The computer revolution we need...
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"A web page is very rarely the best UI" Web page can be any UI you need it to be. The problem is web app designer, not the web technology itself.
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...is in user interface controls. They all suck. Grids particularly are my current bane. The screen is never wide enough to fit all the crap, scrolling horizontally sucks, etc. etc. etc. I wish 3D VR was a consumer commodity like flat screens. The 2D look, and trying to jam all this information on a 2D surface (where many of the controls, like grids, are pseudo 2D -- they are really just stacked 1D things) is well past its time and its prime. An unfortunately, we're not using a grid control that has collapsible sections. Oh, and did I mention it's a web page? More suckness.
Latest Article - Azure Function - Compute Pi Stress Test Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny Artificial intelligence is the only remedy for natural stupidity. - CDP1802
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I always look a step further ... For me, the big problem is not in views, data, and UI, but basically in interfaces in the communication between man and machine. Every day, when we want to bring our thoughts and ideas to a conclusion in our work, we are always slowed down. Whether it's keyboard, mouse, or whatever, the ideas in our minds can never be written, developed, and tried so quickly. As non-English speaking, it took me 2 minutes to write that, get the syntax check over, and then post it! Everything so long only because of these not practical interfaces. ;)
Something about which we often break our head: "In the name of the Compiler, the Stack, and the Bug-Free Code. Amen." (source unknown)
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I always look a step further ... For me, the big problem is not in views, data, and UI, but basically in interfaces in the communication between man and machine. Every day, when we want to bring our thoughts and ideas to a conclusion in our work, we are always slowed down. Whether it's keyboard, mouse, or whatever, the ideas in our minds can never be written, developed, and tried so quickly. As non-English speaking, it took me 2 minutes to write that, get the syntax check over, and then post it! Everything so long only because of these not practical interfaces. ;)
Something about which we often break our head: "In the name of the Compiler, the Stack, and the Bug-Free Code. Amen." (source unknown)
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Being a web page makes it harder to make a grid control usable. It makes it harder to make ANY control usable.
".45 ACP - because shooting twice is just silly" - JSOP, 2010
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You can never have too much ammo - unless you're swimming, or on fire. - JSOP, 2010
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When you pry the gun from my cold dead hands, be careful - the barrel will be very hot. - JSOP, 2013#realJSOP wrote:
Being a web page makes it harder to make a grid control usable. It makes it harder to make ANY control usable.
That may change with the migration away from JavaScript to WebAssembly.
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Tomz_KV wrote:
We need a totally different web technology, HTML 500.0 or something else.
What about WebAssembly?
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Tomz_KV wrote:
We need a totally different web technology, HTML 500.0 or something else.
What about WebAssembly?
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Tomz_KV wrote:
It is still in its infancy
Is it? every major browser supports WebAssembly. Several languages have tools that compile for it. No doubt there will be improvements over time, but it is mature enough today to take to production. And for MS-oriented folks, it will be mature enough after April 2. :)
Tomz_KV wrote:
It may take several years before we see an answer.
It may take several years for JavaScript to mostly go away in web apps, but since webAssembly doesn't need JavaScript, nothing stops that from happening today.
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...is in user interface controls. They all suck. Grids particularly are my current bane. The screen is never wide enough to fit all the crap, scrolling horizontally sucks, etc. etc. etc. I wish 3D VR was a consumer commodity like flat screens. The 2D look, and trying to jam all this information on a 2D surface (where many of the controls, like grids, are pseudo 2D -- they are really just stacked 1D things) is well past its time and its prime. An unfortunately, we're not using a grid control that has collapsible sections. Oh, and did I mention it's a web page? More suckness.
Latest Article - Azure Function - Compute Pi Stress Test Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny Artificial intelligence is the only remedy for natural stupidity. - CDP1802
People look at me like I've grown a second head whenever I say I still prefer WinForms over any sort of modern UI, whether it's WPF (which affords more flexibility) or totally free-form HTML-based. What I mean by that is that we at least knew the limitations of what we had to work with. With tools that allow us to create basically anything, people try too hard for their own good and get perhaps a little bit "too creative", and the end result is that nobody seems to be able to come up with anything that *works well*. Do I have a solution in mind? No. No I don't.
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Tomz_KV wrote:
It is still in its infancy
Is it? every major browser supports WebAssembly. Several languages have tools that compile for it. No doubt there will be improvements over time, but it is mature enough today to take to production. And for MS-oriented folks, it will be mature enough after April 2. :)
Tomz_KV wrote:
It may take several years before we see an answer.
It may take several years for JavaScript to mostly go away in web apps, but since webAssembly doesn't need JavaScript, nothing stops that from happening today.
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A web page is very rarely the best UI
A new .NET Serializer All in one Menu-Ribbon Bar Taking over the world since 1371!
I have an online game I developed over many years. I create a web-based UI to interact with it and it was a nightmare! I had fun with SVG to create the multiple zoomable, clickable, scrollable, hover-overable maps needed but apart from that (which was only a small nightmare) the rest of it was horrendous! I wrote a WinForm program that used a web-service to get data to and from the game server and it was a joy to write. Everything just worked as it was supposed to, clicks and hovers, etc just responded instantly the way I wanted. I was able to get it done so quickly compared with fighting with the web programming that I could add dozens of extra, useful features. All the friends I had that were play testing for me adopted it in easy preference to the web UI (except for the guy who had a iCrap PC instead of a proper one and so used the Web UI). The Winform program updated itself automatically from the server each time it started up (if necessary) so there were no issues with it being out of date (one of the arguments in favour of a web interface although there are often caching problems that can break this "advantage") so I just would push out updates whenever I needed to. WinForms rule!
