Team17's Redesigned Website - an essay by Ben Paddon [Archive] - Team17 Forum

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Squirminator2k
15 Dec 2009, 01:07
The internet is a tricky place to make your mark. Certainly it's tricky if your goal is to leave a lasting impression on everybody who uses the internet anywhere, at all times, forever. Google did this, arguably without even trying. Amazon did this simply by virtue of being a place on the internet where one could by books. But if all you want to do is say to the world, "Hello, this is my company, this is what we do, feel free to get in touch to let us do those things for you," then it's very hard to go awry.
Somehow, with their latest website rejiggling, Team17 have managed to do just that.
32727
Let's set aside the fact that they've apparently recently released the same game twice and focus instead on some of the core design flaws. Firstly, there's a huge balance problem. The site is weighed down rather heavily on the left, and with each new title Team17 puts out that's only going to get worse. It seems a bit silly really, having a "Coming Soon" section like that when the company doesn't have anything else in development (or rather, haven't announced any other games in development). Something like this might work for a larger publisher like Codemasters or EA Games.
Of course, the balance problem is easily solved by removing "recent releases" that have been out for a while, but there's nowhere else to put that information. Old games simply vanish from the site, and that takes us to a bigger problem: Team17's heritage.
It would be easy to look at this website and assume that Team17 had only ever developed four games, three of which are part of the same series, and two of which are, in fact, the same game entirely. There's no mention of the original Alien Breed, not even a sniff of Superfrog, and even Worms' own illustrious history has been cast aside. Considering that a new title in one of Team17's oldest franchises is being released this very week, I can't help but feel that this is a horrific missed opportunity. You should not have to go to an [unofficial fansite (http://www.dream17.co.uk/)] to find out about a company's history.
The main problem I have with this website is that it is essentially an electronic business card. Company name, contact details, done. It's nice, it's simple, and it doesn't cost a lot to maintain because you only need to edit a single HTML file to update the game list, and with it being as simple as it is it doesn't cause as much of a drain on the servers as, say, the Team17 Forum or WormNET. But it doesn't give me any insight into what the company is, who they are, what they're about, where they've been or where they're heading. This is extremely important particularly as Team17 are once again becoming their own publishers, leaping full-force into digital distribution and forging a brand new era for their company. To dismiss what came before seems almost crass. It'd be like Disney ignoring Steamboat Willie. No, worse - it'd be like Disney having a website that just had their logo, some thumbnails of one-sheets for recent or upcoming releases, and then just an address and a phone number.
With a website like this, I can only assume Team17 are making up for it with some really hardcore networking. The company has a history, and anyone who's anyone in what's left of the UK-based games industry knows who they are, but they also have a reputation. Arguably they have two reputations, and one sort-of works against the other. This website does very little for Team17, so hopefully they're making up for it elsewhere in the industry.
Hopefully.

Roboslob
15 Dec 2009, 01:12
You know the only thing you have to click on the logo at the top and you travel to the old site.

Squirminator2k
15 Dec 2009, 01:22
Y'see, that's actually very bad web design. Standard practice these days has the logo header acting as a return link to the website's index page. I didn't even think to click on it because, even if it were clickable, I'd assume it'd just take me to the page I'm already looking at.
Another point to consider is that the News page it takes you to hasn't been updated since July, and the Events column is now over a year old.

Roboslob
15 Dec 2009, 02:22
Yeah, the only reason I brought that up was to find their classic games, since you made it sound like they were gone, completely. I never found it to be a very handy news page anyway.

Squirminator2k
15 Dec 2009, 02:23
Well I thought they were gone, because I didn't think to click on the logo. There was no indication that doing so would have taken me anywhere interesting.

Roboslob
15 Dec 2009, 02:25
Well I thought they were gone, because I didn't think to click on the logo. There was no indication that doing so would have taken me anywhere interesting.
To be honest, I discovered it by accident, I was switching windows, and ended up clicking the logo.

Squirminator2k
15 Dec 2009, 02:25
Well there we are, then.

franpa
15 Dec 2009, 04:05
They just need to change the tooltip for the Team17 logo to say News.

