New Homepage suggestions

Discussion about the AutoHotkey Foundation and this website

What new homepage should we have?

Blackholyman's
25
45%
joedf's
8
14%
No change, keep the ahkscript one.
9
16%
Neither, I'm not satisfied.
1
2%
Other?
1
2%
I like pie.
12
21%
 
Total votes: 56
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joedf
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Re: New Homepage suggestions

31 Dec 2015, 00:40

I really like it with blackholyman's design, it looks cool :)
... and relevant! ;)
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nnnik
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Re: New Homepage suggestions

07 Jan 2016, 10:45

It's no like yours was bad though joe.
I really thought it was nice.
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joedf
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Re: New Homepage suggestions

07 Jan 2016, 10:52

nnnik wrote:It's no like yours was bad though joe.
I really thought it was nice.
Thanks, I use mine as a homepage :)

On the other hand, I'm glad that at least a few out there like pie. :)
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fischgeek
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Re: New Homepage suggestions

07 Jan 2016, 22:50

lol. I like your design too, Joe. You're very talented.
Bruttosozialprodukt
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Re: New Homepage suggestions

08 Jan 2016, 08:14

Just remember that some people have very limited data plans.
On my smartphone for example I can only use up to 100MB/month (that is upload+download).

It can be a real pain in the butt to have all you data used up just by some casual surfing.

A few 100kb may not sound like a lot, but that adds up pretty quickly.

Just be sure to take that into consideration when selecting a new homepage.
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joedf
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Re: New Homepage suggestions

08 Jan 2016, 10:24

fischgeek wrote:lol. I like your design too, Joe. You're very talented.
:D *blush* thanks :3

@blackholyman
So a different one for the mobile one then?
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Blackholyman
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Re: New Homepage suggestions

08 Jan 2016, 11:10

Maybe! But there are other options

I read an interesting article the other day on media queries: http://zomigi.com/blog/essential-consid ... a-queries/ and part of the discussion covered images downloaded (or not) inside of media queries.

The whole article is interesting, and I picked up a some other useful ideas. Anyway, a link within that page goes to a website that shows test cases for methods to stop images from being downloaded on mobile devices. The full article is here: http://timkadlec.com/2012/04/media-quer ... splay_none

The concluding part of the post recommends 2 methods for avoiding image downloads on mobile;

1 - Set an image as a background on a div, and then instead of hiding that div, you hide the div's parent element

Code: Select all

<div id="test3">
    <div></div>
</div>

#test3 div {
    background-image:url('images/test3.png');
    width:200px;
    height:75px;
}
@media all and (max-width: 600px) {
    #test3 {
        display:none;
    }
}
2 - Use stacked media queries to serve all images (set as backgrounds on divs) to different sized screens

Code: Select all

<div id="test5"></div>

@media all and (min-width: 601px) {
    #test5 {
        background-image:url('images/test5-desktop.png');
        width:200px;
        height:75px;
    }
}
@media all and (max-width: 600px) {
    #test5 {
        background-image:url('images/test5-mobile.png');
        width:200px;
        height:75px;
    }
}
Caveat on method 2
...if you use this method, you’ll need to consider alternate options for Internet Explorer 8 and under. Those versions of the browser don’t support media queries, so no image will be applied. Of course, this is simple enough to fix with conditional comments and an IE specific stylesheet.

I don't know the mobile plans out there but i don't use the homepage much if at all only in the beginning did go via the homepage but my data plan include 100gb so did not think about that issue...
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Bruttosozialprodukt
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Re: New Homepage suggestions

08 Jan 2016, 12:23

You can also use the information that the mobile device sends about itself to server. The User-Agent header for instance might be a more reliable way than checking for the screenwidth as 1080p screens on tablets and even phones become more and more ubiquitous.
vasili111
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Re: New Homepage suggestions

15 Jan 2016, 08:36

I think AutoHotkey main page should be simple and carry useful information in it, like ahkscript page (current one). I think if we change it, new one should be simple as now and should carry as much information as current one.
DRAKON-AutoHotkey: Visual programming for AutoHotkey.
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fischgeek
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Re: New Homepage suggestions

19 Jan 2016, 20:48

If mobile is done correctly there should be no images. If images are 100% necessary then they will be swapped out for more appropriate ones.
iPhilip
Posts: 791
Joined: 02 Oct 2013, 12:21

Re: New Homepage suggestions

22 Jan 2016, 18:51

Is it possible to add links to the choices in the poll so that I can easily see the pages I am voting for without reading through all the postings?
Thank you.
Windows 10 Pro (64 bit) - AutoHotkey v2.0+ (Unicode 64-bit)
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joedf
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Re: New Homepage suggestions

