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Comment by TravisPeacock | Hacker News Reader

Do you have a thought on how to do the edit page without JS? I am with you I wanted to make it no js, then added a little here and there. I couldn't think of a way to allow someone to add unlimited links in a way that was clean and fast without JS. I guess I could detect if you're not allowing JS and then have an input field so you can select how many you want to have and then pass that as a GET variable.

It's added to the roadmap to investigate more.

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Well, theoretically you could make your current "Add Link" button and your current "Remove" button just trigger a server-side request and then refresh the page.

maybe some combination of the <noscript> tag and then if so wrapping the buttons in <form> and making the buttons submit those forms?

I love this! Great work! Just an idea here, since you already have a form with the `action` set up, you could do some kind of `noscript` section with like 10 preset `input` elements, where the "n+1"th input appears when strings are present for the "nth" ones (using :has or something like that... the internet is lousy with examples of how to do this kind of thing). To go really hardcore "progenhance" you could even wrap that all in a @supports CSS rule. (So "if you don't want to use CSS, here's all 10 inputs. Have fun, sailor.")

Good idea. I get it. But I do not find it "clean" as Travis states.

Have a quick turn around time on the form. Let it be a server problem. Have a hidden field on the form set to "nojs". Let javascript set this to "js".

The server can then decide if this is a bulk edit or not. It can then decide it will batch approvals into one mail or wait a little longer.

Then you can optimize on what you find most clean and/or works best.

Have one form field for easy entry and turn around. Ten as you suggest? But what is the optimum number? 3? 20? And is it "clean" to have 20 form fields which the javascript version then will roll back into one.

So the non-javascript version will never be better. Somethings gotta give. But submitting a form can be superfast. And the page refresh will be super fast. Such is life without javascript.

And now I realize that I made an implied server optimization: Mail approval should in my mind be batched and dampened. 10 seconds might be enough.As long as new inpit is coming we can postpone approval anyway as the user is busy. Findong the correct number is the magic trick. Not too fast. Not too slow.

Maybe if you're not going to use js then a text area that needs each entry to be a newline link,text. If the form submitted has text there it will process it. You don't get validation but that's part of what you give up not using js.

What's the point of delayed email sending? (Lol tried to find a way to ask that which sounds genuine, but they all read as annoyed me)

You batch the emails so users get one email with multiple messages inside it, instead of spamming their inbox with 1-per mail.

Oh I see what you're saying but in what circumstance will a user have more than one email. You only get emailed when you make an update and you can't see the updates until you click the approval link... so I don't think that will be overly helpful.

That said, I could probably have a session or something so that if you approve an email then I'll let you make additional changes within that session without additional approval emails. You're "authenticated" as it is.

if the user changes something, hits submit, thinks about what they did, hits back, changes something else, there should be both changes.

you could expire the form to prevent this, or some other thing to prevent it so you're right that it's not a problem that will get hit as implemented but just something to keep in mind if things change.

Doing session management is orthogonal to this. Still a fun idea, though. Even better, actually. But it introduces a new security concern. How quickly should the session time-out (or not?). But it will be good for UX.

But to explain the original idea:

Users can work in what sometimes might seem strange ways: A user can do multiple edits and choose to be perfectly fine not seeing the updates. The flow state is then simply doing the updates - then go to mail and do the approvals. In that flow it would be nice to only approve one mail which then covers all updates.

00:00 Edit A - Timer start 00:09 Edit B - Timer reset 00:18 Edit C - Timer reset 00:28 Timeout - send one mail for approval of A,B,C

The bulk update mail will then need a top link to simply approve all. And individual links below for each edit as mistakes might have been made during edits (if userfriendly :-)). A lot of work to to save a couple of mails - I know! But the things we choose to obsess over :-) It just might fit your definitio of minimalism.

People who want a fast turnaround of approvals one by one will be annoyed by this. But mail is "slow" and can be delayed anyway. People who want fewer clicks and mails will love it. Good design is then finding the optimum or choose who to champion.

Sub-optimisation. For sure!

So not important at all. And a very limited use-case. I just ran with the idea. As you succintly said elsewhere: This is like art. I will second that with a quote from The Dude: "That's just like, your opinion, man". Very true - and you should do you! I just hope I made clear what my impulsive idea was.

A little bit akin to how TN3270 works. Powerusers did crazy things working blindly ahead while awaiting the response from the mainframe.

Your heart is the right place but your logic is upside down! :-)

The easy way to make it simple is do it as a form and then embellish it with javascript. Maybe counter intuitive but still. Let the javascript mangle the form so it does not look like a form and Bob is your uncle. By always using that pattern you easily end up with good usability and accessibility.

The same as with CSS. Make good content with nice semantic HTML. Then go crazy with super cool CSS.

But I am an old fart who hates Tailwind with a vengance. But I do acknowledge it get work done and many think it is great. So I will sulk in the corner and say that they are doing it wrong. Old man yelling at clouds.

Next: REST is great but misunderstood. I do not miss SOAP.

But know this: I love your sentiment and attitude. Nice job! Grumble ;-)

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