Javascript Effects | Hacker News Reader

Javascript Effects

jeez.eu

15 pointsbasdog2212 comments

Image curls and embedded audio players are essential? These effects are modern-day animated under construction gifs.

Where by "unobtrusive" we appear to mean "Kai's Power Tools".

Don't knock Kai's Power Tools man ... at the time it was one of the coolest things I'd ever seen.

These are idiotic, and should all be done on the back-end -- either by your favorite image program before you upload your image, or by some server-side code -- and they add nothing of value to the website.

By contrast, check out the JS effects integrated into a site I did for a client: http://davidmckayphotography.com/ (I didn't do the site design or layout, just the photo gallery/JS bits).

Nice.. but it is not "Unobtrusive JavaScript"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unobtrusive_JavaScript

Whoops, you're right, it's not.

I'm currently working on a new version which actually would be.

I agree. I see no need to waste bandwidth and page size with an external library to add an image curl. If I wanted that I would add it using my favorite image editing program.

The JavaScript image processing libraries he mention also make the image grainy. I'm really not impressed.

If there is one possibly "essential" javascript effect it would be the spinning ajax indicator or a progress indicator for uploads and other time intensive operations.

None of the "effects" mentioned by the author are anywhere near "essential."

Non-essential and somewhat intrusive. Fun toy scripts, though.

This is obviously some strange usage of the word improve, of which I was previously unaware.

Isn't "essential unobtrusive javascript" an oxymoron? Unobtrusive Javascript is by definition stuff where your site is still OK without it?

I always thought unobtrusive javascript refers to how it is written. For example, using the inline onClick attribute would be considered obtrusive, because it is in the HTML. On the other hand, unobtrusive javascript would assign a function to some control when the window loads, effectively making the HTML pure.

You're both right. By separating the Javascript from the HTML, you make it easier for the site to degrade gracefully. (Though you still have to design specifically for graceful degradation if you're serious about it)

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