22 Jan 2016, 18:58

See the OP, ie. The first post.
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tank
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Re: New Homepage suggestions

23 Jan 2016, 00:31

couple things to consider. many sites link to literally dozens of files
and while browser cache can make a huge difference in consumption
jquery minified all by itself is 33kb
This very forum page itself if you excluded all images is 240kb over some 36 different http requests
Large JS libraries are a way of life now.
the google homepage is 450 kb total 24 http requests
JoeDF is 170KB with the images
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joedf
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Re: New Homepage suggestions

23 Jan 2016, 22:18

wow, smaller than google... Cool 8-) didn't even optimize it. ;)
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tank
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Re: New Homepage suggestions

24 Jan 2016, 10:38

I am against using these statistics to make a choice on home page. Honestly if you only have 100MB you should consider not using any site not directly related to survival. you simply cannot afford to casually browse the internet. let alone this or any other site. the only time size should matter is when it has a noticeable affect on page load and causes a page to take more than 2 full seconds to load over a typical low grade Broadband or 3G connection. we cannot account for absurdly low data plans excessive slow speeds or even outdated browsers. If your data is that much an issue perhaps you should pursue a different plan or a text based browser like lynx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Text-based_web_browser
I do everything i can to observe the 20/70/10 delivery model when considering compatibility, which means in plain English for those not familiar with six sigma, i discard the bottom 20 and top 10 percent of all potential ranges for any metric. these are out-liars and beyond the range that i can based choices on. I know that seems harsh but consider world wide internet speeds. I cannot consider datacaps. it would be impossible to manage any site with such a concern
from a performance standpoint i can see entertaining views based on this kind of reasoning. for a typical ISP performance > 1.8MB/s. Are there real optimizations that can be performed to reduce bandwidth?? Yes
these include:
Optimizing images to be the minimum resolution necesary to still look good
setting cache headers on all images js and css as well as static html (this only affects subsequent loads not the first)
detect slow connections and offer lower resolution images instead http://jan.moesen.nu/code/php/speedtest ... p?source=1 as an example here is a javascript example http://ditio.net/2008/08/06/detect-conn ... avascript/
across the web the average home page size with all resources is almost 2MB staying under this seems like a valid goal. I would like to see us stay under 1 MB. (Both proposals do)

back to the citation of only 100MB of bandwidth on the plan. Statistically speaking you could visit around 50 pages per month. In my opinion that makes you an out-liar. Not that you are less important. but i cannot accommodate such a small segment of use case in making design choices. but we will do our best to keep things a reasonably on the low bandwidth side as possible.

Furthermore, it is very important that we dont get stuck in the mud here. so long as the content chosen meets the minimum performance we can do optimizations after the fact over time.
We are troubled on every side‚ yet not distressed; we are perplexed‚
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tank
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Re: New Homepage suggestions

24 Jan 2016, 11:20

for those keeping score the current homepage consumes 68 kb half of which is jquery which is only used by the download button
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joedf
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Re: New Homepage suggestions

24 Jan 2016, 12:20

I don't use data, anyhow... So we could leave it as is or change it... As long as it does the job :/
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Bruttosozialprodukt
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Re: New Homepage suggestions

27 Jan 2016, 08:33

But why? The photo is just unnecessary. And it doesn't sound like an AHK attitude. Or do you think AHK should drop support for XP and Vista, right now?
You can't really count jquery because if you do it right, it gets cached once for almost all websites.
1MB is pretty much 30 times bigger than what the current homepage would be without counting jquery.
And all that just for the sake of visual design?
I'm sure the homepage could look good even without gigantic background images.

just saying...
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Exaskryz
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Re: New Homepage suggestions

27 Jan 2016, 09:43

@Bruttosozialprodukt, shouldn't the image be cached? I don't know how browsers typically decide which things to cache and what they cache between sessions, so I might be wrong and it'll dump the large images to make room for the cache. Compression to a few hundred kilobytes still sounds like a good idea than using a 1MB image.
Bruttosozialprodukt
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Re: New Homepage suggestions

27 Jan 2016, 11:18

It's the server that tells the browser to cache something or not and for how long etc. Gzip/deflate compression is another thing that can help reduce bandwidth. And certain image formats like jpeg can also be "compressed" a lot, even though they lose some quality during that process. If everything is done correctly the image will only be loaded once.
But as soon as you use one of these million "cleaning tools" that clear all the cache data etc from all apps, the image needs to be downloaded again.

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