Re: Absolute element offsets--exercise in futility

On Apr 12, 8:07 pm, Eric Bednarz <bedn...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Lawrence Krubner <lkrub...@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> writes:
That's just it. These pre-packaged scripts allow designers to get a
wide variety of effects without having to learn how to program.

Who are those “graphic designers” I keep hearing about, as if it were a
real profession that needs trained individuals? Pushing pixels across
the screen is a matter of having the right software installed and
pressing some buttons (I foresee great entertainment value here).

The
market demand for these scripts is exactly that they enable designers
to do something new,

Huh? How do you something new with pre-packaged effects? You will be
happy to learn that unlike David, the cheap cheesy message of
e.g. prototype/ligthbox usage offends me more than its code base.

I hate them just as much in the end-user role. You ought to see this
YUI-based monstrosity I was just dealing with. I love it when prats
decide they just have to have a "lightbox" and proceed to wreck an
otherwise useful document. The most outrageous examples (e.g.
Reddit's login) render critical UI elements off-screen and make it
impossible to scroll them into view. I don't bother complaining about
these things (who does?) as some fool on the other end will just
respond with drivel about "edge cases" and all of the great feedback
they get from their users. (!)

When you write this stuff, it makes it all the more aggravating when
some neophyte who wants to add jQuery or YUI or whatever to their
profile causes you to lose the form you just filled out, breaks your
browser, opens 30 HTTP connections on every navigation, etc. I have
really come to hate the Web lately.

My technical criticism is not just about code quality either. The
whole idea (a large, generalized solution for all browser scripting
occasions) was a foolish one. This is perhaps one of the worst trends
in software history and it couldn't come at a worse time for the Web
(browsers were finally starting to settle down and act alike.) For
most of the last decade, IE has been a constant, yet people are
rushing to adopt a script that is still mystified by things like
quirks mode. Ironically, it is often served with transitional XHTML,
which is completely incompatible with the script (not to mention IE.)

If there are two things you don't bet on at this point, they are John
Resig and HTML error correction.

[snip]
.