Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?
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@cvi said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
I have more issues when something tries to grab the global attention (e.g., single tab in a browser being able to modal the whole browser, or worse a single app being able to have a system wide modal). Fortunately those things are becoming rarer.
System wide modals are rare now, and best reserved to a very few cases such as when you're providing authorization for a system to do an elevated privilege action. (There's also modal stuff involved in active processing of mouse clicks and menus, but application code ought to know nothing about that.) Web browsers ought to never be doing system modals, and application level modals (in browsers) should be just for things like picking a filename for saving a file; everything else in them should be within a page only.
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@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
And, yet, they left both Alert() and Confirm() in these browsers. It's like they thought the only options were "no modals" and "modal that locks the entire application."
No repro.
I had two WebMCam instances running and the video it captured was based on the coordinates of the wrong one. But you get the picture.
Holy crap. even the mouse cursor got offset. Weird shit.Edit: did you by "application" mean the web page? I refuse to believe this.
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@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@The_Quiet_One said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Why are window sizes fixed and unscrollable when they're clearly way too small for the content?
Give me an example of this.
Daptiv's submit timesheet button opens pretend dialog div where the submit and cancel buttons are 3 pixels away from being below the fold. Outlook's rule list and rule runner windows are way too small. PHPmyAdmin has an impossibly small fake window div for editing stored procedures.
Ok. So some people suck at making UIs. That's the reason.
You might as well ask, "Why does Chrysler make cars that self-destruct after 50,000 miles?" Because some people suck at making cars.
Those are just 3 that come to mind trying to type on mobile because this thread is throwing virus warnings on a desktop.
What the heck kind of virus protection do you have on your desktop???
Why didn't anybody involved with HTML standards ever make table headers/footers fixed so the rest of the rows could scroll?
Because that's a CSS thing.
And that's mutually exclusive?
Yes. HTML is supposed to specify the meaning of the content, and CSS is supposed to specify how those elements are displayed on the page.
Why is absolute positioning still such a kludge that I can still see headers/footers jump away from the edge when I scroll?
Because absolutely positioned elements are supposed to scroll. You're thinking of fixed positioned elements?
You're right, I meant fixed. They still jump and stutter while scrolling. It's like flicker on a WinForms control, "impossible" to fix except not.
Can you confirm you're using a current browser and not IE or some other outdated browser? I've never had that problem on Chrome or Firefox.
Why did non-IE browsers fight against a modal/blocking dialog window?
Tell me how they did. Making a blocking dialog window is as easy as just having a fixed positioned div that covers the screen under a dialog. All browsers support this.
A fixed positioned div is not a blocking dialog window. It doesn't pause or halt one function so much as bridge two or more.
Modal dialogs are NEVER supposed to pause or halt anything, even those on a regular standard desktop application. It's merely supposed to block user input anywhere outside of the dialog.
It also makes those "dialogs" less reusable because now you're embedding HTML in JavaScript rather than a separate object with well-defined in/out points.
Then you're not programming JavaScript properly. If you were, then you'd be able to build a dialog system that reuses code.
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@The_Quiet_One said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Modal dialogs are NEVER supposed to pause or halt anything, even those on a regular standard desktop application. It's merely supposed to block user input anywhere outside of the dialog.
You block with a dialog specifically because you're waiting for user input to continue. Otherwise you'd just disable the form. In what scenario, besides a cancel button, would it ever make sense to put up a dialog over a running process?
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@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@The_Quiet_One said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Modal dialogs are NEVER supposed to pause or halt anything, even those on a regular standard desktop application. It's merely supposed to block user input anywhere outside of the dialog.
You block with a dialog specifically because you're waiting for user input to continue. Otherwise you'd just disable the form. In what scenario, besides a cancel button, would it ever make sense to put up a dialog over a running process?A modal dialog is usually itself a form, is what I'm saying. It's waiting for your input ON THAT DIALOG before continuing.
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@dkf said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
It's what you get when you hire development effort from the lowest-price bidder.
So, stop doing that.
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@The_Quiet_One said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@The_Quiet_One said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Modal dialogs are NEVER supposed to pause or halt anything, even those on a regular standard desktop application. It's merely supposed to block user input anywhere outside of the dialog.
You block with a dialog specifically because you're waiting for user input to continue. Otherwise you'd just disable the form. In what scenario, besides a cancel button, would it ever make sense to put up a dialog over a running process?A modal dialog is usually itself a form, is what I'm saying. It's waiting for your input ON THAT DIALOG before continuing.
