Large animations can easily be highly distractive for folks with #ADHD. Being able to pause them individually doesn't make things much better, especially if reloading the page starts them all over again.
It's really disappointing to see a design-focused company like #Figma use that type of purely gratuitous graphics on their #Config conference website, and do so without offering a way to disable them all at once across the site.
That’s a sad lack of consideration for true #A11Y. 🙁🤨🤬
@jochenwolters I just checked https://config.figma.com/ using MacOS with the "Reduce motion" setting, and they have done it correctly -- the animations are gone. (At least by default, though they still happen if you hover, so they've got it half right lol)
I've played around with an old Mac running #macOS Mojave 10.14 from 2018 today: text is easier to read, widgets reflect their state more clearly, the UI, overall, is easier on the eyes (due to non-white backgrounds), affordances are more obvious, the distinction between a window's contents and its chrome is more apparent, …
I could lament that I only found this feature in @MonaApp by accident. I prefer, however, to praise its very existence, because this is so handy (and might have been partially inspired by a feature request I submitted a while ago):
If you write a post which exceeds Mastodon’s 500-character limit, Mona offers to automatically split the post into a thread for you. To make things even better, you can preview that thread before you post it.
@MonaApp Just noticed a bug that’s a tad annoying, but I understand where it’s stemming from. 😉
When both the "Invert Timelines" and “Space Bar Scroll" options are active, pressing SPACE on the main timeline scrolls the page upwards. In other words, you're actually going backwards in time.
In this config, I expect SPACE to move the page in the other direction, so that I can read through posts like I read through articles on a website.
I dug a bit deeper and here’s what the problem is: Invert Timelines (as the help blurb states) inverts some timelines. So, with both Invert Timelines on and Invert Scroll Direction off, the main timeline scrolls as I’d expect: Space Bar scrolls from older to newer posts.
But now the Notifications and Messages timelines scroll from newer to older posts, because their display order is not inverted. That creates an IxD inconsistency. 🤔
Quick tip for #macOS users (so you won’t feel as stumped as I did):
If you’re migrating to a new Mac, and you use the command line, remember to give #TerminalApp full disk access via System Settings > Privacy & Security.
Without this, you’ll run into errors which seem utterly obscure in the context of a UNIX shell. For example, I got an “Operation not permitted” error when trying a simple ‘ls’ in a folder for which I have full access permissions. 😬
@rasterweb Oh man, that is so true: I attended the Vintage Computer Festival West at the Computer History Museum last month. It truly is remarkable what happened in those last 40 years that you mention. Heck, good ole Macintosh itself will turn forty next January! 😮
Feature suggestion for Mastodon clients (hint, hint, @MonaApp 😏):
★ Automatic thread generation from a single new-post window ★
When writing a longer post or response on a micro-blogging platform such as Mastodon, I prefer to write the entire text before I publish it. That allows me to re-read it, fix typos, polish it a bit, etc. Unfortunately, this constraint means that creating a thread for longer posts is dreadfully tedious.
@jochenwolters This would be very helpful for longer posts, but I think the whole idea behind “microblogging” is to keep it short, which is why the Mastodon restriction of 500 characters exists.
If you need more room, then you, uh, do “macroblogging” on a dedicated blogging system and link it on Mastodon.
@nebyoolae In principle, I completely agree with you.
I find those seemingly never-ending threads extremely tedious to read and navigate. Just like most meetings could just be emails, most extended micro-blogging threads could just be blog post, no?
Then again, I find shorter post threads helpful sometimes, specifically when responding to someone in the same context that they posted in. Even then, though, I wish the threading process was more convenient.
I doubt that it covers any facts that you don’t already know, but the story telling is — as usual for Mr. Fry, of course — extraordinary, if not utterly delicious!
@jochenwolters I watched his documentary on it (homework for a Gutenberg class two summers ago). It was great! I think he's a little sketchy on a couple details but they are arguable. He did say inaccurate things on QI but they were correct in the doc.
With so much customizability built into @MonaApp, I hope its developer(s?) will add an option for displaying any timeline in true chronological order, that is, the latest posts appear at the bottom of the viewport, not the top.
That way, you could — finally! — read a timeline like you read any other text, namely: from top to bottom! 🤞
That would also tackle the all-too-common misleading perception that, whatever happens last, deserves our focus first. 🤨
Although writing Alt text for images can be a bit tedious and even daunting, let’s put in that extra effort to ensure #accessibility to what we share online for everyone, regardless of their abilities.
To that end, I appreciate this option in the Ivory Mastodon client, lest its users occasionally forget to include Alt text. In fact, I find this option quite thoughtful, as it's not that obvious an option to consider in the first place, no?
Kudos to the folks at @tapbots for putting this in!
Speaking of adding Alt text to an image, @Ivory's inconspicuous “capture text from image" button in the Media Description sheet is remarkably effective.
What a brilliant little feature for the benefit of #accessibility!