Comment Feed for Duncan ... you care to explain ? (Coffeehouse on Channel 9)

Re: Duncan ... you care to explain ?

RichardRudek — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 07:17:05 GMT

Duncanma wrote:

RichardRudek wrote:And deleting ?

Or are we going to allow (some) attachments on forum posts ?

Deleting? By the author of the sandbox entry?

Yes, by the author.

Duncanma wrote:
Not actually something we had talked about, we discussed the ability to upload a new version that would replace the one currently there (although we'd keep tracking the combined download count along with the individual download count for each uploaded version over time)... but no, other than an administrative action, we hadn't planned on delete.

Perhaps if you explain your question in more detail I'll have an idea of why we would do that.... and we can always change our minds

Well my [

Thanks! That is an interesting approach... I'll see what I can do.

As far as the existing C9, I'll take a look at the code for the pager and see what is possible. As other people have mentioned, there isn't really any need to have paging done via javascript since it ends up being a full page load anyways.

I'm the only guy on the team who does any work with the current C9 code base though, so I'm the bottleneck for any changes to this site.

Oh, and just so no one thinks I've stopped responding out of lack of interest, I'm heading out to the grocery store with my daughter ... so I won't be participating in this thread for at least the next few hours and possibly won't get back to it until later in the evening.

Yeah I know how the "One Coder" on something works...

as for the "Addvert" yeah MSFT gets stuck with ither "too much" or "too little" so to speak.

One camp wants SIlverlight everywhere all the time and gets in a tizzy if it's not.
the other camp does the inverse....
MSFT & Co trying to keep both semi-happy... :s

Re: Duncan ... you care to explain ?

JChung2006 — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 21:31:35 GMT

Duncanma wrote:
To explain, and avoid ongoing speculation, I posted some code that checks if the user has Silverlight and *if they don't and they are on a browser that supports Silverlight* then it shows them a modal dialog asking them to go an install it.

Ah yes, a subject I am most familiar with...

Re: Duncan ... you care to explain ?

Duncan Mackenzie — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 21:10:50 GMT

evildictaitor wrote:

Make the link a normal link, but add an onclick event. In the onclick event test if the left mouse button was clicked. If so, fire the ajax request and cancel the event bubble from moving the location elsewhere. If any button other than the left button was pressed, do nothing.

This means that a left click ajax-gets the page, and a middle and right click does the default, i.e. brings up the "Right click-link" menu, or open in a new tab respectively.

Thanks! That is an interesting approach... I'll see what I can do.

As far as the existing C9, I'll take a look at the code for the pager and see what is possible. As other people have mentioned, there isn't really any need to have paging done via javascript since it ends up being a full page load anyways.

I'm the only guy on the team who does any work with the current C9 code base though, so I'm the bottleneck for any changes to this site.

Oh, and just so no one thinks I've stopped responding out of lack of interest, I'm heading out to the grocery store with my daughter ... so I won't be participating in this thread for at least the next few hours and possibly won't get back to it until later in the evening.

Re: Duncan ... you care to explain ?

evildictaitor — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 21:00:48 GMT

Duncanma wrote:

Because we want it to work without a full page refresh... you might not agree, and I understand that, but we are currently set on our ajax-style paging.

I actually meant with regards to the current C9, but in general for the ajax, you can do more nasty things.

Make the link a normal link, but add an onclick event. In the onclick event test if the left mouse button was clicked. If so, fire the ajax request and cancel the event bubble from moving the location elsewhere. If any button other than the left button was pressed, do nothing.

This means that a left click ajax-gets the page, and a middle and right click does the default, i.e. brings up the "Right click-link" menu, or open in a new tab respectively.

This will also work by default for search engines and no-scripting browsers.

Re: Duncan ... you care to explain ?

Duncan Mackenzie — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:56:32 GMT

evildictaitor wrote:

Duncanma wrote:
Ah, ok... well if we set the href correctly to the non-javascript method, and put the javascript method into the onclick then this problem should be fixed for you. I'll keep this in mind as we are coding.

Sounds good, but why do you need to keep the onclick event? The purpose of clicking '2' in a multipage thread is to move the second page, and that's what the javascript method does. By replacing it with the non-javascript method, it does so without invoking javascript, and has the happy side-effect that middle-click works, spiders can follow it, and javascript-disabled browsers can use C9.

Because we want it to work without a full page refresh... you might not agree, and I understand that, but we are currently set on our ajax-style paging.

Re: Duncan ... you care to explain ?

Duncan Mackenzie — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:55:37 GMT

W3bbo wrote:

Duncanma wrote: Ah, ok... well if we set the href correctly to the non-javascript method, and put the javascript method into the onclick then this problem should be fixed for you. I'll keep this in mind as we are coding.

Middle-clicking still fires the onclick event, IIRC.

