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Comment by currysausage | Hacker News Reader

I hate to bikeshed, but the amount of wasted vertical screen space [1] makes me almost a little angry. Web designers: if you think it's a good idea to reimplement basic browser functionality (scrolling), or to emulate the UX of HTML frames, please think again.

[1] http://i.imgur.com/IUEqFj7.jpg

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So many mobile sites implement this same unpleasant UI control where the header follows your scrolling and stubbornly takes a portion of the screen without adding any useful functionality, that I wonder if people know it's possible to scroll to the top of any page and see the header there...

<rant>I also object to menus that hide when scrolling up and show when scrolling down. I usually place the row I am reading at the top of the window to make it easier to follow visually. When I need to scroll back a little, the pesky menu comes out instead of the text. I think scroll up should be the exact inverse of scroll down, not a menu display trigger. Or, at least, offer us a few lines back scroll before showing the damn menu.

> at least, offer us a few lines back scroll before showing the damn menu

This

I dont agree that you can kill me. At least cut a few fingers off, before killing. ^^ No, not this

I tried to explain the retardedness of this to management, before it was implemented. They were like "but people share more when the widgets are always visible, we A/B tested this!" It's like talking to a rock sometimes.

That's like saying "but people click the ads more when they're obscuring most of the page or right next to the download button." They certainly do. Whether they intended to, however, is a different matter.

Who is the rock?

The more responsive and thoughtful of the two, it appears.

It looks absolutely fantastic with JavaScript disabled though (which is how I browse the Web most of the time):

http://f.cl.ly/items/0Y3e3k3A17293r0s2y3d/Screen%20Shot%2020...

I would much rather see an implementation of the Web where by default websites need to ask for your permission to load and execute scripts. This would prompt the creation of a widely accessible "reach web" which would never break screen readers or URLs, wouldn't invade your privacy, and could be accessed with a text-only browser. Then there would also be the "rich web" - parts of sites which behave like an app and consequently need user approval to run, rather like you need to "approve" an actual app by downloading it. Many challenges to consider but I think this would solve a lot of problems.

Completely agree with you.

Actually, I was oversimplifying when I said I have JavaScript disabled. I’m actually using JS Blocker¹, which gives me your first sentence². Of course, the end user using a browser extension to gain that functionality instead of it simply being a part of the Web does nothing to actually encourage the creation of a “reach web”.

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¹ — http://jsblocker.toggleable.com/

² — http://f.cl.ly/items/0q1m280M40290t222n0U/js_blocker.png

Wow, 2 other people in the universe who actually care about this stuff. I thought I was the only one!

Agreed, the Gmail web UI is another example, and I've never been able to understand this...

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