Squirminator2k
15 Dec 2009, 04:09
You can't expect visitors to the site to rely on tooltips. D'you know how many people I know who actually read tooltips (or alt-text) on images or links? I can probably count 'em on one hand, and they're all XKCD readers.

Wormetti
15 Dec 2009, 06:54
All efforts are on their facebook page now. It likely gets far more hits than the team17 site got even back in the day.

Squirminator2k
15 Dec 2009, 07:00
That's a shame. A Facebook page doesn't represent a company as well, I think.

thomasp
15 Dec 2009, 08:28
Things probably aren't helped by T17 still not having a permanent webmaster... On the plus side, the shop has now been updated to remove the "welcome to 2008" message :p ;)

yakuza
15 Dec 2009, 11:13
Not sure if this is a "visit my website" or "recruit me plz" thread

Squirminator2k
15 Dec 2009, 13:36
Considering I can't design websites for beans (I only designed the appearance of Jump Leads and Dream17, it was SupSuper who made it all work) there's no bloody way I'd ask the Teamsters to hire me.
But I do think it's important that they get someone in-house sooner rather than later.

philby4000
15 Dec 2009, 22:58
Who honestly visit's Developer's websites anymore?
If they anounce a new game people are going to read about it on facebook, blogs or forums, if they release a trailer it's going to be on Gametrailers and youtube.

SupSuper
16 Dec 2009, 01:51
The main problem I have with this website is that it is essentially an electronic business card.That's what they're going for, you probably missed their point. The site covers all the basic reasons anyone would visit their site: what they are, what they're up to, and how to get in touch with them.
As you mentioned, their news and all were pretty much dead, so they don't really anything else going on that's worth putting up. If people wanna read up on their history they just go check Wikipedia or unofficial sites or something. When was the last time you saw a company with their entire history on site?
I agree they should put *something* to distinguish between the various-platformed "Worms" though. And the title of "digital publishers" is a bit much, anyone is a publisher online really.
Who honestly visit's Developer's websites anymore?
If they anounce a new game people are going to read about it on facebook, blogs or forums, if they release a trailer it's going to be on Gametrailers and youtube.Or generic gaming sites.

MadEwokHerd
16 Dec 2009, 01:59
When was the last time you saw a company with their entire history on site?
http://www.frontier.co.uk/games/
http://www.smallrockets.com/general/games.htm
Not that I visit many game company websites.

franpa
16 Dec 2009, 03:53
When was the last time you saw a company with their entire history on site?
3DRealms from before they seemingly went bust, www.mattmakesgames.com keeps a news archive.
and wtf? there's no subpages for the games listed @ www.team17.com. So they expect people to click the facebook or twitter links to get news and information about there games? To better sell there facebook/twitter links they need to add some text saying "To find more information about our current and future products as well as the services we provide, click onto our facebook or twitter site."
Pretty much every developer/publisher still doesn't solely depend on a social network site for there own site.

Plasma
16 Dec 2009, 09:40
One thing I found REALLY jarring is that they don't even link to their own Team17 Shop!
Oh yeah, and as of today, it's also out of date - Alien Breed Evolution part 1 just came out.

SupSuper
16 Dec 2009, 14:09
http://www.frontier.co.uk/games/
http://www.smallrockets.com/general/games.htm
Not that I visit many game company websites.Fine, most companies then (I always get picked apart if I don't put that magic word in every single statement I make because people are such picky critters trying to break points with one exception...). Small ones do tend to keep their whole portfolio around since they don't have anything else to put there, but big ones like EA, Codemasters, Activision, EA, etc, will quickly toss them aside specially if they're not for sale anymore (Small Rockets is still selling all of their stuff so it wouldn't make sense to take them down). Either way, it's not that unusual.
In any case the old site is still there, apparently. Team17 doesn't have a dedicated staff for it, so it makes sense that they'd rather devote themselves to social sites which are much easier to manage and interact with (specially when they can't even keep the News updated), unlike most companies. Big companies have their own website and community and PR departments to handle all that on the side. Indy companies pretty much rely solely on social sites and a blog at most.
3DRealms from before they seemingly went bustThey're still around (http://www.3drealms.com), doing who knows what.
www.mattmakesgames.com keeps a news archive.That's not a company.