But you popped it up to answer a question from an origin window/page. That origin process has to wait for instructions before it can continue.
Because here's what I'm seeing. Let's say I want to delete a file. In a dialog scenario, Delete() pops up Confirm(), waits for a yes, and calls DeleteFile(). In a non-dialog scenario, Delete() pops up ConfirmDIV() and immediately exits. The programmer has to tie ReallyDelete() to the yes button, which then calls DeleteFile(). That just seems like needless extra work for zero gain.
Edit: I mean, I get dumped on for "wasting time" the way I type and then I see people daisy chaining dozens of functions like this because of some aversion to dialogs. I think I've just worked with really dumb developers but I don't want to project that out to everybody.
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@HardwareGeek said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@dkf said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
It's what you get when you hire development effort from the lowest-price bidder.
So, stop doing that.
I already have. Or maybe I never started; they look the same from where I sit.
We like our hires to be local, which tends to mean not the minimum hourly rate, but does make meetings a lot easier to organise. But we also do a lot of work with external partners, and being well remote is the overwhelming norm there.
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@levicki said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
With paginated stuff you can at least bookmark the right page where you found something you want to see again or share with someone. Try doing that with an infiniscroll page.
Assuming pagination is done right. I've lost count of the number of sites (mainly because I never started counting) where the most recent entries go on page 1, with older ones bumped to page 2, then to page 3, page 4....
It's top-posting times n.
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@Zenith You'd love our product's config pages. No JavaScript. No CSS. Just plain HTML pages served by a single-thread server written in C, embedded in an MCU with 512K of FLASH total.
In addition to server-side validation, I added HTML5 format descriptors to every field I could, so the browser can validate them too.
No space for any kind of JavaScript library. But I did shoehorn in a 16x16 px icon.
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@The_Quiet_One said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Do you really think "Syntax error in SQL query '...'" or whatever is at all any more useful to the user?
Sure, it shows them just how they should craft their SQL injection payload.
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@The_Quiet_One said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Those are just 3 that come to mind trying to type on mobile because this thread is throwing virus warnings on a desktop.
What the heck kind of virus protection do you have on your desktop???
If you flag 100% of content as viruses, then you can catch 100% of viruses.
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@The_Quiet_One said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
I really don't understand this.
- Why is "oops something happened, try again later" an acceptable error message?
If it's an internal server error (e.g. 5xx) then there's nothing the user can do about it. Do you really think "Syntax error in SQL query '...'" or whatever is at all any more useful to the user?
Yes, because in their complaint to the helpdesk, they can mention that the error said something about "squirrels, or something like that" and the server administrators/programmers can have a little direction on where to look for the issue.
Who's ever said it's efficient?
It is efficient, from the lazy programmers' and cheap managements' perspectives.
- Why is not focusing on any fields upon loading considered user friendly?
Who's ever said it's user friendly?
"It's not in the spec."
- Why don't sites underline regular links anymore?
Because a color usually suffices now?
And so developers are antagonistic towards color-blind people.
- Why don't "specifications" tabs include physical dimensions, OS requirements, or other critical details?
I'm not sure what "specifications" you're referring to.
The item description on shopping websites?
- Why are window sizes fixed and unscrollable when they're clearly way too small for the content?
Give me an example of this.
Videos in autoboxed links on a forum.
- Why didn't anybody involved with HTML standards ever make table headers/footers fixed so the rest of the rows could scroll?
Because that's a CSS thing.
But CSS isn't supposed to affect semantics!!1one!1!!llleleven1!!III
:@levicki: 
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@The_Quiet_One said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
You might as well ask, "Why does Chrysler make cars that self-destruct after 50,000 miles?" Because some people suck at making cars.
Hey, my Town and Country is pushing 180k (it was given to me at ~140k), and it still runs pretty well.
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@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Because here's what I'm seeing. Let's say I want to delete a file. In a dialog scenario, Delete() pops up Confirm(), waits for a yes, and calls DeleteFile(). In a non-dialog scenario, Delete() pops up ConfirmDIV() and immediately exits. The programmer has to tie ReallyDelete() to the yes button, which then calls DeleteFile(). That just seems like needless extra work for zero gain.
Actually... I... don't see a problem with that non-dialog solution.
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@error said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@The_Quiet_One said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Do you really think "Syntax error in SQL query '...'" or whatever is at all any more useful to the user?
Sure, it shows them just how they should craft their SQL injection payload.
Well, you don't put the actual failing SQL query in the HTML error message! You put it in the server log!
