[HN Gopher] Show HN: FlakeUI
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Show HN: FlakeUI
Author : tearflake
Score : 100 points
Date : 2025-03-03 05:29 UTC (17 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (github.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (github.com)
| alwa wrote:
| It reminds me of the glory days when "hypertext" was a term
| uttered with a straight face to great stroking of beards--
| HyperCard, exercises in nonlinear narrative, VRML-based
| "navigation," Apple eWorld [0] and the like.
|
| > _Would you like to bring a touch of adventurous spirit to your
| contents?_
|
| I personally would not, but I'm really glad people more
| adventurous than I are still exploring the periphery of UI
| design!
|
| [0] https://www.macworld.com/article/223467/remembering-
| eworld-a...
| freeamz wrote:
| Or that Apple space based file system back in the 80's.
|
| Try this a bit, it would be nice to be able to go directly to
| the grand-child, instead having to bring up the parent before
| going the child. Other wise can be a much better file naviation
| system then what we have. Especially on touch screen I would
| image.
| drops wrote:
| a brilliant idea in the correct direction of naturally-organic
| UI, but the example site is rather slow in Chrome on an M3 Air
| freeamz wrote:
| Runs pretty ok on Chromium (degoogled) on Linux with 8GB ram
| spec.
| anorak27 wrote:
| Reminds me of prezi[0]. It would be great if there is an open
| source version of prezi similar to reveal js.
|
| [0] https://prezi.com/p/p6evz0gdy5dr/ux-design-tips-for-
| product-...
| unalarmed wrote:
| I'd like to suggest adding support for clicking and tapping for
| navigation. Having to drag feels unintuitive.
| chipaca wrote:
| Thank you for the comment. I would not have understood "can be
| navigated using mouse" to mean "dragging".
|
| Also I hate that I can't select text on this. Probably because
| "dragging".
| miningape wrote:
| Exactly, clicking should be the default so the drag handler
| doesn't prevent users from highlighting text - I literally
| cannot read anymore without frantically double-
| clicking/dragging on the words in the text
| mindcrime wrote:
| I really like this. And conveniently, I am just now working on
| creating a new personal website[1] + blog, and I could very well
| see using this for at least part of the site I'm building.
|
| The only nit that I really have is that my intuition was that I'd
| be able to select new "sections" (or "bubbles" or whatever
| they're called) by clicking or double clicking. Having to grab
| and drag isn't _bad_ but it violated the "principle of least
| surprise" for me a little bit. But not exactly a big deal.
|
| [1]: https://www.philliprhodes.name
| TechDebtDevin wrote:
| Nice!
| threekindwords wrote:
| are you aware of this prior implementation [0]? it's now defunct,
| but may give you some ideas!
|
| [0] http://www.spicynodes.org
| cdaringe wrote:
| fun, but annoying to use. clearly not made for mobile!
| remon wrote:
| There's a significant performance issue. There's no good reason
| for a few ovals and texts to stutter on my system. May be worth
| investigating.
| tearflake wrote:
| May I ask, what machine you are running it on? On my Celeron
| (4GB RAM), things are OK-ish.
| recursive wrote:
| Intel Core i7, 48 GB, Firefox.
|
| Decidedly not "OK".
| tearflake wrote:
| I'm sorry, I really wouldn't know what's happening there.
| On my Linux, Chromium works the best, Firefox can pass,
| Opera is a bit slower, and Epiphany (is that the name?)
| chokes a fair bit.
|
| On i3, Windows things seem fine - I tried Edge, Chrome, and
| Firefox.
|
| On Mac, I somehow managed to get it working based on Lambda
| Test web interface feedback, but I wouldn't know the real
| use performance.
| tracker1 wrote:
| i7 is meaningless... it could be a 4c/8t processor from
| over a decade ago that's slower then buttered toast today,
| or something much faster with big/little cores more
| recently.
| mvdtnz wrote:
| I don't think it's very likely that his 48gb machine is
| over a decade old.
