Comment by superkuh

Comment by superkuh 2 days ago

I suppose the existence of bad uses does not invalidate the good but it feels like 99% of blurry image placeholder behavior is actually just preventing people from seeing anything unless they also run the ad and spying javascript that monetizes the site.

So a CSS-only way is neat and indisputably better but I think it's missing the point? The point of blurry placeholders isn't to make things easier or display better. The point is to make things worse. This write up is definitely making things better.

simonw 2 days ago

The point of blurry placeholders is to support loading a page with potentially hundreds of images (maybe with additional lazy loading, which doesn't need JavaScript these days) without blocking display of the page on loading those full images.

I'm not sure why you think it has anything to do with forcing people to execute JavaScript?

Reply View 5 replies

wruza 2 days ago

Can't speak for everyone ofc, but not sure if I ever wanted blurry placeholders when images load fast enough, or found them anything but annoying when not. I think these bells and whistles only serve as designer's self-affirmation.

Reply View | 2 replies
- simonw 2 days ago
  
  I've definitely wanted them on photo galleries with large numbers of thumbnails, and I appreciate them when they are implemented well, especially if I'm on a slow connection.
  
  Reply View | 0 replies
- gblargg 2 days ago
  
  Agreed, they just create needless visual activity. How about a page specify where the images appear, and leave it up to the browser to decide how to show them and load them? Is that too simple and workable?
  
  Reply View | 0 replies
jasonkester 2 days ago

Indeed. So the visitor need only wait for the 20mb javascript bundle, but not the 600kb of images, before he can see the 1kb of text that he visited the site to read.

Reply View | 1 reply
- simonw a day ago
  
  Sounds like you're in favor of a version of blurry placeholders that's implemented in less than 1KB of CSS.
  
  Reply View | 0 replies

nirava 2 days ago

It is really simple to make sure your blurred css placeholder is cosmetic, and a progressive enhancement. I would know, I wrote one a month ago for my personal site.

My goal was to have something that'd transmit all the essential bits of the site in the first 14kB, and worked basically on everything. It wasn't hard, honestly.

It wasn't a particularly complex site but i guess what I'm saying is any well done (and well intentioned) implementation of blurred image placeholders will works with or without JS. That is just sound engineering...

Reply View 0 replies

recursive 2 days ago

The placeholder is inline in the markup. It can be displayed before the image loads. Which is not inline. I have no idea what 99% thing you're talking about.

Reply View 2 replies

superkuh a day ago

Look at literally any "newspaper" website. From the smallest local paper to the NYT.

Reply View | 1 reply
- recursive a day ago
  
  That's a whole separate thing with a different reason for existing.
  
  Reply View | 0 replies