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@acrow said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@Zenith You'd love our product's config pages. No JavaScript. No CSS. Just plain HTML pages served by a single-thread server written in C, embedded in an MCU with 512K of FLASH total.
In addition to server-side validation, I added HTML5 format descriptors to every field I could, so the browser can validate them too.
No space for any kind of JavaScript library. But I did shoehorn in a 16x16 px icon.
Can we, like, clone the people with your dedication and replace the entire IT field with them?
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@djls45 said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@error said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@The_Quiet_One said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Do you really think "Syntax error in SQL query '...'" or whatever is at all any more useful to the user?
Sure, it shows them just how they should craft their SQL injection payload.
Well, you don't put the actual failing SQL query in the HTML error message! You put it in the server log!
Or, apparently, a dialog you can ask the user to type a message to, that gets sent to a file on the Desktop that the user is intended to print out.
Edit: attach
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@djls45 said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@The_Quiet_One said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
I really don't understand this.
- Why is "oops something happened, try again later" an acceptable error message?
If it's an internal server error (e.g. 5xx) then there's nothing the user can do about it. Do you really think "Syntax error in SQL query '...'" or whatever is at all any more useful to the user?
Yes, because in their complaint to the helpdesk, they can mention that the error said something about "squirrels, or something like that" and the server administrators/programmers can have a little direction on where to look for the issue.
Wrong. You always log such error messages internally and when someone reports a problem you look there. If you are relying on ANYTHING the user says you're
- Why is not focusing on any fields upon loading considered user friendly?
Who's ever said it's user friendly?
"It's not in the spec."
Relevance?
- Why don't sites underline regular links anymore?
Because a color usually suffices now?
And so developers are antagonistic towards color-blind people.
Fair point.
- Why don't "specifications" tabs include physical dimensions, OS requirements, or other critical details?
I'm not sure what "specifications" you're referring to.
The item description on shopping websites?
That's not a UI issue. That's a content issue.
- Why are window sizes fixed and unscrollable when they're clearly way too small for the content?
Give me an example of this.
Videos in autoboxed links on a forum.
Then the reason by occam and hanlons razor is the devs are idiots. No other reason is necessary.
- Why didn't anybody involved with HTML standards ever make table headers/footers fixed so the rest of the rows could scroll?
Because that's a CSS thing.
But CSS isn't supposed to affect semantics!!1one!1!!llleleven1!!III
:@levicki: ??? The fixed position of something is solely a stylistic concept and not a semantic one.
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@The_Quiet_One said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@djls45 said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@The_Quiet_One said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
I really don't understand this.
- Why is "oops something happened, try again later" an acceptable error message?
If it's an internal server error (e.g. 5xx) then there's nothing the user can do about it. Do you really think "Syntax error in SQL query '...'" or whatever is at all any more useful to the user?
Yes, because in their complaint to the helpdesk, they can mention that the error said something about "squirrels, or something like that" and the server administrators/programmers can have a little direction on where to look for the issue.
Wrong. You always log such error messages internally and when someone reports a problem you look there. If you are relying on ANYTHING the user says you're
But if there're multiple problems, you'd want to know which the user thought was most pressing so you could focus your efforts first on that.
- Why is not focusing on any fields upon loading considered user friendly?
Who's ever said it's user friendly?
"It's not in the spec."
Relevance?
"Why should we spend effort to make something user-friendly if they didn't specify how it should be user-friendly?"
- Why didn't anybody involved with HTML standards ever make table headers/footers fixed so the rest of the rows could scroll?
Because that's a CSS thing.
But CSS isn't supposed to affect semantics!!1one!1!!llleleven1!!III
:@levicki: ??? The fixed position of something is solely a stylistic concept and not a semantic one.
But are table headers content or structure? I think a decent argument could be made for either one.
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@djls45 said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
But if there're multiple problems, you'd want to know which the user thought was most pressing so you could focus your efforts first on that.
In a complex application, it is entirely possible for the user to be wrong about what is most pressing. They might actually be reporting a downstream consequence, with the real problem being rather unrelated to what they talk about.
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@dkf But you have to know what they're complaining about in order to backtrace it to the actual cause.
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@Groaner said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Sure, you can't reduce the total probability to zero, but you can get pretty darn close. World of Warcraft, a game that I hate but which is an excellent study in usability and human-computer interaction on so many levels, would not only have you confirm deletion of a character, but also make you type "DELETE" into a textbox. It's pretty hard to say you accidentally deleted something if you have to go to those lengths.
