1. Advertising
    y u no do it?

    Advertising (learn more)

    Advertise virtually anything here, with CPM banner ads, CPM email ads and CPC contextual links. You can target relevant areas of the site and show ads based on geographical location of the user if you wish.

    Starts at just $1 per CPM or $0.10 per CPC.

Pagination vs "infinite scroll"

Discussion in 'PHP' started by Chetan Tudor, Feb 20, 2016.

  1. #1
    What do you think would be better in terms of performance. What are the -es and +es of each ?
     
    Chetan Tudor, Feb 20, 2016 IP
  2. billzo

    billzo Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    961
    Likes Received:
    278
    Best Answers:
    15
    Trophy Points:
    113
    #2
    I hate infinite scrolling. I cannot stand it. It is impossible to bookmark things, it takes longer to find deeper stuff, and it can cause the browser to consume a huge amount of memory (especially Firefox). I hate infinite scrolling even more than I hate jQuery animations.
     
    billzo, Feb 20, 2016 IP
    deathshadow likes this.
  3. EricBruggema

    EricBruggema Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    1,740
    Likes Received:
    28
    Best Answers:
    13
    Trophy Points:
    175
    #3
    Bad for seo as it doesn't load more then first page..
    Its better for queries to the server
    Its worse for users (more memory).
     
    EricBruggema, Feb 21, 2016 IP
    deathshadow likes this.
  4. qwikad.com

    qwikad.com Illustrious Member Affiliate Manager

    Messages:
    7,151
    Likes Received:
    1,656
    Best Answers:
    29
    Trophy Points:
    475
    #4
    I hate infinite scrolling too. Whoever came up with that idea had no experience as an end user. Scrolling to a bottomless pit isn't fun.
     
    qwikad.com, Feb 21, 2016 IP
    deathshadow likes this.
  5. ThePHPMaster

    ThePHPMaster Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    737
    Likes Received:
    52
    Best Answers:
    33
    Trophy Points:
    150
    #5
    I would implement them both, pagination by default and give the user the option for infinite scrolling. Many people (including myself) love that feature and always use it wherever possible.
     
    ThePHPMaster, Feb 21, 2016 IP
  6. PoPSiCLe

    PoPSiCLe Illustrious Member

    Messages:
    4,623
    Likes Received:
    725
    Best Answers:
    152
    Trophy Points:
    470
    #6
    Problems with infinite scroll is:
    Memory consumption (no clearing of data, possible endless queries - depends on coding, though)
    No way to have anything below the content (a footer) because the user will never be able to actually reach that content (unless the user finishes ALL content) - it might sound obvious, but there are a LOT of sites that has content in the footer with infinite scroll as well. Annoying as fuck.
    Impossible to bookmark
    Takes forever to find stuff
    Sometimes makes the page slower, jittery, especially on low-end connections, as the data continously have to load

    Benefits for infinite scroll:
    Can look quite nice, if done correctly
    Can be smoother, again if done correctly
    Depending on amount of content, might be useful

    For me, infinite scroll can be good on smaller touchscreens, but on a desktop website I find it really, really annoying. Why not just have pages, or if you want to show everything, let me chose to "show everything" - don't let me have to scroll and wait, scroll and wait, scroll... you get the point.
     
    PoPSiCLe, Feb 21, 2016 IP
    qwikad.com likes this.
  7. EricBruggema

    EricBruggema Well-Known Member

    Messages:
    1,740
    Likes Received:
    28
    Best Answers:
    13
    Trophy Points:
    175
    #7
    Wrong, it can be done!!

    Wrong as wel, as you only load content that's needed, so no extra queries to db only JSON/HTML data for that piece of page

    for the rest i agree
     
    EricBruggema, Feb 26, 2016 IP
  8. PoPSiCLe

    PoPSiCLe Illustrious Member

    Messages:
    4,623
    Likes Received:
    725
    Best Answers:
    152
    Trophy Points:
    470
    #8
    Yes, it _can_, but there are still issues - for instance that the scrolling haven't happened yet, so if you bookmark something that is several iterations down the page, the page first has to load, and then scroll down to the bookmarked item - which again is slow - take a look at Disqus, for instance - it's not an infinite scroll-type problem, but the issue is mostly the same.

