No javascript? No problem!

[julian]

Hey guys,

As you probably know, this forum is our usual testbed for the latest and greatest (and sometimes not-so-great) features before they make it into a release of NodeBB.

Many of you are already running the latest master builds, which gets you plenty of exposure to new features and all the bugs that come with it

However, we also have a develop branch that contains breaking changes, and occasionally, larger, more adventurous features.

Today we've updated the forum to the latest commit from the develop branch, with two new features:

• Ability to browse, login, logout, register, and post replies and new topics with Javascript disabled (thanks to hard work from @An_dz!)
• Revamped email digests (more on this in a follow-up blog post!)

The ability to use NodeBB with javascript disabled is potentially interesting for some, as a non-insignificant number of users use libraries such as NoScript and Ghostery to speed up their web browsing and ensure security. With these changes, NodeBB should work better for those users, and they'll finally be able to post.

Right now, I'm composing this topic with javascript disabled

Give it a try (or take a look at the new digest) and tell us what you think!

[phit]

exciting, as someone who blocks js on all sites by default this is great in terms on usability!
keep it up

[An_dz]

I'm not going to lie, I think it's the best feature

[julian]

Ah, I neglected the most important part about all of this... that this was all done by @An_dz!

Fantastic job

Edit: added attribution in OP

[njkdsncds]

What we can't do without JS now:

• send personal messages(click on button doesn't open dropdown)
• no post preview
• no replies
• no registration(coz of captcha??)
• ... (I didn't make deep test, sorry)

[julian]

@njkdsncds Replies should work, but the registration won't here as we use spam-be-gone and the recaptcha requires js.

[Herect]

I run the develop branch and I get "Forbidden" when trying to login with JavaScript disabled. Log says:

error: /login
Error: invalid csrf token
It's working great here do you have any idea?

[RoldanLT]

Nah I can't reply:

• Your browser does not seem to support JavaScript. As a result, your viewing experience will be diminished, and you have been placed in read-only mode.
  Please download a browser that supports JavaScript, or enable it if it's disabled (i.e. NoScript).

[BartVB]

Wow, impressive work!

The no-JS version looks almost exactly identical to the 'full' page.

Would this also enable NodeBB to use progressive enhancement? I'm a bit obsessed with speed, a large part of our revenue is generated by users that visit one or two pages on our forum through a search engine. These users want to see content fast.

If you are a regular user downloading several 100kb worth of CSS and JS is not a problem. You only do that once, after that all you download is some JSON.

The inverse is true for one time visitors. They need to load a LOT of extra data for functionality that they will never use. Another drawback of this is that ads will load slower because they compete with all the 'app' javascript for network and CPU.

Therefor it would be fantastic if the HTML could load and render, then the ads are initialized and then all the NodeBB Javascript is pulled in and executed.

[julian]

@roldanlt we've rolled back the changes here for now, it'll be reintroduced later