Squirminator2k
16 Dec 2009, 14:53
As Alien Breed Revolution is out now, their website is once again out of date.

franpa
16 Dec 2009, 15:17
Oh yeah, and as of today, it's also out of date - Alien Breed Evolution part 1 just came out.
..........

thomasp
16 Dec 2009, 17:35
As Alien Breed Revolution is out now, their website is once again out of date.
Give the Teamsters a chance to get back from the pub after celebrating the launch of the game :p

MtlAngelus
16 Dec 2009, 22:36
..........
Nobody pays attention to Plasma.

philby4000
16 Dec 2009, 23:45
nobody pays attention to who?

franpa
17 Dec 2009, 03:22
Nobody pays attention to .......
Who ?

M3ntal
18 Dec 2009, 00:03
Personally i'm a fan of clean, non-cluttered web design, but that is a bit underkill.
I'd have the contact details in the top right, the Facebook and Forum links under the logo but without the "Links" header (just as two icons, maybe icons for the shop/etc as well), get rid of "Recent Releases" and "Coming Soon" headers, have the 3 latest publicly known about games (be they released or not) horizontally where the Worms iPhone, AB: E and Links are now and some jQuery/web 2.0 funkyness that allows you to scroll that "row" of games to see earlier games, all of which are clickable and bring up information underneath the scroll area.
Something like this, but with a less crappy looking scroll bar (i ain't no artist, k?):
http://www.clansfx.co.uk/Team17.jpg
::Edit::
It'd also probably be worth having some kind of admin area for a back-end database that stores all the game info, so the teamsters can update it easily when new stuff gets announced, with the main page loading them into the scrollbar in order of date so the newest stuff appears first.

franpa
18 Dec 2009, 02:32
That ... is a tons better site idea.

MadEwokHerd
18 Dec 2009, 03:42
Fine, most companies then (I always get picked apart if I don't put that magic word in every single statement I make because people are such picky critters trying to break points with one exception...).
As I recall, you never said it doesn't happen. You just asked when the last time I saw it was. (I'm not sure which of those sites I visited more recently, but one of them was the last time I saw it.)

SupSuper
20 Dec 2009, 22:56
Personally i'm a fan of clean, non-cluttered web design, but that is a bit underkill.
I'd have the contact details in the top right, the Facebook and Forum links under the logo but without the "Links" header (just as two icons, maybe icons for the shop/etc as well), get rid of "Recent Releases" and "Coming Soon" headers, have the 3 latest publicly known about games (be they released or not) horizontally where the Worms iPhone, AB: E and Links are now and some jQuery/web 2.0 funkyness that allows you to scroll that "row" of games to see earlier games, all of which are clickable and bring up information underneath the scroll area.If there's something I'd hate more than horizontal scrolling, javascript-based horizontal scrolling would be it. :p

Squirminator2k
20 Dec 2009, 23:06
I really like M3ntal's design.

Xinos
21 Dec 2009, 00:27
It's funny how widescreen monitors got really popular at the same time as the trend of website design became to make very tall and thin websites. :p
I really like Blizzard's (http://us.blizzard.com/en-us/games/) game section on their website. Very short descriptions of the games, but I guess you don't need much. Not too unlike what M3ntal suggested. And of course Valve's (http://www.valvesoftware.com/) game section links directly to each game's Steam page. Damn them for being so clever!
I think Team17 know what they are doing, Facebook probably works better for them than their website ever did. The thing about Facebook is that everybody is already on the site.. how many people visit team17.com? Probably just industry people and people from from this forum who already know everything about their games anyway. I think Facebook is crap, but it's obviously where you have to be to be seen these days unless you have something really special.

Plasma
21 Dec 2009, 11:01
There's no need for horizontal scrolling anyway, you could just do a simple hover-over-icon-to-display-corresponding-text thing!