Star Wars: The Old Republic does that. Guild Wars 2 goes one step further and insists that you type in the name of the character. People still come on the forums in both games asking for help because they "accidentally" deleted a character.
Ultimately, you can't fix stupid, and you can't fix "in a hurry", nor can you fix "well, I just clicked OK in the stupid popup to make it go away".
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This post is deleted!
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@djls45 said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@The_Quiet_One said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@djls45 said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@The_Quiet_One said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
I really don't understand this.
- Why is "oops something happened, try again later" an acceptable error message?
If it's an internal server error (e.g. 5xx) then there's nothing the user can do about it. Do you really think "Syntax error in SQL query '...'" or whatever is at all any more useful to the user?
Yes, because in their complaint to the helpdesk, they can mention that the error said something about "squirrels, or something like that" and the server administrators/programmers can have a little direction on where to look for the issue.
Wrong. You always log such error messages internally and when someone reports a problem you look there. If you are relying on ANYTHING the user says you're
But if there're multiple problems, you'd want to know which the user thought was most pressing so you could focus your efforts first on that.
A user can still tell you what's most pressing. They got an error doing one thing versus another. And they want the former to be fixed before the latter. It happens where I work all the time, and we never have any problem identifying the cause by reviewing the logs.
- Why is not focusing on any fields upon loading considered user friendly?
Who's ever said it's user friendly?
"It's not in the spec."
Relevance?
"Why should we spend effort to make something user-friendly if they didn't specify how it should be user-friendly?"
Well, yeah. That's the crux of the problem, isn't it? It's almost as if you want to have someone good at UI design to work for you, either by making those specifications, or by filling in the gaps as a developer.
- Why didn't anybody involved with HTML standards ever make table headers/footers fixed so the rest of the rows could scroll?
Because that's a CSS thing.
But CSS isn't supposed to affect semantics!!1one!1!!llleleven1!!III
:@levicki: ??? The fixed position of something is solely a stylistic concept and not a semantic one.
But are table headers content or structure? I think a decent argument could be made for either one.
It's both. But neither of those don't proscribe a given style. Style is intended to be its own thing. And positioning of elements is a subset of styling.
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@djls45 said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@The_Quiet_One said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
You might as well ask, "Why does Chrysler make cars that self-destruct after 50,000 miles?" Because some people suck at making cars.
Hey, my Town and Country is pushing 180k (it was given to me at ~140k), and it still runs pretty well.
Sometimes you luck out with the anti-lemon.
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@djls45 said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Because here's what I'm seeing. Let's say I want to delete a file. In a dialog scenario, Delete() pops up Confirm(), waits for a yes, and calls DeleteFile(). In a non-dialog scenario, Delete() pops up ConfirmDIV() and immediately exits. The programmer has to tie ReallyDelete() to the yes button, which then calls DeleteFile(). That just seems like needless extra work for zero gain.
Actually... I... don't see a problem with that non-dialog solution.
Then you're not thinking ahead far enough. You've just taken the first step towards a larger and/or more complex codebase that requires more testing to plug more holes. Because now every such function is split into two or more, many of which bypass various checks or preconditions and mistakenly skip or execute post operations. If I could just reach this thread on a non-mobile device I'd show you a concrete example.
Part of defensive programming is limiting entry points without limiting functionality. Especially when you're working within a team that isn't as careful.
Edit: very basic generic example: typing JavaScript:function(); right into the address bar
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@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@djls45 said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Because here's what I'm seeing. Let's say I want to delete a file. In a dialog scenario, Delete() pops up Confirm(), waits for a yes, and calls DeleteFile(). In a non-dialog scenario, Delete() pops up ConfirmDIV() and immediately exits. The programmer has to tie ReallyDelete() to the yes button, which then calls DeleteFile(). That just seems like needless extra work for zero gain.
Actually... I... don't see a problem with that non-dialog solution.
Then you're not thinking ahead far enough. You've just taken the first step towards a larger and/or more complex codebase that requires more testing to plug more holes. Because now every such function is split into two or more, many of which bypass various checks or preconditions and mistakenly skip or execute post operations.
Someone needs to learn about
async/await.
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@dcon said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@djls45 said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@The_Quiet_One said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
You might as well ask, "Why does Chrysler make cars that self-destruct after 50,000 miles?" Because some people suck at making cars.
Hey, my Town and Country is pushing 180k (it was given to me at ~140k), and it still runs pretty well.
Sometimes you luck out with the anti-lemon.
