h a l f b a k e r yI think this would be a great thing to not do.
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You were Web 2.0 before anyone made it up. The interface lays itself perfectly to AJAX, so why not leap into it?
How many links on the site do nothing but reload the current page, replacing one small part? Clicking the 'link' and 'annotate' triggers this kind of action. A little bit of AJAX can reduce
your bandwidth usage and improve an already snappy interface.
ajax
http://www.officede...MD/417931_sk_md.jpg
[po, Jun 10 2006]
ajax
http://easyweb.easy...land74/picAjax1.jpg
[Jinbish, Jun 10 2006]
ajax
http://www.enigmaar...m/images/Img167.gif
[Jinbish, Jun 10 2006]
ag(ed)ax(e)
http://www.essex.ac...es/EA2chopTree.html
Best I could do, sorry. [zen_tom, Jun 10 2006]
http://www.ajax.nl/
[zeno, Jun 11 2006]
(War Rocket) Ajax
http://homepage.ntl...h_gordon-ming-1.jpg
To bring back his boh-dee. [calum, Jun 13 2006]
Gartner: Websites get cool with Ajax or die
http://metimes.com/...060619-041456-4588r
"By this time next year, Websites not developed using the Ajax technique "will simply not be cool enough to use," an Internet analyst said." [jutta, Jun 25 2006]
[link]
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Doesn't AJAX (as cool as it is) need a smidgen of Javascript to run in one's browser? As snazzy as AJAX is, it's by no means ideal - plus would need a certain amount of work on the behalf of the site owner - by which time, who knows what new technology will be available? Just the nature of the beast I guess. |
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This isn't happening mostly for reasons of logistics. I would like the outcome - the voting and links annotations should really be asynchronous; and browsers who don't support JavaScript, or users who don't like it, could continue to use the full-round-trip interface. |
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It would take me a while to get up to speed, and it would take me a while to *stay* up to speed - once I get into bed with JavaScript, every new browser update means that I have to make sure that my general Ajax framework still works. I guess that's where zen_tom was going. |
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Ah, form over substance, that's what we all need! Not. |
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Yep, that was my general direction - because, just like people, getting into bed with new technologies can also end up with all sorts of unexpected, complicated and inconvenient consequences. |
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jutta - a lot of the ajax implementations
are quite isolated abstractions from
browser-level differences, which should
shield the developer from needing to even
be aware that an individual browser
change in functionality has even occurred
(unless it offers something too cool to
ignore, such as making toast, or flying
shopping delivery, or something else that
wasn't catered for in generic DOM
architecture). |
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I rather like the fact that this site runs without many "essential" modern conveniences. |
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I am about to inherit an immaculately restored 1942 Willys Military Jeep. It is about as basic and functional as a car can get. Despite that it is honest... reliable... comforting even, in its simplicity and function. |
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There's a soothing goodness to systems that operate at such a level, I find. |
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But it is broke, by definition - it uses
the inefficient paradigm popularised in
the late 90s whereby each change,
update or deviation to page content
required a full 100% transaction
regardless of whether the bulk of the
content was identical. This worked
when the web was essentially nothing
but a bunch of people's home pages
about their dog, but now that a lot of
sites are now in effect editorial conduit
applications, it doesn't make sense to
continue using the "and here's my dog"
paradigm ten years on, in a relatively
complex multiple-sourced composited
presentation. |
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The HB itself isn't as complex as it
could be, compared with a lot of current
'forum' type resources, but it could
indeed offer variances of the standard
'view' of the data, in interesting and
elegant ways. The presentation might
mimic the current clean minimal, but it
could also become more of an
'application' rather than in effect, a
manually updated rendition of the
current state of an article, each time. |
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On the surface, it would seem to be a
'so what' application of ajax, in that it
would seem to make little difference.
However, there's a design aspect of the
halfbakery that I don't think even jutta
had nailed down from the beginning,
and that is the actual behavioural
aspect - how the users use it. If the site
was in its purest sense, an academic-
like suppository of half-completed
idea-formative articles, which peers can
annotate and remark upon, and the
owner can edit accordingly, then the
behaviour aspect would have less
impact on site usage than it presently
does. |
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The reality is that people use this site
for a significantly different purpose, and
the way they use it is markedly more
dynamic than perhaps the intention was
originally (jutta - putting words into
your mouth here, I know, but am I
wrong on this?). The usage patterns
tend to be rapid cyclic and largely hinge
around the instant gratification of the
effect that each portion of editorial has
upon the surrounding portions. |
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In effect, this site would work better on
IRC than the web, but there'd be no site,
no real discrete 'ideas', and no evidence
the next day, etc. |
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Encapsulating these usages in an ajax
application need not really show itself
in any directly visual manner - ie, it can
look and feel exactly as it does now - it
simply 'works' differently, and in all
likelihood, a little bit more slickly, as
only the part of the DOM that pertains
to a user(s) interactions at this point in
time need be part of the async
transaction (as opposed to the entire
page, Uncle Tom Cobbley and all, each
time someone edits a comma). I can
imagine a lot of quite neat
enhancements that really don't change
it from what we know and are familiar
with, simply improve the experience
according to the reality of how it tends
to be used. |
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And of course, there's always the non-
ajax 'graceful degradation' copy
sourced from the same content, if the
ajax one isn't for you. It's just slightly
less efficient. |
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If there was an XML version of the Bakery, then it would be an easy enough thing for people to do mashups or skins in whatever language platform they preferred, without imposing more programming workload on the poor webmistress. |
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I don't know if the RSS feed for views is enough for this. |
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At first I thought this was an idea to use a popular abrasive cleaning product. Oh, well. |
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As I understand it, AJAX is not (and cannot be) 508 compliant and will keep those with disabilities out 100%. For those not in the U.S., Section 508 of some federal communications act outlines what steps a site should take to be usable to those with disabilities (screen readers, non-graphical browsers, etc). Just like using all-flash sites, we are slowly shutting down the web to disabled persons altogether. |
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That may be a trend in practice, but doesn't need to be that way in theory. |
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The level of AJAX that would be needed to do what I suggest isn't a lot of javascript and wouldn't even require things like browser-specific nuances. Just a simple XMLHttpRequest call to post the data just like the pages already do, no server changes needed. A little bit of very basic DOM manipulation to replace the form element with the new link or comment the user wrote, and voila! |
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You can do AJAX without browser-specific nuances? And there I go thinking that the very request and event handling is browser specific. Silly me! Someone should really go out and tell the millions of web developers writing code to work around what they hallucinate as Microsoft/Rest-of-the-world differences, or using frameworks to work around those differences, that they can just stop doing that.
Ah, there I spot one now. "Come here. HEAL! HEAL, I say! Throw away your CRUTCHES and WALK!"
Hm, isn't quite working. Suggestions? |
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There are nuances for more complex work beyond the simple XMLHttpRequest calls, but the core of it is pretty standard and you wouldn't need much beyond that common ground, if at all, to really improve the expirience of this site. |
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jutta: throw away the browser instead of the crutches? |
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