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Re:Browsers are pretty good at loading pages by kccqzy on Sunday July 21, 2019 @04:19PM (#20493417)
For a company I worked for, we tested client side navigation and non-client (traditional) navigation for the admin interface. And then we asked the admins who use the site in question: all of them loved the client side navigation.

So you see, I suspect most users are not like the HN crowd and don't really care about command-click or the back button.

Re:Browsers are pretty good at loading pages by pmontra on Sunday July 21, 2019 @05:24PM (#20493756)
I've got a customer with a complex UI where a lot of things happen. Basically a desktop application in a browser. We built a SPA for that.

Then there are the AWS and Google consoles where nearly every click loads a new page and I don't complain, because it's ok. And Amazon, the shopping site. Every click into a product loads a new page. They seem to be doing pretty well.

I would build SPAs where it's difficult to give a different URL to what's on screen after every click. Server side rendering in every other case.

Re:Browsers are pretty good at loading pages by zucker42 on Sunday July 21, 2019 @04:39PM (#20493519)
Not every project is the same. I suspect there are many applications where an SPA is a much better experience than a traditional website. In my opinion, a documentation site is not one of them.
Re:Browsers are pretty good at loading pages by efrafa on Sunday July 21, 2019 @04:31PM (#20493483)
Its also really not that hard to make cmd click + back button to work properly with client side nav.
Re:Browsers are pretty good at loading pages by saagarjha on Sunday July 21, 2019 @04:37PM (#20493505)
Can you support iOS's "peek" menu as well?
Re:Browsers are pretty good at loading pages by regecks on Sunday July 21, 2019 @06:00PM (#20493931)
Yes, I tried it just now on a random website I built in Vue. Any sane implementation of client-side navigation uses the History API[1]. It is indistinguishable from "real" navigation in the browser UI, apart from how fast it is.

If on the other hand, if you encounter code like the abomination below (which breaks cmd+click, peek and forward/back), you should not (imo) conflate it with actual client-side navigation. I suspect that's what some comments here are referring to.

    <a href="#" onclick="loadContentIntoPane('contact')">Contact Us</a>
1. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/History_API
Re:Browsers are pretty good at loading pages by baddox on Sunday July 21, 2019 @07:03PM (#20494235)
Is there anything special needed to support that? I’m pretty sure you just need an <a> tag with an href. With any SPA framework/library I’m aware of, you have to go out of your way to make it not work.
Re:Browsers are pretty good at loading pages by petemill on Sunday July 21, 2019 @04:27PM (#20493457)
But you can support both with client side navigation
Re:Browsers are pretty good at loading pages by kccqzy on Sunday July 21, 2019 @04:28PM (#20493465)
I certainly can. It was just not necessary because the people who are using the site didn't care.