Plasma
21 Dec 2009, 11:54
I think Team17 know what they are doing, Facebook probably works better for them than their website ever did. The thing about Facebook is that everybody is already on the site.. how many people visit team17.com? Probably just industry people and people from from this forum who already know everything about their games anyway. I think Facebook is crap, but it's obviously where you have to be to be seen these days unless you have something really special.
It's not so much that they're not putting much attention to their main website, that's a-given. It's that they could've done a lot better with it using the same amount of effort!

Squirminator2k
21 Dec 2009, 15:51
There's no need for horizontal scrolling anyway, you could just do a simple hover-over-icon-to-display-corresponding-text thing!
Except hover-over-icon-to-display-corresponding-text things are aesthetically horrible.

Plasma
21 Dec 2009, 16:40
Bah, I wasn't thinking! I meant clicking, not hovering!

Squirminator2k
21 Dec 2009, 17:24
That's arguably worse.

franpa
22 Dec 2009, 06:09
No, it's infinitely better.

M3ntal
22 Dec 2009, 12:07
If there's something I'd hate more than horizontal scrolling, javascript-based horizontal scrolling would be it. :p
There's no need for horizontal scrolling anyway, you could just do a simple hover-over-icon-to-display-corresponding-text thing!
Bah, I wasn't thinking! I meant clicking, not hovering!
Well, having them all in the page view and trying to avoid scrolling would be ridiculous with their back cat of 50+ games. I figured it was better that having to click through seperate pages. Maybe smaller icons for older games?
I really like M3ntal's design.
Why thankyou.
It's funny how widescreen monitors got really popular at the same time as the trend of website design became to make very tall and thin websites. :p
I think i missed that trend - 10 years ago websites were generally made to be viewed in 800x600 and above, now they tend to be made for either 800x600 or 1024x768.
I think Team17 know what they are doing, Facebook probably works better for them than their website ever did. The thing about Facebook is that everybody is already on the site.. how many people visit team17.com? Probably just industry people and people from from this forum who already know everything about their games anyway. I think Facebook is crap, but it's obviously where you have to be to be seen these days unless you have something really special.
I agree with most of that, but not "everyone" is on facebook. It's still a good idea to have a place on the internet where people can check out your games properly without having to register an account and get spammed with FarmVille bollox or people you barely knew from school (i have a lot of problems with the way facebook operates, but that's for a different discussion).
A quick google search for "alien breed evolution" brings up all the usual review sites with everything you'd want to know anyway, so i can see why they don't really need their own site for game marketing purposes.
Design preferences aside, i think Ben hit on what the content of their own site would be best focused on, and that is marketing themselves. Team17 have a lot to be proud of - how many Amiga game developers are still kicking out games that sell and appeal to gamers now? Granted, most of what they've done for the past few years has been tired and buggy and Worms related, but a lot of that was down to them being some publishers female-dog and being told to churn out more of the same and have it ready for yesterday. We all know what they CAN do, that's why most of us are here, and i think their website should show exactly that.

SupSuper
23 Dec 2009, 02:51
Well, having them all in the page view and trying to avoid scrolling would be ridiculous with their back cat of 50+ games. I figured it was better that having to click through seperate pages. Maybe smaller icons for older games?You could just have a vertical sidebar on the left instead, preferably in a <div> for standard scrolling.

M3ntal
23 Dec 2009, 12:45
Surely that'd make it even more imbalanced than it already is? Also, why would semantic markup have any bearing on the presentation? What do you think the <div> tag does, exactly?

SupSuper
24 Dec 2009, 01:09
Surely that'd make it even more imbalanced than it already is? Also, why would semantic markup have any bearing on the presentation? What do you think the <div> tag does, exactly?My point was that <div> lets you make a section of the page scrollable without any fancy Javascripts. :p

M3ntal
24 Dec 2009, 04:04
Oh i see, it was a response to the jQuery/web 2.0 part, i didn't understand what you were getting at :).
I thought it'd look better to have a styled scrollbar (which you can't do with CSS in non-IE browsers), so you'd have to create your own out of <img> tags and use javascript to allow it to do the scrolling. Also, rather than load 50+ game images up halfway through the page flow (most of which start hidden from view), it'd make more sense to load the full page minus the game images up first then use xmlhttp from javascript to load in the images last.