    Uh? You still need to load whatever content you want to show on scroll. Either you load it when the page loads, and only show a little bit at a time, or you load it when you reach the end of the currently loaded content (or when you're getting closer, you start to load it in the background, to avoid choppyness) - either way, the data has to come from _somewhere_ - yes, you can pull it with one DB-query, and store it in the backend, but a DB-connection isn't that stressful (or, at least shouldn't be), and you still need to pull the data from somewhere (unless you have all the data loaded at the start, but then why not just show everything, instead of having that annoying loading-crap happening when you scroll down?)
     
    PoPSiCLe, Feb 26, 2016 IP
  9. Chetan Tudor

    Chetan Tudor Greenhorn

    Messages:
    35
    Likes Received:
    0
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    6
    #9
    Thanks to all of you, I understood your points of view. I will implement pagination and maybe in the future, infinite scroll for smaller screens.
    Sorry for the late reply
     
    Chetan Tudor, Feb 29, 2016 IP
  10. deathshadow

    deathshadow Acclaimed Member

    Messages:
    9,732
    Likes Received:
    1,998
    Best Answers:
    253
    Trophy Points:
    515
    #10
    Steaming pile of ****. Just pisses me off as a visitor to sites; laughably most sites claim to do it to "save bandwidth", but much like minification maybe if their code wasn't bloated ineptly coded rubbish practicing separation of presentation from content with graceful degradation they wouldn't be resorting to such outright inaccessible idiotic nonsense.
     
    deathshadow, Feb 29, 2016 IP
  11. NetStar

    NetStar Notable Member

    Messages:
    2,471
    Likes Received:
    541
    Best Answers:
    21
    Trophy Points:
    245
    #11
    The following things piss off deathshadow: PHP Frameworks, CSS Frameworks, Jquery, HTML5, SaSS/LeSS, WYSIWYG Editors, IDE's, TypeFace/Google Fonts, Air Conditioning, Power Door Locks/Windows, Small Children who are bigger than him, The Sun, and Thongs.
     
    NetStar, Mar 3, 2016 IP
    sarahk likes this.
  12. deathshadow

    deathshadow Acclaimed Member

    Messages:
    9,732
    Likes Received:
    1,998
    Best Answers:
    253
    Trophy Points:
    515
    #12
    I hate heat, not Air conditioning. Other than that, yeah.

    For **** sake are people so lazy they can't even use a handcrank to roll down the window? Hell most of these little hipster pukes probably don't even understand why it's called "rolling down" a window. :p

    ... and get off my damned lawn.
     
    deathshadow, Mar 3, 2016 IP
    sarahk likes this.
  13. Leo-WS

    Leo-WS Greenhorn

    Messages:
    8
    Likes Received:
    1
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    23
    Digital Goods:
    1
    #13
    Same here, I hate infinite scrolling. Even though it works well on the UX side for mobiles.

    Just note here that endless scrolling might hurt your site SEO. Search engines might not be clever enough to "scroll down", or deem that it is infinite and stops after a few rounds - Your contents below might not get indexed or sufficient exposure. So yes - stick with tradition pagination.
     
    Leo-WS, Mar 4, 2016 IP
  14. sarahk

    sarahk iTamer Staff

    Messages:
    28,494
    Likes Received:
    4,457
    Best Answers:
    123
    Trophy Points:
    665
    #14
    I quite like infinite scrolling on sites like google image search and facebook. I don't implement in my own sites because it's not the right user interface for the information I'm presenting but it has a time and a place. I'd really want to look at the data that is being presented, who the user is, what they're trying to achieve etc before making a decision about it.

    Bookmarking and returning to the data are valid considerations and while bookmarking may be possible it's usually not a priority to the user of an infinite scroll page.
     
    sarahk, Mar 4, 2016 IP
  15. Eager2Seo

    Eager2Seo Member

    Messages:
    72
    Likes Received:
    3
    Best Answers:
    0
    Trophy Points:
    48
    #15
    It really depends on the application and what the customers needs are.
    My last app used a type of bubble popup/hover to show detail, so the user never had to switch pages. It worked very well.

    If you are displaying invoices in a business app, it may not be the best idea if users have to go back and forth between pages. If you can somehow implement expanding divs it may work. I discussed a UI scenario with a client where there was infinite scroll and "move to top feature." That way you can review 1000s of records on one page, and send the ones you are going to work with to the top.
     
    Eager2Seo, Mar 4, 2016 IP