What bothers me is that I can't make rules with the same expressive power as a regex.
Also css lacks properties for controlling wrapping limits and non-linear image scaling. And for some reason I always have to optimize on either width or height, I can't control both perfectly.
Re:It’s time to kill the web app
by TheAceOfHearts on Sunday September 24, 2017 @12:17AM
(#15323274)
I don't understand the first point, could you clarify? Do you mean you wish to define your own CSS properties? You may find it exciting to learn that there's ongoing work to enable this functionality and more through Houdini [0]. You can check out a few examples at this houdini-samples [1] repo.
I'm unclear on what you mean by wrapping limits and non-linear image scaling. Could you provide an example of what you'd like to achieve?
As for having to optimize for width or height. Have you looked into display: grid? I believe it may help enable the kind of layout you're interesting in achieving.
That sounds awesome except for that fact that my customers refuse to use modern browsers that support modern CSS features. GRRR.
Re:It’s time to kill the web app
by extrapickles on Sunday September 24, 2017 @12:01AM
(#15323236)
For those customers, I gave them an ‘application’ version that was just nw.js (basically chrome). Worked reasonably well for the customers that had somewhat recent OS on their desktops or terminal server.
Your customers sound like the smartest and most sensible people I've heard about in a while. The current way the Web is changing makes it almost impossible for in-house use in a large corporate environment. But at the same time, it's almost impossible to avoid it entirely; so instead do the smart thing and put a hard stop on it and refuse to hit the moving target.
Check out Yoga [0]. It's a small layout engine based on flexbox and the CSS box moel. It doesn't cover all use-cases, but it's pretty powerful for its size. I
It's important to remember that CSS and the DOM was initially created and developed with certain kinds of documents in mind. Both are certainly quirky and missing a lot of features, but I wouldn't say they're as bad as many people make it out to be. Based on my experience with native desktop toolkits, they're all quirky in one way or another. One of the biggest issues with modern CSS is that it doesn't have sensible defaults for web apps.
Could you provide an example of your preferred approach to handling layout and styles, and talk a bit about what why you consider it superior?
What key features do you consider missing from CSS and the web?
[0] https://facebook.github.io/yoga/