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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I am not always so sure that it's the controls that are the issue, but more how much thought that has been put into what information the users need and how they can access it. Why not stick an excel export on the page if users needs to view a huge amount of data and analyse it in their own idiosyncratic way. Because if you start designing all those fancy analytics systems the users want you will end up with a mess of code and UI. I think some modern UI design has tried to promise users things that just don't make sense and that end up being really messy - take the redesign of skype it's one horrible nasty mess of ideas all slapped together in their gooey rawness. I am still using software(Microsoft Money 2005) that is now around 15 years old to do my finances - it does not have all the modern UI prettiness but it works and gives me the information I need. [Edit = typos fixed and tidied up]
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
GuyThiebaut wrote:
I am still using software(Microsoft Money 2005) that is now around 15 years old to do my finances - it does not have all the modern UI prettiness but it works and gives me the information I need.
Count me in on that. In fact I'd still be using the version before that if it actually installed and behaved correctly on modern operating systems. (As I recall, it had a thread that is *constantly* burning up CPU time without letting go)
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GuyThiebaut wrote:
I am still using software(Microsoft Money 2005) that is now around 15 years old to do my finances - it does not have all the modern UI prettiness but it works and gives me the information I need.
Count me in on that. In fact I'd still be using the version before that if it actually installed and behaved correctly on modern operating systems. (As I recall, it had a thread that is *constantly* burning up CPU time without letting go)
Interestingly enough it seems like Microsoft fixed the registry issue because I recently upgraded to Windows 10(I was a very late adopter because of the Microsoft money issue) and I did not have to perform the registry hack, Microsoft Money 2005 just works from the installation ISO on Windows 10 Professional on my computers.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
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I have an online game I developed over many years. I create a web-based UI to interact with it and it was a nightmare! I had fun with SVG to create the multiple zoomable, clickable, scrollable, hover-overable maps needed but apart from that (which was only a small nightmare) the rest of it was horrendous! I wrote a WinForm program that used a web-service to get data to and from the game server and it was a joy to write. Everything just worked as it was supposed to, clicks and hovers, etc just responded instantly the way I wanted. I was able to get it done so quickly compared with fighting with the web programming that I could add dozens of extra, useful features. All the friends I had that were play testing for me adopted it in easy preference to the web UI (except for the guy who had a iCrap PC instead of a proper one and so used the Web UI). The Winform program updated itself automatically from the server each time it started up (if necessary) so there were no issues with it being out of date (one of the arguments in favour of a web interface although there are often caching problems that can break this "advantage") so I just would push out updates whenever I needed to. WinForms rule!
- I would love to change the world, but they won’t give me the source code.
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...is in user interface controls. They all suck. Grids particularly are my current bane. The screen is never wide enough to fit all the crap, scrolling horizontally sucks, etc. etc. etc. I wish 3D VR was a consumer commodity like flat screens. The 2D look, and trying to jam all this information on a 2D surface (where many of the controls, like grids, are pseudo 2D -- they are really just stacked 1D things) is well past its time and its prime. An unfortunately, we're not using a grid control that has collapsible sections. Oh, and did I mention it's a web page? More suckness.
Latest Article - Azure Function - Compute Pi Stress Test Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny Artificial intelligence is the only remedy for natural stupidity. - CDP1802
Make the (grid) columns collapsible; selectable at run time. While there are usually too many columns; not when they're configurable. The "view port" should be adjustable too; smaller when able.
"(I) am amazed to see myself here rather than there ... now rather than then". ― Blaise Pascal
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A web page is very rarely the best UI
A new .NET Serializer All in one Menu-Ribbon Bar Taking over the world since 1371!
Part of why I don't do that Web crap. But even in WinForms, grids are a bad idea.
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Interestingly enough it seems like Microsoft fixed the registry issue because I recently upgraded to Windows 10(I was a very late adopter because of the Microsoft money issue) and I did not have to perform the registry hack, Microsoft Money 2005 just works from the installation ISO on Windows 10 Professional on my computers.
“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.”
― Christopher Hitchens
I never had a problem with Money 2005. I was talking about the version prior to *that*. (I just looked it up in my archive folder...it goes back to 95 (!)...I suppose not being able to run nearly 25 year old software isn't such a big loss after all...I could perhaps set up a VM, but I'm okay with 2005)
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I strongly disagree. The underlying technology is the reason creating a good controls for a web app is so difficult. Using a browser for applications was and still is a horrible idea.
Yes, it's hard to make good UI widgets/controls. That's why you don't make the controls yourself but use some UI library/framework to build your web apps. You can use DevExtreme, Kendo UI, webix, Ionic, Sencha ExtJS and many other advanced UI toolkits. Also, when you are creating Winforms/WPF or any other .Net UI framework apps, you don't usually build your own basic UI widgets, but use built-in stuff plus some 3rd party framework (DevExpress?).
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...is in user interface controls. They all suck. Grids particularly are my current bane. The screen is never wide enough to fit all the crap, scrolling horizontally sucks, etc. etc. etc. I wish 3D VR was a consumer commodity like flat screens. The 2D look, and trying to jam all this information on a 2D surface (where many of the controls, like grids, are pseudo 2D -- they are really just stacked 1D things) is well past its time and its prime. An unfortunately, we're not using a grid control that has collapsible sections. Oh, and did I mention it's a web page? More suckness.
Latest Article - Azure Function - Compute Pi Stress Test Learning to code with python is like learning to swim with those little arm floaties. It gives you undeserved confidence and will eventually drown you. - DangerBunny Artificial intelligence is the only remedy for natural stupidity. - CDP1802
