Having your own website is not going to fix democracy, or topple the online pillars of capitalism - but it's making a political statement nonetheless. It says "I want to carve my own space on the web, away from the corporations". I think this is a radical act. It was when I originally said this in 2022, and I mean it even more today.
https://localghost.dev/blog/this-page-is-under-construction/
@sophie thanks for this amazing article.
Im currently building my personal Site in WordPress and find it quite challenging to avoid JavaScript. After reading your article I want to try that.
Also im focusing on accessibility and making it accessible for slow internet connections and not focus on only wealthy western web. Its so much fun building it.
I recently re-did my personal web site as a static site, and one of the things I decided on in that was to rip out the last few remnants of active scripting. (It had a tiny bit of Javascript, but nothing that was required for it to work.) It took some care, some looking around, and some creativity, but it's now a modern-looking site which works quite well on both desktop and mobile if I do say so myself, and it has absolutely NO Javascript or other active scripting.
2/2
@mkj @sophie thanks for your take on this. I checked my Dev site and will think about alternatives for some JavaScript functions.
But I know there is some JavaScript stuff I can't replace with CSS or HTML. Since some of that stuff brings me joy I wanna keep it. At least for now.
I will think about offering alternatives to people that turned off javascript, so that everyone can comfortably browse my site. If I understand it correct the <noscript> tag can be used for this.
@philipp If you want to do things on your web site which can realistically only be done with Javascript, then by all means. There is nothing wrong with using Javascript to *enhance* a site.
But please look up progressive enhancement. And don't default to using Javascript for stuff where it's not actually needed.
At the very least, make sure that the actual text and image content is viewable with Javascript (and ideally also third-party requests and cookies) turned off in the browser.
@mkj @sophie thanks I will. There is one read more / read less JavaScript button which I will get rid of or offer a suitable alternative I think.
And yes: I don't do any third party requests or non essential cookies on the corporate websites I have build and won't do it on my personal website either .
@philipp An inline "read more" is actually probably a good example of something which used to be done with Javascript but can be done with plain HTML and CSS; in that case, for example by restyling a checkbox input element appropriately and tying a style for the content to whether that checkbox is checked. I use that technique on my web site for the hamburger menu open/close toggle.
If for some reason you want to use Javascript for it: PE suggests start expanded & collapse in early JS.
@mkj @sophie yes also saw that its possible and will try to do that. Not sure if that works with the post content element in wordpress though. Will try.
https://www.codewithrandom.com/2023/10/26/read-more-read-less-button/
@philipp my themes are powered by JS. I don't think there's anything wrong with a bit of flavour added by JavaScript but just make sure it's not a requirement to use core features of your site
@sophie thanks for your expertise on that
Yes I learned about progessive enhancement here in the comment sections and will put my attention on that. So the indie web taught me some stuff for the corporate web as well. Thats nice :)
@philipp@social.anoxinon.de @sophie@social.lol
I haven't built a website in WordPress for a long time, since its massively bloated, but how can it be "challenging to avoid JavaScript"? Just... don't use it, that's how I've been getting around it on my blog since forever.
@tyil what a life changing advice... .
@philipp@social.anoxinon.de @sophie@social.lol I genuinely don't understand how it can be hard to avoid something that you decide to put in in the first place.
It's like saying you find it hard to avoid adding chocolate chips to a cake you're baking, even though you set out to make a cake without chocolate chips. You're the one in control to add it or not.
@tyil I think the explanation can be found in your other instance: https://replyguy.social/@tyil@fedi.tyil.nl
@philipp@social.anoxinon.de Im literally telling you I don't understand how find it hard to avoid JavaScript, which you post publicly about, and all you do is avoid telling me how you find it hard to avoid it. Trying to have an "epic comeback" by throwing some overused nothingness at me isn't as helpful as you think it is.
If you don't want help from someone with experience, that's fine. If you don't want people to try and understand you, feel free to stop posting about your self-inflicted issues publicly.
@tyil I did not ask for your help or your opinion. I can post whatever I want and don't need to answer at your request . i want to ask you to respect that.