Maybe.
I think it probably has more to do with how the vehicle is driven and maintained. I believe that even a lemon can be kept going if it's treated with a little TLC. Change my mind.
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@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@djls45 said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Because here's what I'm seeing. Let's say I want to delete a file. In a dialog scenario, Delete() pops up Confirm(), waits for a yes, and calls DeleteFile(). In a non-dialog scenario, Delete() pops up ConfirmDIV() and immediately exits. The programmer has to tie ReallyDelete() to the yes button, which then calls DeleteFile(). That just seems like needless extra work for zero gain.
Actually... I... don't see a problem with that non-dialog solution.
Then you're not thinking ahead far enough. You've just taken the first step towards a larger and/or more complex codebase that requires more testing to plug more holes. Because now every such function is split into two or more, many of which bypass various checks or preconditions and mistakenly skip or execute post operations. [...]
Part of defensive programming is limiting entry points without limiting functionality. Especially when you're working within a team that isn't as careful.
Why wouldn't
Delete()in that example be the standard entry point for the file deletion functionality? No matter the implementation, it would be the way to delete a file after a confirmation. If someone really wanted to delete a file without the confirmation, they could useDeleteFile()directly.And what @error implied concerning threading/pseudo-threading.
If I could just reach this thread on a non-mobile device I'd show you a concrete example.
I'd like to see it.
Edit: very basic generic example: typing JavaScript:function(); right into the address bar
On which browser? And what it is supposed to do/show?
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@djls45 said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Edit: very basic generic example: typing JavaScript:function(); right into the address bar
On which browser? And what it is supposed to do/show?
I dunno, but TIL Chrome actively tries to prevent you from easily doing this, first by cancelling the "Go to URL" functionality:
And stopping the easy Copy-paste:
Additionally, manually typing it as requested results in... nothing happening.
So....
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@Tsaukpaetra I got a syntax error in the console on Vivaldi.
Once upon a time I had a bunch of "bookmarklets" which were just JavaScript single liners. Most of them stopped working over the years due to security changes like not letting JavaScript resize the window.
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@djls45 said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
pseudo-threading.
Yeah, it's weird. JavaScript is inherently single-threaded (unless you play with newish APIs like web workers). As such, the single worst thing you can do in JavaScript is make a blocking call, as this halts everything. (Maybe this will answer the earlier question as to why blocking modal functionality was removed.)
Async functions basically allow you to perform the same functionality as a callback (resume later) without declaring a callback (or incurring the associated dangers of having an untested entrypoint), and still allows all the nicetry/catch/finallystuff. It can really save you some complexity if you have branching or looping with await points - which is generally hellish using callbacks.An example of blocking being bad: an earlier version of @error_bot's Minesweeper
solvecommand was very slow/computationally expensive. A side-effect of this: the network connection was timing out by the time a solution was found! The current version uses Node's worker thread API to parallelize the task, while also keeping the web socket code running.Edit: hmm... note to self: give NodeBB websocket a dedicated thread of its own
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@Parody said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Once upon a time I had a bunch of "bookmarklets" which were just JavaScript single liners. Most of them stopped working over the years due to security changes like not letting JavaScript resize the window.
The important ones (Remify for the page that doesn't exist) still work
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@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Why is "oops something happened, try again later" an acceptable error message?
The user doesn't have any strategy to avoid the error, the error is logged, and the devs who can do something have the full error.
That said, it would be nice to notify if this is a temporary or extended issue, however all issues appear temporary to the user.@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Why is the even worse infiniscroll abomination not just tolerated but embraced?
Because in most applications the user doesn't care about current position. It's only when it does matter that pagination or an active "load more" is preferred. I don't understand why forums would use it. But for applications like "recommendations" infinite scroll is a better option.
@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Why don't sites underline regular links anymore?
UX.
The difference between UI and UX, is that UI is designed for actual use, and UX is designed for marketing as efficient as possible to the user.
@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Why doesn't anything online ever print right?
Printer drivers.
We just implemented a "print" save option, and it basically converts all the elements of the pdf into raster images, because printers just can't handle some of the elements we were using.
@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Why do people reinvent the selectbox if they're not going to do anything that the browser's built-in selectbox can't do?
The default select box is absolute garbage and cannot be themed effectively. It's literally stuck in the 90s.
@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Why didn't anybody involved with HTML standards ever make table headers/footers fixed so the rest of the rows could scroll?