M3ntal
14 Jun 2010, 15:50
Apologies for old thread bump, but i wasn't too far off the mark!

SupSuper
14 Jun 2010, 18:09
Fancy!
And Web 2.0 be damned, I've never been a fan of javascript-contrived solutions. :p

Dix-Neuf
18 Jun 2010, 23:05
Give the Teamsters a chance to get back from the pub after celebrating the launch of the game :p
its funny because team 17 employees like beer

yauhui
27 Jun 2010, 06:43
And Web 2.0 be damned, I've never been a fan of javascript-contrived solutions. :p
Javascript-contrived solutions are more aesthetically pleasant than, say, standard browser scrolling. Especially in browsers without smooth-scrolling (like Google Chrome).
Also, at least Javascript-contrived solutions work on 100% of all desktop and most mobile browsers, instead of just showing a little blue cube (*cough*).
My point was that <div> lets you make a section of the page scrollable without any fancy Javascripts. :p
That's possible with an overflow-x: scroll style applied to the <div>, but as said above, it's not as pretty as a Javascript alternative (e.g. jQuery/Script.aculo.us).

poninja
27 Jun 2010, 19:07
http://img208.imageshack.us/img208/286/threadgoingmp2.jpg

SupSuper
27 Jun 2010, 19:31
Javascript-contrived solutions are more aesthetically pleasant than, say, standard browser scrolling. Especially in browsers without smooth-scrolling (like Google Chrome).
Also, at least Javascript-contrived solutions work on 100% of all desktop and most mobile browsers, instead of just showing a little blue cube (*cough*).
That's possible with an overflow-x: scroll style applied to the <div>, but as said above, it's not as pretty as a Javascript alternative (e.g. jQuery/Script.aculo.us).Screw pretty, I like my clean consistency. :p

M3ntal
28 Jun 2010, 03:38
Why do you dislike Javascript, SupSuper?

SupSuper
28 Jun 2010, 11:25
I guess I'm an old grump. The obfuscated code, the like-a-coding-language-but-not-quite, the horrible debugging, the loading behind browser's backs, the links that aren't quite links, the tendency for mystery-meat non-standard UI, the wild mix of styles and events and usages and uncaching and cross-browser-shenanigans... in short the ever-present off-ness, even after years and years of usage. Makes me uneasy.
Also I just noticed the new website is a cleverly-disguised Wordpress. Neat.

M3ntal
30 Jun 2010, 11:14
Hah, i'd not noticed it was Wordpress. I also just spotted this in the source:
<!--[if lte IE 6]><script src="js/ie6/warning.js">...
I know we've all been tempted, but really?
Now, let me address your Javascript problems. I'm having trouble understanding what you mean by some of them, so apologies if i get the wrong end of the stick:
Obfuscated code - JS is perfectly readable. If it's been obfuscated, that's the developer's fault.
Like-a-coding-language-but-not-quite - it is a coding language.
Debugging - surely depends on the debugger, not the language?
Loading behind browsers backs - it's all still happening within the browser, and any sensible developer can still make use of the default browser behaviours regarding history, response codes, etc.
Links that aren't quite links - if it leads somewhere when you click it, it's a link. I have no idea why the href attribute is still limited to anchor tags in the markup, we've well moved on from blue underlined text links by now.
Mystery-meat non-standard UI - again, blame that on developers, although this can be a good thing too. I'll refer back to blue underlined text links as an example.
Styles/events/usages/uncaching - another developer issue.
Cross-browser-shenanigans - it's a hell of a lot more cross-browser friendly than CSS, and you are fine with that. I can only think of two compatibility problems i've had to deal with (IE's xmlhttp object, and IE's mouse coordinate names) but i deal with CSS ones on a daily basis.
I think your problem with JS is that you can't accept it has a place. It isn't some ad-hoc proprietary plugin (a-la Flash) but a W3C standard just like the others, and i certainly see it as one of the "big 3". (X)HTML is for describing, CSS is for visual formatting, and JS is for algorithmically controlling.

