don't need to change the logical layout either, but <> having an OS language different from the keyboard layout you use? Impossibru!</>

For the longest time it was possible to uninstall all but one of the keyboard layouts (after adding the correct one), preventing windows from being helpful and switching automatically. I can't find that option anymore, just something about uninstalling language packs entirely.

Edit: Nevermind, found it again.

Gąska

@Zecc said in WTF Bites:

Or maybe keyboards should start sending Unicode code numbers already.

For fuck's sake please no. That would be the biggest region-locking of electronic hardware in recorded history.

ixvedeusi

@Gąska said in WTF Bites:

For fuck's sake please no. That would be the biggest region-locking of electronic hardware in recorded history.

That's easy to solve: you'd just need to have a table in the keyboard driver, which maps the Unicode values to the physical location of the key on the keyboard; then you could translate them into some abstract, language-independent representation...

Gąska

@ixvedeusi the scary thing is, it's about exactly what we already do in frontend webdev. All code, whether it's Python or C++, is being compiled to low-level bytecode, which then gets translated to a very high level scripting language, JavaScript, just so it can then be compiled back to low-level bytecode again. So I wouldn't be entirely surprised if we ended up with this in other areas of computing.

Related funny talk:

The Birth & Death of JavaScript

anonymous234

@ixvedeusi I thought about keyboard keys and symbols before. My conclusion is keyboard APIs should give you both a character and a grid location.

ixvedeusi

@Gąska said in WTF Bites:

the scary thing is, it's about exactly what we already do in frontend webdev

I know My comment was sarcastic, but I'm fully expecting that somebody will seriously come up with exactly this proposal soon, if it hasn't happened yet.

Filed under: What have we come to?

Zecc

@Gąska said in WTF Bites:

For fuck's sake please no. That would be the biggest region-locking of electronic hardware in recorded history.

That was a late night post. I wasn't really considering all the consequences. Edit: though note I didn't say they should send only the Unicode code points.

@anonymous234 said in WTF Bites:

@ixvedeusi I thought about keyboard keys and symbols before. My conclusion is keyboard APIs should give you both a character and a grid location.

^

ixvedeusi

@anonymous234 said in WTF Bites:

My conclusion is keyboard APIs should give you both a character and a grid location.

AFAIK most API do, kinda sorta (or did when I last time looked into GUI programming in any depth). IIRC you could usually get either the key code (usually ASCII at the time), or the "scan code" which is not quite entirely unrelated to the position of the key on the keyboard and doesn't depend on the active keyboard layout.

Zecc

@ixvedeusi said in WTF Bites:

AFAIK most API do

...provided the OS is doing the right translation, I think?

Which happens just most of the time, to get you into a false sense of confidence.

dkf

@Zecc said in WTF Bites:

Or maybe keyboards should start sending Unicode code numbers already.

Won't work. There are keys on your keyboard that intentionally don't map to any Unicode character, such as Shift and Ctrl. It's a different level of abstraction entirely.

Gąska

@dkf we just need to make more Unicode characters!

ixvedeusi

@dkf said in WTF Bites:

Won't work.

You're just lacking Imagination, spoilsport. Simply send Zero Width Joiner for Shift and BELL for Ctrl. Do we have to think of everything here or what.

Filed under: Thinking outside the Box, What could possibly go wrong?

LaoC

@ixvedeusi said in WTF Bites:

You're just lacking Imagination, spoilsport. Simply send Zero Width Joiner for Shift and BELL for Ctrl. Do we have to think of everything here or what.

BEL is Ctrl-G already

ixvedeusi

@LaoC said in WTF Bites:

BEL is Ctrl-G already

I just knew someone was going to bog down my Genius with inconsequential trivialities. Now make it work anyway. You have until tomorrow morning, it can't be that difficult.

over and out.

Zecc

@dkf said in WTF Bites:

There are keys on your keyboard that intentionally don't map to any Unicode character, such as Shift and Ctrl.

Those aren't alphanumsymbolical!

Lorne Kates

@pie_flavor said in WTF Bites:

@Lorne-Kates Did you actually look at my screenshot?

Yes, but only with my periphery vision.

Lorne Kates

@anotherusername said in WTF Bites:

@Lorne-Kates you could at least try some of the themes before you say that they won't help. The button border/icon/text is darker in some themes than in others.

