{"id":16219,"date":"2012-04-10T09:25:33","date_gmt":"2012-04-10T07:25:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/?p=16219"},"modified":"2012-04-10T09:28:15","modified_gmt":"2012-04-10T07:28:15","slug":"infinite-scrolling-no-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2012\/04\/10\/infinite-scrolling-no-go\/","title":{"rendered":"Infinite scrolling : no go!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Jeffro of WP Tavern<\/a> fame asks an interesting question<\/a> about infinite scrolling:<\/p>\n

Thanks to\u00a0Pinterest<\/a>, many websites think it\u2019s cool to provide the ability to infinitely scroll down a page. Over the past few weeks, I\u2019ve noticed a variety of tutorials that explain how you can add this functionality to WordPress themes. However, I\u2019m wondering if this is just one of those trends that will go away once Pinterest dies off. For sites such as Pinterest where it makes sense to have an infinite scroll, does it make sense to have that functionality on a regular blog or any other type of website?<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

There is also a poll attached to that post, which currently shows 60% (133 votes) consider infinite scrolling bad, 23% (52 votes) consider it good, and 17% (38 votes) have no preference.<\/p>\n

I joined the “This is bad!” crowd. \u00a0I think that’s because I belong to the old generation of onliners, who at least had the time to think things over, and see how it was before and after. \u00a0I think that everything on the web should have it’s own URL, which shouldn’t change once published. \u00a0The content of the page should also remain pretty much the same. \u00a0If done so, searching for things and sharing things becomes so much easier.<\/p>\n

Just think about it for a second. \u00a0Look at the archives of this blog. If I found something useful on the second page of February 2005 archives<\/a> three years ago, it would still be there today. \u00a0I can bookmark a specific page of archives, I can send that URL to someone else, and it would still work years later.<\/p>\n

Infinite scrolling page would give you only a single URL and bookmarking or sharing that would be totally useless, as its content would change and scroll away after a few updates.<\/p>\n

Even for things like a blog stream, which presents newest items on top, pushing older updates into archives, pagination makes a lot of sense. \u00a0Once you know how many items per page there are, and an average number of posts per period of time, you can fast forward into an arbitrary date much faster. \u00a0For example, if I post approximately 4 posts per week, and I display 10 posts per page for the front page stream, all I need to do is get the URL of the first archive page –\u00a0https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/page\/2\/<\/a>\u00a0– by pressing Next link on the front page, then do a quick calculation, and replace “2” with the calculated page number to quick jump back into history. \u00a0(I’ve used this technique quite a few times, when I needed to find something that I didn’t know how to search for, but new roughly the publishing date of. And I know I’m not alone.)<\/p>\n

With infinite scrolling, you’d have to scroll and scroll for hours or days.<\/p>\n

There are also other issues to consider – time control on the user’s side, increased CPU and memory resources required to handle bigger pages, browser cross-compatibility, and so on and so forth.<\/p>\n

Having said that, I understand that most people probably don’t care about these things and find infinite scrolling very much a convenience. \u00a0Good for them…<\/p>\n

P.S.: One place where I think infinite scrolling makes sense is in the image search results (like Google Images<\/a>). \u00a0There, it helps to scroll through a whole lot of images in shorter time.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\n

Jeffro of WP Tavern fame asks an interesting question about infinite scrolling: Thanks to\u00a0Pinterest, many websites think it\u2019s cool to provide the ability to infinitely scroll down a page. Over the past few weeks, I\u2019ve noticed a variety of tutorials that explain how you can add this functionality to WordPress themes. However, I\u2019m wondering if … Continue reading Infinite scrolling : no go!<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,62,1334],"tags":[1158],"keyring_services":[],"class_list":["post-16219","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-technology","category-web-work","tag-user-interfaces"],"aioseo_notices":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":21493,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2014\/04\/10\/on-infinite-scrolling\/","url_meta":{"origin":16219,"position":0},"title":"On infinite scrolling","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"April 10, 2014","format":"status","excerpt":"Two years ago (to the day) I blogged my opinion of the infinite scrolling. \u00a0And what do I do now? \u00a0I enable the infinite scrolling for this blog! \u00a0Consistency? Who needs that ...","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18480,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2013\/07\/08\/infinite-scrolling-in-wordpress-themes\/","url_meta":{"origin":16219,"position":1},"title":"Infinite scrolling in WordPress themes","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"July 8, 2013","format":"link","excerpt":"Infinite scrolling in WordPress themes","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":18390,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2013\/06\/20\/infinite-scrolling-lets-bottom\/","url_meta":{"origin":16219,"position":2},"title":"Infinite Scrolling: Let\u2019s Get To The Bottom Of This","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"June 20, 2013","format":"link","excerpt":"Infinite Scrolling: Let\u2019s Get To The Bottom Of This","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":16272,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2012\/05\/06\/weekly-digest-2012-05-06\/","url_meta":{"origin":16219,"position":3},"title":"Weekly digest – 2012-05-06","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"May 6, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Monday. Kicks me in the nuts every single time. Today is not an exception. # I favorited a @YouTube video http:\/\/t.co\/7CU65l1q What if Dexter had been a sitcom? # Blogs about privacy concerns are hypocritical, aren't they? :) # Resistance is futile. Once again I've tried to scroll to the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":24135,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2015\/05\/18\/fullpage-js-create-beautiful-fullscreen-scrolling-websites\/","url_meta":{"origin":16219,"position":4},"title":"fullPage.js – Create Beautiful Fullscreen Scrolling Websites","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"May 18, 2015","format":"link","excerpt":"fullPage.js - Create Beautiful Fullscreen Scrolling Websites","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":15921,"url":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/2011\/11\/18\/parallax-scrolling-showcase\/","url_meta":{"origin":16219,"position":5},"title":"Parallax scrolling showcase","author":"Leonid Mamchenkov","date":"November 18, 2011","format":false,"excerpt":"A colleague sent me this link to a collection of parallax scrolling website designs. Some of them are really awesome, especially considering the fact that they are implemented in HTML5 - no flash or other proprietary plugin required. I particularly liked how the car assembles and disassembles on the Smart\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "All"","block_context":{"text":"All","link":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/category\/general\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2011\/11\/Parallax-Scrolling-500x251.png?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16219","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=16219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=16219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=16219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=16219"},{"taxonomy":"keyring_services","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mamchenkov.net\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/keyring_services?post=16219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}