Hmm... well, I get how to make this work in the 'no-javascript' case... but how to make 'open page in new tab' work in the javascript case without turning off our async code?

I guess we could render the no-javascript view for people as a profile option

Re: Duncan ... you care to explain ?

evildictaitor — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:55:05 GMT

Duncanma wrote:

Ah, ok... well if we set the href correctly to the non-javascript method, and put the javascript method into the onclick then this problem should be fixed for you. I'll keep this in mind as we are coding.

Sounds good, but why do you need to keep the onclick event? The purpose of clicking '2' in a multipage thread is to move the second page, and that's what the javascript method does. By replacing it with the non-javascript method, it does so without invoking javascript, and has the happy side-effect that middle-click works, spiders can follow it, and javascript-disabled browsers can use C9.

Re: Duncan ... you care to explain ?

W3bbo — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:50:44 GMT

Duncanma wrote:
Ah, ok... well if we set the href correctly to the non-javascript method, and put the javascript method into the onclick then this problem should be fixed for you. I'll keep this in mind as we are coding.

Middle-clicking still fires the onclick event, IIRC.

Re: Duncan ... you care to explain ?

Duncan Mackenzie — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:42:26 GMT

evildictaitor wrote:

My point about tabs is that you can't right click a javascript link and "Open in New Tab", since this functionality is designed for opening new pages, whereas javascript is designed for modifying the current page.

Ah, ok... well if we set the href correctly to the non-javascript method, and put the javascript method into the onclick then this problem should be fixed for you. I'll keep this in mind as we are coding.

Re: Duncan ... you care to explain ?

evildictaitor — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:36:25 GMT

Duncanma wrote:

Not sure about the connection with tabs... but we are actually working on making the site work reasonably well without javascript, the new site that is... definitely viewing posts and paging are things that should work without scripting. Doubt we'll get video support without script (Silverlight is 100% useless without script as far as I know), but we should be able to make it a 'click to play' style experience.

My point about tabs is that you can't right click a javascript link and "Open in New Tab", since this functionality is designed for opening new pages, whereas javascript is designed for modifying the current page. By disguising new page requests (e.g. the page selection in multipage threads) as javascript links, you prevent both IE and firefox from opening multiple pages in tabs, something that I often do when reading the forum.

Re: Duncan ... you care to explain ?

evildictaitor — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:33:53 GMT

ScanIAm wrote:

Obviously, my views on religion are incorrect, and now, my personal style is lacking.

I couldn't care less about whether they are correct or not. This is not the point of my request. My point is that it is both religous and designed to invoke hatred.

Consequently it has no place on Channel9.

ScanIAm wrote:

but if you ever, for one minute, think I give a sh*t about your opinion on my religious views or my avatar, you are sadly mistaken.

I like lots of your avatars. But let's keep religion out of C9. Mkay? Good.

And if you think that it's none of my business then we have to start looking at the C9 code of conduct, specifically under the "no hatred" section.

Thanks.

Re: Duncan ... you care to explain ?

harumscarum — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:33:48 GMT

Duncanma wrote:

Zeus wrote: From Twitter:

Duncanma wrote: just finished shipping code to Channel 9 that makes me feel dirty... first time in this group I've deployed code that I strongly objected to 12:53 AM January 19, 2008 from web

To explain, and avoid ongoing speculation, I posted some code that checks if the user has Silverlight and *if they don't and they are on a browser that supports Silverlight* then it shows them a modal dialog asking them to go an install it.

Ahh I caught this last week when visiting a MS site and thought it was obnoxious. What really annoyed me is that if your browser window is not fully maximized the "close" icon in this window is not seen.

Re: Duncan ... you care to explain ?

Duncan Mackenzie — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:32:30 GMT

evildictaitor wrote:
Also with the javascripty nonsense, please fix it. It makes everyone's lives better. What's the point of IE having tabs if channel9 goes and makes a site that deliberately prevents you from using them?

Not sure about the connection with tabs... but we are actually working on making the site work reasonably well without javascript, the new site that is... definitely viewing posts and paging are things that should work without scripting. Doubt we'll get video support without script (Silverlight is 100% useless without script as far as I know), but we should be able to make it a 'click to play' style experience.

And, to answer the follow up question, we are getting fairly close to deploying the v4 code to C9... Sampy and Erik did a ton of work to get the new Wiki code done last week, now we are moving onto to the Sandbox (support for uploading files, user tagging, etc...)

We even have a fairly major editor upgrade in the works (for comments, new threads, etc...)...

at the same time we've been working with someone who is a frequent contributor to the W3C and is helping us to make the site more accessible (which incorporates many things, but working better without script is one of them).

Re: Duncan ... you care to explain ?

