New Google Groups UI?

[dhtml]

New Google Groups UI here: https://groups.google.com/d/?fromgroups

It would be more encouraging to see Google release a working prior to
announcing its release.

The content is clipped and I can't scroll down because there is no
vertical scrollbar. Apparently they did something to get rid of that,
as we all know that browsers do great at providing the scrollbar
automatically, for free.

Firefox 6, Macbook Pro. Screenshot here: http://twitpic.com/6jjng2

When I view on the thread topics, then click on the little triangle,
there is no expansion; instead the thread topics go away and show the
thread. There seems no option to "report spam" (and that never seemed
to work anyway).

Old groups is flooded with spam and comments are commonly dropped. I
post a comment, then it does not appear.

A buggy UI built atop of invalid HTML.

I've been writing about the problems with that for years.
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...nes&cd=2&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us&client=firefox-a

Cornford also wrote about the importance of valid HTML in the browser
detection article and as linked from that webcache of the RIA best
practices doc, so did Ian Hickson. Invalid HTML is well-known to be a
cause of problems with perceived DOM inconsistencies.

They're also using invalid ECMAScript, specifically
FunctionDeclaration where only statement is allowed. I've spoken out
about the problems with this practice, and spoken strongly against
Google's use of this for years, on this NG and even on Google's
Closure Compiler group, using the invalid ES examples right from
GMail, yet it persists. Here is the first hundred or so chars of line
1 of Google Groups New UI broken up into a readable format (hand-
beautified).


| (function(){
| try{
| var e=true,j=false;
| var m=window.gbar=window.gbar||{};
| function _tvn(a,b){
| var c=parseInt(a,10);
| return isNaN(c)?b:c
| }

And right there is an example of FunctionDeclaration `_tvn` where only
Statements may appear. This results in either SyntaxError (to be
expected) or implementation-dependent results (Jscript VO hoisting vs
Mozilla "function statement" extension).

https://mail.mozilla.org/pipermail/es-discuss/2008-February/005314.html

Also explained in the code guidelines doc: "Do not use non-standard
syntax such as "function statement" (see also: FAQ: What is a function
statement? and Named Function Expressions -
http://www.jibbering.com/faq/#functionStatement
http://yura.thinkweb2.com/named-function-expressions/).

The FAQ even has an example of this:
http://webcache.googleusercontent.c...Statement.html+"function+statement"+jibbering

The problems with FD where only Statements are allowed is beyond the
state of "dead horse" as is the concepts of using valid HTML.

They should use valid ECMAScript, not hide the scrollbar and comply
with WCAG 2.0 (make it work without JS).

And they should make progress in addressing the copious amounts of
spam.

(I have copy'n'pasted this message, lest Groups UI drops or fails to
post).

 

[dhtml]

New Google Groups UI here:https://groups.google.com/d/?fromgroups

It would be more encouraging to see Google release a working prior to
announcing its release.

The content is clipped and I can't scroll down because there is no
vertical scrollbar. Apparently they did something to get rid of that,
as we all know that browsers do great at providing the scrollbar
automatically, for free.

Firefox 6, Macbook Pro. Screenshot here:http://twitpic.com/6jjng2

Where's the scrollbar? No scrollbar there! I can't get to that
content.

To restate what I wrote in that other thread "Hello??" I am not going
to bother wasting my time in interviewing at Google to try to help
them with their woes; I've already done that three times.

So before you cry "troll" or "flamer" or "hater", consider that I've
put in the effort to meet Google's developers over three times; spent
hours of my own personal time answering their questions (about ropes,
sorting algorithms, data structures, parsing, etc).

Such flagrant displays of incompetence will continue persist in web
development.

 

[dhtml]

[...]

So before you cry "troll" or "flamer" or "hater", consider that I've
put in the effort to meet Google's developers over three times; spent
hours of my own personal time answering their questions (about ropes,
sorting algorithms, data structures, parsing, etc).

Google announcement here:
http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/09/google-groups-has-new-interface.html

I posted a comment to that blog that was roughly the same thing I
posted here but it was deleted.

How insecure of them to remove such technical feedback from their
comment. They can't handle the public seeing that? That's so weak. A
team of developers there, from a successful company, and they can't
handle me sending them technical and UI feedback -- with a screenshot,
no less.

Since this NG in particular is so flooded with spam, and via Google,
Google can help to hide from the public knowing about their code
problems and insecurities.

 

[dhtml]

[...]

So before you cry "troll" or "flamer" or "hater", consider that I've
put in the effort to meet Google's developers over three times; spent
hours of my own personal time answering their questions (about ropes,
sorting algorithms, data structures, parsing, etc).

Google announcement here:http://googlesystem.blogspot.com/2011/09/google-groups-has-new-interf...

I posted a comment to that blog that was roughly the same thing I
posted here but it was deleted.

How insecure of them to remove such technical feedback from their
comment. They can't handle the public seeing that? That's so weak. A
team of developers there, from a successful company, and they can't
handle me sending them technical and UI feedback -- with a screenshot,
no less.

I should also clarify that that blog is not the "official" blog of
google.

 

[Arno Welzel]

dhtml:

New Google Groups UI here: https://groups.google.com/d/?fromgroups

It would be more encouraging to see Google release a working prior to
announcing its release.

Do your self a favour and just use a real newsreader.