Why is absolute positioning still such a kludge that I can still see headers/footers jump away from the edge when I scroll?Because the initial concept of HTML was a digital document, not for application development. I find this at odds with your other questions, like "why not underline links"
@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Does somebody out there like it this way or what?
HTML cannot decide whether it wants to support hyperlinked documents, the initial concept of the internet, or applications. And because of maximizing backwards compatibility, we have this hodge-podged hybrid solution.
The problem is that every time something is developed to replace the mess of HTML with something designed for application development, like ActiveX, Adobe, Silverlight, it's quickly abandoned for the next shiny Javascript platform.
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@Tsaukpaetra Are you Amelia Bedelia?
Go to any webpage (the default Google search/homepage won't work) and type into the URL bar:
JavaScript:window.alert("I'm drawing you a bath.");window.open("http://www.drawingforall.net/wp-content/uploads/2018/01/6-how-to-draw-a-bath.jpg", "_blank");
@djls45 I did this on Chrome 79. It popped up a dialog followed by a drawing of a bathtub.
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@xaade said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Printer drivers.
Drivers aren't the issue. Every driver out there can accept a raster image, just like what's drawn to the screen. What actually happens is that "responsive" layouts aren't as responsive as their developers think and they're also missing style declarations (the media attribute for styles is misused). Selenium must not test printing functionality.
The default select box is absolute garbage and cannot be themed effectively. It's literally stuck in the 90s.
Don't browser developers know how to make Win32 controls? I guess I just take that for granted.
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@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Every driver out there can accept a raster image, just like what's drawn to the screen.
But if you print a rasterized version of what's shown on the screen, you'll either get a crappy, unreadable low-resolution printout, or a tiny also unreadable printout.
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@hungrier Printer drivers can't scale rasterized input to fit the page?
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@djls45 That's the first option, crappy and low res. A 72 or 96 ppi image is going to look like garbage when printed out, and text that's perfectly readable at that resolution on screen may become unreadable when printed.
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@hungrier yeah. Print DPI is like 300 minimum, right?
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@Benjamin-Hall 300 is the standard low setting. You can sometimes get away with 150 but even then it's noticeable
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@hungrier said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
Every driver out there can accept a raster image, just like what's drawn to the screen.
But if you print a rasterized version of what's shown on the screen, you'll either get a crappy, unreadable low-resolution printout, or a tiny also unreadable printout.
But why? The printer device context is not unlike a screen device context. You get a box of a certain size, with information like DPI, and you draw to it. Wouldn't you just render the document displayed on screen to a different "window" size and pump that through the printer? Because isn't the other printer mode basically PostScript/RTF? That would be difficult but I'd really expect applications to do the conversion rather than the driver.
Edit: I have code that basically turns a product list into an Excel-like printout going directly through the device context.
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@Zenith There's no hardware or software problem with printing a rasterized image at screen resolution, but because ink on paper is a different medium than LCD pixels on a screen it'll look worse. Things that you take for granted on modern displays, like antialiasing and subpixel effects that make text look nice on screen, look blurry on paper.
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@hungrier When I say nothing prints right, I don't mean image quality. I mean more like structural problems, such as elements overlapping or being pushed off-page.
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@Zenith Right, I understood what you meant in the first place. I'm just explaining why it's not as simple as taking the rasterized image from the screen and printing it.
To get a good printout you'd need to re-render everything at much higher resolution (where available - 72 ppi images will stay that way), which is what printers usually do. It works great with PDFs, word processed documents, etc. It should theoretically work with HTML data, but for whatever reasons, sometimes doesn't.
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@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@hungrier When I say nothing prints right, I don't mean image quality. I mean more like structural problems, such as elements overlapping or being pushed off-page.
That stuff happens even in a normal web browser without trying to print it...
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@hungrier said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
@djls45 That's the first option, crappy and low res. A 72 or 96 ppi image is going to look like garbage when printed out, and text that's perfectly readable at that resolution on screen may become unreadable when printed.
But doesn't rasterization encode an image independently of its ppi so it can be scaled to any resolution?
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@Zenith said in Do people actually like poor quality user interfaces?:
What actually happens is that "responsive" layouts aren't as responsive as their developers think
Because responsive worked well not to make better webs, but to sell a bunch of Udemy courses to poor schmucks and expensive services of seagull consultants to iPhone-toting upper management.
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@djls45 It does the opposite, making an image into a fixed grid of pixels. PNGs, GIFs, JPGs etc are raster images, whereas things like SVG or text are vector based and get rasterized when they're displayed on screen or printed
