AJAX: bringing functionality -and- problems

October 22, 2006 3:12 PM

The ways in which AJAX breaks things.
posted by five fresh fish to Bugs at 3:12 PM (25 comments total)

Yes, I know my comments and most comments are gone. And I know the back button is an issue at the moment. I'm working on both.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 3:15 PM on October 22, 2006

Using Shift+Click on the tabs does not open them on new tabs. This is reduced functionality: non-AJAX links give me the ability to do any number of interesting things, from opening in a new tab or window, to saving a page without opening it.

The Back function (Z key in Opera, Alt+Left Arrow in others) no longer works. This is reduced functionality: non-AJAX links give me the ability to go back to a previous page without re-fetching it, thus restoring it to its original state prior to having clicked a link.

Also, I no longer have the ability to see a list of front page posts that I've participated in and also contain new messages (sortby=mycommentedthreads). This is a very marked reduction in functionality: previously, I was able to Shift+Click the "(x new)" link to open the thread to the last post I viewed, allowing me to easily catch up on the chatter.

I am disappointed that functionality is being sacrificed for the fun of playing with the latest toys.
posted by five fresh fish at 3:20 PM on October 22, 2006

Have you considered doing some real usability tests, Matt? Semi-formalized, etc?
posted by five fresh fish at 3:22 PM on October 22, 2006

Also, I no longer have the ability to see a list of front page posts that I've participated in and also contain new messages (sortby=mycommentedthreads). This is a very marked reduction in functionality

I agree. I miss the ability to sort the frontpage by way of "my comments."
posted by ericb at 3:24 PM on October 22, 2006

It's just a poor implementation. Shift+Click and back button functionality could easily be restored, as could the missing tabs.
posted by cillit bang at 3:24 PM on October 22, 2006

Let's not jump on mathowie and give him a hard time, ok? AJAX implementations are difficult to get right and that takes time, money and effort. While it's nice that FFF is advising real usability tests, I note that he and others aren't volunteering to do the testing for free.
posted by Kickstart70 at 3:35 PM on October 22, 2006

It's very easy to complain about other people's work.
posted by smackfu at 3:37 PM on October 22, 2006

I think the tab thing might work better if it was entirely un-ajax. It certainly takes a lot longer to load than a normal Mefi page does, at least for me. Ajax is neat for stuff like submitting favourites, but weird for loading text.
posted by reklaw at 3:44 PM on October 22, 2006

Well, it's only ajax because it's easy to do quick switches to see what is popular. I could remove the ajax crap entirely and just make them load new pages, but I kind of like being able to sit on the index page and look at three pages of info in a couple clicks.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 4:03 PM on October 22, 2006

make it a user option!
posted by delmoi at 4:06 PM on October 22, 2006

Actually you can still open tabs in new browser tabs but the result is very strange.
posted by delmoi at 4:07 PM on October 22, 2006

Ajax on those pages would make more sense if you cached the content for each tab clientside, so when you toggle back to a tab you've already looked at it'd appear instantly, no need for another server hit.

Otherwise there's not much point in using ajax here at all: it doesn't load much faster (because compared to a full page load, ajax is only skipping the easy parts of the page, mostly static html; the expensive stuff gets regenerated anyway).

I kinda see Ajax as more useful for updating small parts of a page, when it lets you avoid reloading something complicated. (F'rinstance, a good place to use ajax might be comment preview, since that'd save you reloading the full page of comments; you'd only have to send back new comments since the page last loaded plus the user's new comment.)
posted by ook at 4:17 PM on October 22, 2006

Let's not jump on mathowie and give him a hard time, ok? AJAX implementations are difficult to get right and that takes time, money and effort. While it's nice that FFF is advising real usability tests, I note that he and others aren't volunteering to do the testing for free.

I did not "jump on mathowie." Nothing I said could be construed as not volunteering to do it for free.

Why would you even write that? Someone piss in your wheaties this morning, or are you just being an asswipe for no particular reason?
posted by five fresh fish at 4:19 PM on October 22, 2006

(just checking)
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:44 PM on October 22, 2006

Whatcha checking? Might be worth cross-browser testing it. I'm on Opera 9.x.

I've noticed live preview is excruitiatingly slow. The live display takes forever to update, which interferes with the browser updating the textbox.
posted by five fresh fish at 4:49 PM on October 22, 2006

I dunno if it's Ajax or what, but I currently can't see any posts on the front page in Safari. It starts to load with the sidebar and everything, then stops with just the headers & footers there. Related? Already addressed?
posted by soyjoy at 8:30 PM on October 22, 2006

Works for me as an unregistered user (ie. not logged in). Tiger w/updates.
posted by five fresh fish at 8:44 PM on October 22, 2006

soyjoy, does it work in a different browser?
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:59 PM on October 22, 2006

Yeah, it comes up fine in all other browser/platforms I've checked. In fact, now that I check Safari on my work Mac, which is upgraded to 10.4.5, I see it coming up fine there, so I guess it's just a prob for those of us that haven't gotten with the program and upgraded to the latest OS X.
posted by soyjoy at 9:21 AM on October 23, 2006

Why would you even write that? Someone piss in your wheaties this morning, or are you just being an asswipe for no particular reason?

I read the following as pretty sarcastic and a little offensive:
"Have you considered doing some real usability tests, Matt? Semi-formalized, etc?". My apologies if I read it wrong. This forum is often so sarcastic that it's a fair expectation, methinks.
posted by Kickstart70 at 11:11 AM on October 23, 2006

You could not have read it more wrong.

But let's say you were not wrong. Why would you feel a need to get in a pissing match with me, instead of letting the person to whom I was addressing my comments deal with it? I can not fathom a way in which you come out ahead by doing so. What was your motivation?
posted by five fresh fish at 3:49 PM on October 23, 2006

I miss my comments, but I like the basic mechanism.
posted by owhydididoit at 7:43 PM on October 23, 2006

my comments is back, as a tab. owhydididoit.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 8:05 PM on October 23, 2006

fff: Ok, I was wrong. Basically, I didn't want this thread to become a pissing match and therefore I wanted to head things off at the start.

But anyway, I'm sorry I read you wrong, and I'm sorry that you felt that me supporting someone else deserved calling me names. I'm not sure how you have determined I'm the bad guy in this little situation.
posted by Kickstart70 at 8:22 PM on October 23, 2006

Well, perhaps I read you wrongly, too. Certainly I over-reacted.

Thank-you, Matt. Makes the difference between MeFi being usable and unusable, IMO.
posted by five fresh fish at 9:40 PM on October 23, 2006