Dix-Neuf
30 Jun 2010, 23:45
when you walk by a group of quote unquote normal people, you chuckle to yourself patting yourself on the back as you scoff

M3ntal
1 Jul 2010, 01:19
You mean like yourself when browsing forums?

Dix-Neuf
1 Jul 2010, 02:59
basically:cool:
e:
Our Father, who 0wnz heaven,
l33t be thy h4x0r handle.
May all our base someday be belong to you!
May j00 0wn earth just like j00 0wn heaven.
Give us this day our warez, mp3z, and pr0n through a phat pipe.
And cut us some slack when we act like n00b lamerz, just as we teach n00bz when they act lame on us.
And lead us not into l4m3 linkz, but deliver us from MI5, FBI, and RIAA.
For j00 0wn r00t on all our b0x3s 4ever and ever, 4m3n.
I, too, am stuck in a time warp and currently live in an age where 1337speak is still relevant and funny

SupSuper
1 Jul 2010, 18:15
Hah, i'd not noticed it was Wordpress. I also just spotted this in the source:
<!--[if lte IE 6]><script src="js/ie6/warning.js">...
I know we've all been tempted, but really?
Now, let me address your Javascript problems. I'm having trouble understanding what you mean by some of them, so apologies if i get the wrong end of the stick:
Obfuscated code - JS is perfectly readable. If it's been obfuscated, that's the developer's fault.
Like-a-coding-language-but-not-quite - it is a coding language.
Debugging - surely depends on the debugger, not the language?
Loading behind browsers backs - it's all still happening within the browser, and any sensible developer can still make use of the default browser behaviours regarding history, response codes, etc.
Links that aren't quite links - if it leads somewhere when you click it, it's a link. I have no idea why the href attribute is still limited to anchor tags in the markup, we've well moved on from blue underlined text links by now.
Mystery-meat non-standard UI - again, blame that on developers, although this can be a good thing too. I'll refer back to blue underlined text links as an example.
Styles/events/usages/uncaching - another developer issue.
Cross-browser-shenanigans - it's a hell of a lot more cross-browser friendly than CSS, and you are fine with that. I can only think of two compatibility problems i've had to deal with (IE's xmlhttp object, and IE's mouse coordinate names) but i deal with CSS ones on a daily basis.
I think your problem with JS is that you can't accept it has a place. It isn't some ad-hoc proprietary plugin (a-la Flash) but a W3C standard just like the others, and i certainly see it as one of the "big 3". (X)HTML is for describing, CSS is for visual formatting, and JS is for algorithmically controlling.
Most of the blame may be on the developers, yes, but when I go around the web it's not the technology that impacts me, but its use. If people blamed Flash for people mostly using it for flashy needless extra heavy effects, then I'll blame Javascript for people mostly using it for flashy needless extra heavy effects.
Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with Javascript, much like I have no problem with Flash and whatever's the next popular thing. They're all wonderful pieces of technology. My problem is it always feels "off". Like a plugin even though it isn't. Like a middle-ground between fully static stuff (eg. HTML) and fully dynamic stuff (eg. PHP). It should be integral and seamless just like HTML and CSS but it somehow always ends up feeling like a tacked-on extra. Plus at the end of the day you can always just *turn it off* so it will never be as integral as HTML/CSS.
My terminology might've been a bit confusing, so I'll post some examples:
- Obfuscated code: Anything that Javascript "does" to the webpage won't be displayed in the source or anywhere, it's all volatile. The most common example is Javascript writing out HTML for you for some reason. For example the JW Player, a popular Flash media player, usually doesn't embed itself on webpages with <object> or <embed> tags, but with some Javascript snippet that writes that for you. I'm sure there's some incredibly convoluted reason about Flash detection and what not, but at the end of the day if I wanna check where the video is coming from, how their embed code works, or something, all I will find on the page is something like this:
"var so = new SWFObject('player.swf','ply','470','320','9','#000 000');"
And if I wanna find out what that actually does, time to go dig around some random Javascript files.