| recursive wrote:
| I'm going to be honest. I don't understand Intel
| processor names, like at all. I thought i7 would give
| performance to a first order, but if that's not the case,
| I don't know how to tell what's in this machine.
| einpoklum wrote:
| In the author's defense - this is probably a prototype, hacked
| together without trying to optimize performance. You should not
| judge the idea by its realization's performance at this point
| in time.
| tearflake wrote:
| It is true that I plan a custom renderer with scripting
| support, to replace the HTML version. From the tests I
| performed by now, it can be smoother and faster than the
| current version. But it is yet to be seen how well would a
| substitution to HTML catch up with the current state of art
| CSS+HTML+JS.
| tearflake wrote:
| At some moment I had a version with cached bitmaps that
| simply flew fast and smooth. But, since HTML has some
| serious issues with rendering to bitmap from js, I had to
| pick the slower version with native real time HTML
| rendering.
| kstrauser wrote:
| Make it themeable like Gabocorp[0] and the world will beat a path
| to your door.
|
| [0]https://www.webdesignmuseum.org/gallery/gabocorp-1997
| QRe wrote:
| Kudos for building something new, fresh & exploring,
| experimenting.
|
| I don't see a scenario where this would be useful. It reminds me
| of exploded-view drawing but I don't see this being useful for
| textual content. Do you have an explicit use case? The example
| page, to me, looks very cluttered, overwhelming and IMO
| aesthetically unpleasing when reading on a mobile device.
| tearflake wrote:
| Maybe a note keeping app?
| runoisenze wrote:
| Nice work. I wonder how the experience would be in VR.
| settsu wrote:
| This reminds me of the time a few years ago when mind mapping
| sites and apps exploded into popularity among the... "technorati"
| and sort of slightly seep into the wider online awareness but
| then seemingly, just as quickly, disappear into the background
| noise of the internet (I'm terminally online to a degree,
| especially when it comes to tech news--and have a pretty decent
| general awareness of pop culture trends--and can't recall having
| seen the topic referenced since the trend faded. But perhaps I'm
| just not in the right circles?)
| fellowniusmonk wrote:
| People mistake a helpful "view" for a useful UI.
|
| None of these mind map, zoom first interfaces actually help
| with creating a global understanding.
|
| People take an occasionally helpful "view" for navigating items
| and then mistakenly believe it should be turned into an active
| interface for creation and editing.
|
| Graph/Mindmap views should only ever be a view and maybe a
| linking layer for nested text lists, actively operating in
| these interfaces is worse for global understanding and systems
| thinking.
|
| I suspect this is because mind maps don't actually map to how
| our brain stores information.
|
| Visual programming and even tools like KNIME work for stepwise
| workflow creation but they are not a good UI for new thinking,
| it's too much UI for novel idea generation and brainstorming,
| these interfaces are also useful for quickly understanding a DB
| structure.
|
| That's why they never take off and remain a niche tool for the
| small number of people who have brain structures that find them
| useful or are willing to bend themselves to an arbitrary
| interface.
| lacoolj wrote:
| Seems to be a navigational flaw here - you can't get to any of
| the intermediate "sections" without manually going back one by
| one (other than "Home" to get to the absolute top)
|
| Otherwise, this is pretty cool and would be great for one-way
| traversing (maybe a quiz/test would do well here)
| einpoklum wrote:
| I tried the example site. The way this notion is implemented
| right now, I don't see a benefit. One can barely see anything in
| the nodes other than the main one; nor can one distinguish them.
| TBH, even a tree of notes with titles, with collapse/expand
| controls, would probably have been more useful in emphasizing
| what FlakeUI offers.
|
| Verdict: thumb down.
|
| But - perhaps the example is only partial and perhaps this will
| develop into something more meaningful.
| chris_pie wrote:
| This is very similar to the idea of Zooming User Interfaces (ZUI)
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zooming_user_interface
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