Show HN: Picknplace.js, an Alternative to Drag and Drop

Posted by bbx 15 hours ago

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Comments

Comment by jotaen 10 hours ago

This looks like an interesting concept!

> I find that the drag and drop experience can quickly become a nightmare, especially on mobile.

To me, drag and drop is only a nightmare on mobile. On desktop (using a mouse or trackpad), drag and drop actually works quite well.

Your design experiment reminds me of a recent talk of Scott Jenson, where he talked about how we just took over established UX patterns from desktop to mobile as is, and how that created all sorts of nuisances. (https://youtu.be/1fZTOjd_bOQ?t=1565)

If mobile drag&drop was implemented like you are suggesting from the very start, I actually might have preferred that over the situation we now ended up with.

One technical note on your implementation: on certain mobile browsers, there is a glitch where the UI can jump around as the browser dynamically slides top or bottom menu bars in and out.

Comment by bramhaag 15 hours ago

On mobile this is a strong contender for the worst UX I've ever seen. The whole page moves, so you have to continously scroll back up after placing something.

If when in pick mode you would only scroll the list, I would be able to organize it much faster.

Comment by anonymous908213 13 hours ago

It's even worse on desktop. You have to scroll the entire screen (with mousewheel or arrow keys) to move the selection. I spent 30 seconds thinking it was bugged because the intuitive solution would be to click once, then simply click where you want to place it, but the "place" button only showed up on the one you already "picked". Fine idea, worst conceivable execution of UX I have ever seen.

Comment by Bolwin 15 hours ago

Scroll up to what? The whole list fits on screen for me

Comment by bangaladore 13 hours ago

Given I need to read the instructions to understand how to use this, It's a no go for me. I clicked it and I thought there was a bug because I could only place on the element I clicked.

Comment by breadchris 13 hours ago

wow! I love this solution. I agree on the pain of drag and drop on mobile.

Comment by loa_observer 11 hours ago

how does it work with more complex layout not just vertical list of items, like those drag-and-drop for visualization UI: https://github.com/Kanaries/graphic-walker

you can see that there are different areas of draggable and droppable, on different directions.

Comment by feep 15 hours ago

https://github.com/jgthms/picknplace.js/

Linked in page is 404.

Comment by gabrielsroka 15 hours ago

Your link is 404 (is that what you meant?)

Their page uses https://jgthms.com/picknplace.js/picknplace.js

Comment by bbx 14 hours ago

Sorry, it's public now.

Comment by ndgold 7 hours ago

I do not like this. I am still glad you shared it!

Comment by mrozbarry 15 hours ago

The keyboard arrows to move works nice, but pressing enter to place appears to cancel it. I'm on firefox 145/mac os 15.6.1 if that matters.

Comment by fellowniusmonk 13 hours ago

Regardless of the technical and UX merit of this project.

There are clearly a bunch of people who haven't used a new interface in perhapse years and are simply obtuse.

It took me less than 5 seconds to start using this one handed while I was pissing at a urinal, I mean that quite literally.