- Like-a-coding-language-but-not-quite / Debugging: Individual Javascript implementations are all down to the respective browser, there's no compilers, no debuggers, no documentation, no very clear standards. You write something in Javascript, it works, great! It doesn't, there's no error messages or anything, you have to go dig down on your browser's debugger and through the confounding error messages in hopes that you'll figure out the asinine reason that it's not working. "Object expected" well just says it all given in Javascript an "Object" can be anything thanks to its loosely-typed stuff. For all you know you might've just not put the <script> tag in the right place, because there's a million different places those can go with different effects. This one is probably just a pet peeve but I've never had a good experience coding with it.
- Loading behind browsers backs: Javascript can pretty much do anything without you or the browser knowing, specially with the likes of AJAX. Pulling stuff from databases, updating the page dynamically, all wonderful stuff just to avoid a "reload". But of course the browser won't be aware of any of this either. If you hit "Back" or something all that JS did is gone, your quick reply looks like it vanished, it's not cached, not anywhere. If JS is loading something from a backend or whatever, the browser won't even flinch. Not even you will know about it unless the developer specifically went to the trouble of adding some "loading GIF", and assuming something along the line didn't just fail and that gets stuck. No errors, no informations, nothing.
- Links that aren't quite links: It all looks like a link whether it's JS crudely put in the "href" or an "onclick" event or whatever, it's something that has a hand over it. In fact in some browsers the hand probably won't show up anymore and you're not even sure anymore what's clickable and what isn't (even Flash kept the hand behavior for its clickables). In fact this follows along with:
- Mystery-meat non-standard UI: So I middle-click on a screenshot to open it in a new tab but oh wait, it's not a link, it's some fancy gallery plugin thing that feels the need to Javascript the enlarged screenshot onto the same page because that's so much more helpful and now I either get a useless tab or the screenshot crammed right in front of the previous page. Because it's not like we don't already have windows right, ****'em, let's just totally reinvent everything because we need our dropshadows and fades and what not. Sure when Windows gets fancy it's all evil and unecessary, but when webpages do it it's freakin' Web 3.5! Screw consistency, screw standard UI components or whatever, we're fancy art design whatever that reinvent the wheel ten times over in rainbow colors and now I can't even so much as right-click to copy a link or an image address to show a friend or scroll through stuff because it's all overriden and mangled and what not, well done.
- Cross-browser-shenanigans: I have no idea how much of it is down to browser's individual implementations or developers just being stupid, but in this wonderful world of dynamic applications up the ass I can be expected to be confronted regularly about my choice of browser (specially from bigwigs like Google/Microsoft) just not being dynamic enough for their magical universe, or stuff that simply inexplicably won't work in my browser but will work in IE.
- Styles/events/usages/uncaching: Depending on your browser and where exactly the code is on the webpage and how all the planets in the system are currrently aligned, Javascript is pretty likely to behave differently. Maybe it'll start when the page first loads, when it's finished loading, when the particularly bit where it's at loads, when you click on something. Or maybe it'll fail to load or mess up even though the rest of the page looks fine because your internet might've been slow and now you can't access Youtube because it thinks "your flash version is incorrect" or you can't edit your posts any more, and reloading might not fix the problem. History navigation is useless because browsers won't cache Javascript results and Javascript doesn't play nice with it either way, so if it breaks somewhere you'll need to reload and start it all over, and it'll often clutter your Back button with redirects and other mindless behind-the-scene stuff and now hitting Back just won't work because it keeps redirecting itself back and fffffffff this is the future?
So sure a lot of these complaints might not be about Javascript but how it gets used improperly, but if most developers are using Javascript no better then when they first ran into Flash (and hell I've grown a lot more fond of Flash over the years) well how am I supposed to feel (and I'm not even getting into its ad-nauseum advertising uses because those can be easily blocked)? I don't care what the technology is or how it works or if it's the next best thing since sliced bread, I care if it gets in my way of my daily browsing or not because that's how I'm gonna experience it. You can't even apply the "just turn it off if you don't like it" argument because half the websites will refuse to work without it so you might as well just get rid of that option altogether.