I hate themes.

I've never once used a theme that didn't break something else.

Lorne Kates

@Tsaukpaetra said in WTF Bites:

Man, that sea of nothing really makes seeing the Google Search button impossible to make out...

Except that it's a completely different situation and layout. The Google homepage is damn near perfect perfection because of the whitespace:

The Search button is directly underneath the input textbox (which itself has a border). It's, what, 1em at best of bottom margin?
The ONLY function of that page is the textbox and the button(s). There are no other UI elements surrounding your input.
The buttons are high contrast. They are grey, but with dark text. They look like a standard button (vs. very light grey text)
This UI hasn't changed in 20+ years, versus shuffling the UI for no reason. If they put the button way at the bottom of the screen, but kept the input text at the top?
The angle between your eyes, the textbox and the buttons is, rough estimate, under 15-20%. The button is in your near-periphery, which is way more accurate than mid or far. In fact if it's 18% or less, it's in your regular field of vision, and you can process it without directly looking at it. That's kind of the entire advantage of the human visual system. We can look at a spot, and gather information from around the spot. It's how you can read a line of text and your eye already knows where the next line is. Or how you can look at a car's dash control panel, and even if you're looking at the speed indicator, you still see your gas level, your light indicators, your washer fluid warning, etc. The controls are clustered specifically for that reason
I'd hazard a guess that most searches only fill the textbox up halfway. A word or two, yes? That would put your line of sight in the middle of the textbox. Directly above the Google Search button.
I'd also hazard a guess that a good portion of people who search don't even use the button, and just hit ENTER after they type their search. Both hands are on the keyboard anyways. You hit enter, then move your hand back to your mouse. By the time your hand is at your mouse, the search page has loaded. And funnily enough-- if your mouse cursor was left anywhere near the textbox-- your exactly in the right place to click on the first search result.

Too many UI "designers" don't take into account the biological constraints and advantages of the U when making their I.

Lorne Kates

@Zecc said in WTF Bites:

@Lorne-Kates I see you don't use colors in your ~~tags~~ labels. You should starting using colors in your ~~tags~~ labels.

For extra distraction.

I only ever used labels when I was in college. I made a different label for each class. Helped keep things organized quite well.

Now? Fuck, I ain't got time for that. Everything can go into the inbox.

anotherusername

@Gąska said in WTF Bites:

@dkf we just need to make more Unicode characters!

PUSH_COMBINING_CTRL / POP_COMBINING_CTRL?

anotherusername

@Lorne-Kates said in WTF Bites:

@anotherusername said in WTF Bites:

@Lorne-Kates you could at least try some of the themes before you say that they won't help. The button border/icon/text is darker in some themes than in others.

I hate themes.

I've never once used a theme that didn't break something else.

You're using a theme already. It's the default theme.

hungrier

@pie_flavor said in WTF Bites:

Also, those buttons are black on my screen. Blame FF22.

On mine they are darker than Lorne's but not quite black. Inspecting reveals that they're black icons with .7 opacity.

pie_flavor

@anotherusername &zwctrlnj;
e: wow, that's almost an ARM instruction. Inline assembly in HTML when?

Rhywden

WTF of my day: So, I had this issue where trying to add our domain to Office 365 would error out after a weird form. You may remember.

Wrote a ticket, got a back from tech support, they then stated that they did Something^TM, I should try it again and should follow their guide.

Tried to do so, got the weird stuff again but when I entered "test@xyz.de" into the weird form, this time it did not error out! Instead it asked me, like I expected, to create a special TXT-DNS entry.

Did that, clicked on the final "Yes, I want to become an admin for xyz.de" and found myself in the Azure Admin portal. So far so good. Clicked on "Users" to see if I now could switch people from "user@xyz.onmicrosoft.com" to "user@xyz.de".

Wait. Why are there only two users in this list (me and my co-admin)?

In essence, what happened: The stupid tool created a completely new Office 365 Enterprise account instead of simply adding the domain to the existing one.

Good job, guys.

izzion

@Rhywden
I choose to read your post as "the stupid tool" == the support tech

Zecc

@izzion said in WTF Bites:

@Rhywden
I choose to read your post as "the stupid tool" == the support tech

Wait. There's a different interpretation?

izzion

@Zecc
More generously, he probably meant the tool script that performed the custom domain validation.