Duncan Mackenzie — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:22:53 GMT

Zeus wrote:
From Twitter:

Duncanma wrote: just finished shipping code to Channel 9 that makes me feel dirty... first time in this group I've deployed code that I strongly objected to 12:53 AM January 19, 2008 from web

To explain, and avoid ongoing speculation, I posted some code that checks if the user has Silverlight and *if they don't and they are on a browser that supports Silverlight* then it shows them a modal dialog asking them to go an install it.

MSDN is already doing this, as is ASP.NET, Silverlight.NET, IIS.NET, and many others... so from some points of view we aren't doing anything all that odd... but it still bothers me. It seems like a pop-up ad, when we already show you the 'install now' option in place of the player if you don't have Silverlight installed. It doesn't bother me an enormous amount, it isn't something to quit over or anything like that, but it still seems wrong.

Most of you won't see this, assuming you already have it installed, or if you do see it... it goes away with a click and won't come back for a long time.

If you want to see it now, since I took it away from our site at the moment (it just won't float right in IE for some reason!!!), hit IIS.NET or Silverlight.NET or MSDN2 on some machine that doesn't have Silverlight but could (so IE on Windows, Firefox on intel based macs, etc...)

As to why did I twitter this... well that is a good question. I was planning a long post last night explaining my thoughts on why we did this and why we shouldn't do this... but when we couldn't get it working right and had to roll it back I ended up delaying the longer post, leaving the twitter to stand alone unexplained. I also must admit that I wasn't really thinking anyone would notice a twitter post from me :)

Re: Duncan ... you care to explain ?

ScanIAm — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:22:45 GMT

evildictaitor wrote:
@ScanIAm:

I know your views on religion, but for someone who self-proclaimedly doesn't care about anyone else's views and wants to keep religion out of C9, I think you ought to change your avatar and caption.

It's inflamatory, and against the C9 terms and conditions.

I'm just asking nicely here before other people start asking less nicely.

Cheers.

Really?

Thanks so much for your input.

I'm gaining much from your unsolicited input.

Obviously, my views on religion are incorrect, and now, my personal style is lacking.

Seriously: Your knowledge of some of the topics we discuss is formidable, and I'm quite encouraged, at times, to hear what you have to say about a wide variety of issues, but if you ever, for one minute, think I give a sh*t about your opinion on my religious views or my avatar, you are sadly mistaken.

m'kay?

good.

Re: Duncan ... you care to explain ?

evildictaitor — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:15:15 GMT

@ScanIAm:

I know your views on religion, but for someone who self-proclaimedly doesn't care about anyone else's views and wants to keep religion out of C9, I think you ought to change your avatar and caption.

It's inflamatory, and against the C9 terms and conditions.

I'm just asking nicely here before other people start asking less nicely.

Cheers.

Re: Duncan ... you care to explain ?

evildictaitor — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:11:37 GMT

Duncanma wrote:
There is definitely no Anti- anything conspiracy

But that's what you'd say if there was a conspiracy!

:P

Also with the javascripty nonsense, please fix it. It makes everyone's lives better. What's the point of IE having tabs if channel9 goes and makes a site that deliberately prevents you from using them?

Re: Duncan ... you care to explain ?

ScanIAm — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 20:11:09 GMT

Duncanma wrote:

W3bbo wrote: I wonder if this is related.

Some Anti-Silverlight or Anti-Firefox conspiracy doing the rounds?

Nope, nothing to do with that... the change I shipped out was only on the home page. And due to some CSS styling issues in IE7 it was rolled back at this point.

There is definitely no Anti- anything conspiracy :)

Re: Duncan ... you care to explain ?

Erik Porter — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 19:57:50 GMT
You guys have too much time on your hands. [A] Go write something cool. :)

Re: Duncan ... you care to explain ?

W3bbo — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 19:10:18 GMT

CannotResolveSymbol wrote:
On topic, I'd be wary of hacking into C9, even if the developers said you could. You have no assurance from OrcsWeb that they wouldn't pursue legal action against you (and I don't know if Erik's word is good enough to protect you, with OrcsWeb being a separate company and all).

I know, that's why I have zero intention of proceeding.

That said, I did test out my planned approach on my own dedicated servers, and it worked. (btw, it was a technical approach, not social-engineering or anything) but since it relied on the way the company operates, it might not work with OrcsWeb, so it would be a lost $500, hence me not willing to put my money on the line ;)

Still, if/when I get my arse in through the door at MS(R) I'll get into it through the official channels, without actually telling Erik I'm an employee ;)

Re: Duncan ... you care to explain ?

jsampsonPC — Sun, 20 Jan 2008 19:09:40 GMT

irascian wrote:
Shouldn't you guys be discussing this offline?

I agree. We've all got to have a place where we can go and vent. And if there's somebody waiting to bring in our trash and show it to the family it really isn't helpful.

Besides, Duncan was probably refering to the following:

body.c9v4 {
background-color: brown;
}

:)