M3ntal
2 Jul 2010, 00:00
Your issues seem to be based in the various (mis)usages of Javascript, which i can totally understand, and i think it is this that has given you that "off" feeling about it. A lot of the time when you choose to use JS, you are effectively telling browsers "let me handle this" and many people forget/can't be bothered to replace/compensate for the default behaviours they are disabling in the process, such as history, mouse handling, etc.
When using software on other platform you generally can't view ANY of the source and it's free to do whatever it wants in the background without giving you any indication. What makes web based software have to comply with a different set of rules? Surely all you need to know about the JW player is that the play button plays the video and the stop button stops it.
Javascript is a language. It's an interpreted scripting language. Like others in that class, it has no compiler, and is weakly typed. These are good things in the context it is being used for. There are debuggers that give much better information than IE (i manage fine with Firefox's Error Console), it has an entire internet full of documentation, and also has a very clear standard (ECMA-262).
I think the main difference is that coding software for Windows/Mac/etc requires more training and expertise than coding web-based software, hence the developers are also more well trained in design and usability.
basically:cool:
e:
I, too, am stuck in a time warp and currently live in an age where 1337speak is still relevant and funny
Could you send me a PM explaining what exactly your problem is, rather than interrrupting this conversation with insults? You seem quite determined to offend me, so let me know what bad i've done by you to deserve this please.

Squirminator2k
2 Jul 2010, 01:56
Ah, ignore him. He jes' trollin'.

SupSuper
2 Jul 2010, 16:21
When using software on other platform you generally can't view ANY of the source and it's free to do whatever it wants in the background without giving you any indication. What makes web based software have to comply with a different set of rules? Surely all you need to know about the JW player is that the play button plays the video and the stop button stops it.Well that's one of the inherent advantages of the web, the openness. If I find a neat image online, I can freely save it to disk. With the JW example, if I wanna keep the video for posterity or just download it because it's not loading right or something, I grab the direct link from the source.
Also I just find "echoing HTML" a pretty poor use of Javascript (specially when it's mostly used to get around filters and blocks and other sneaky stuff). :p
Javascript is a language. It's an interpreted scripting language. Like others in that class, it has no compiler, and is weakly typed. These are good things in the context it is being used for. There are debuggers that give much better information than IE (i manage fine with Firefox's Error Console), it has an entire internet full of documentation, and also has a very clear standard (ECMA-262).Fair enough, I use Opera's Error Console and it's good enough, but the error descriptions and types of errors and how I can basically not write a single line without it breaking horribly and having to desperately Google online for a solution is what gets to me.
I mean, PHP is also a weakly-typed compiler-less language and I get along much better with it. :p

M3ntal
2 Jul 2010, 19:47
I agree that echoing HTML isn't usually the best solution, although i don't really have a reason why. I guess it's more for organisational reasons than functional ones. As a rule, i try and only echo the data from PHP (ie, never echo HTML tags with it) and use the DOM to make any dynamic updates from JS.
Does Opera have a DOM inspector like FF? That brings up a tree-like structure of the web page, including any dynamic updates that have been made. It's easier to navigate than trawling the page source, and should tell you where your JW player video files are hosted.
Also, JS is quite a different language than PHP, C++, Java, etc. At some point Netscape fudged it to work like the others so more people would adopt it, but it's best if you use it like it was intended. If you get time, have a peruse through the Javascript section of this site: http://www.crockford.com/, in particular the "wrrrlds most misunderstood language" article.

M3ntal
3 Jul 2010, 06:50
Ah, ignore him. He jes' trollin'.
He's PM'd me, it's all fine.
He might have a point though, maybe time for a sig change? I've had that one for over 7 years:
http://www.google.co.uk/#hl=en&safe=off&q=site%3Ateam17.com+who+0wnz+heaven&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=&fp=4decbba4b4ffde8d

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