You really should have a fallback page for browsers with no Javascript. NoScript has become increasing popular and the "Javscript Free" page of a site is the first page those users will see (even if they go on to temporarily allow javascript for your app).
In your case, it is just a blank white page. Since you are asking for suggestions, I would suggest you just make it display a message. One for suggesting users with older browsers to download chrome or firefox and another message directed at those with Javascript intentionally disabled which gives a very brief outline of what your app does and why they should enable JS to play with it.
e: I clicked through to the other mashups you have created which you linked in your other comment. They all do the same thing, just bring me to a blank page.
ee: To those down-voting, what do you disagree with? Do you not think pure JS web apps should have HTML fallback pages or do you disagree with the way I said it?
I didn't downvote you but I personally never worry about users with JavaScript disabled, and the companies I have worked for don't care either. The number of people without JavaScript is most likely way to low to spend time on an HTML fallback.
An adequate "fallback" is <noscript><p class='something_nice'>This site requires Javascript to function</p></noscript>. It's not exactly hard, and it's better than a blank white page.
It can also occur due to network problems on occasion or other technical issues; if you have JS beyond just progressive enhancement on your site you really ought to have a <noscript> tag in there somewhere.
It's a fair argument that overall percentage is low, but if you are catering towards a more technical audience (submitting to HN would count as that in my books) then I imagine the % of those using some form of Javascript blocking software is much higher.
Plus as mentioned, it isn't like it takes much effort, a noscript tag and a paragraph saying that it is a pure JS web app/what it does is enough.
Showing a 'Please activate javascript' message is indeed a good idea. A complete HTML only fallback is impossible since everything happens in the browser (JSONP API calls).
I think the most important thing is that the loading animation be anchored to the bottom of the loaded content so that it never obscures content that's already loaded. If the user manages to outrace your loader and gets to the bottom, some kind of indication that the app is churning away would no doubt be welcome.
You can try throwing a 'position: fixed; bottom: 21px;' on your #loading div instead of positioning w/ JS.
Also, the animation on the items isn't very smooth and I find it distracting. It'll probably feel smoother without the drop down animation (maybe a quick $.fadeIn) might look good.
However Scrolldit is (most of the time) a pure timewaster, check this:
377.913 (unique visits) x 1.20 (avg minutes on the site) = 453495,6 minutes = an impact of 314,93 wasted days on our world economy.
However with all those minutes wasted I felt the need to do something productive, I think Scrollsy.com is a good try.
Supporting all those small shopkeepers, trying to give them more exposure.
Multiple things: I love endless scrolling and visually rich designs, I want to learn new techniques and ofcourse it's great to see other people using these mashups. Btw this mashup was also some kind of compensation for the damage I've done with http://Scrolldit.com
Along with everyone else's activity indicator complaint, I also think that color coding the bottom "info bar" area of each item according to category would be useful for quickly scanning and separating all of that info with the eye.
I think you hit the API Limit. Just fixed a bug that used an old API key for API calls (got lower limits).
Big chance you won't get that error if you retry it after 10 minutes (time needed for Amazon Cloudfront to push the new version to all the edge locations).
This is awesome man. The wife and I just spent 30 minutes scrolling around and added quite a few items to my Favorites. You need to find a way to get an affiliate fee as soon as possible!
The Pinterest-influenced UI is such a great way to explore. I'd much rather browse around on your site than the actual Etsy site anyday. The new items flying in from the left does catch me off guard sometimes and I think the search input and browse dropdown need to be a bit larger but other that, very well done.
I love browsing products like this. I assume inspired by Pinterest?
A Toronto startup is doing the same thing, but local shops/products. http://shopcastr.com/
I did an Etsy search similar to this, with "instant" search instead of scrolling. I have to say I like your approach better.
A few questions about your Etsy API experience - can you now see who purchased through your site? At the time they had no feedback loop and no sort of affiliate program. Building my Etsy app was a lot of fun, but I had no way to monetize my work. I'm a bit out of the Etsy API loop now, but I do hope they've come up with some way to help devs make money.
I'm not sure if I could see who purchased through my site, as far as I know shopkeepers see it. There is no sort of affiliate program. So I don't see any monetizing options for this moment.
It's fast, it supports JSONP and their API team is great to work with (fast replies on email). I could recommend anyone to build a mashup on top of the Etsy API.
That's great to hear, Jonathan. I personally know two of the people on that team and they're brilliant programmers but never saw their view from the outside. I'm glad to hear you're getting amazing support from them.
If you're enjoying it a lot and love to program, you should consider applying there too.
It would be really awesome if something liked this was done for the recommended reading lists on Amazon.com, although, not sure if Amazon has an easy API for that.
Nice! I could definitely see a simply iOS app for something like that that makes use of the cover-flow animation. Could be a nice alternative to the Amazon.com store app if you can hook it up to user accounts and Amazon's personalized recommendations.
Did you post this on HN before? It's still jarring how new items fly in from the top left. It's also constantly loading items, which is annoying.
Otherwise, looks pretty cool. You should also take a look at other fashion sites for the "Quick Look" interaction (using mouseover or some other light interaction to provide more ui/information/larger image, vs opening a new page), which would be pretty great on a purely visual site like this.
When I did an Etsy app, there was no affiliate program, which seemed to largely stem from the fact that Etsy charged to little to sellers that they were barely making a profit. The idea of giving a cut to ousters seemed like a bad idea. I'm not sure if it's changed. But when one considers the number of Etsy apps that have been made just for the joy of it, it would seem to be in Etsy's favor to incentivize developers once they can get the numbers to work out.
I have been working a lot with JSONP lately it's a great way to bring content Cross domain/into Apps. I just recently finished writing a Webservice/iPhone implementation.
Something to consider, try preloading the content to give the user a smoother experience. My UITableViews (iPhone) were a bit clunky until I got around to pre-caching my JSON results.
Some examples you should check:
Regular search: http://www.scrollsy.com/#s=nyan%20cat
Treasury listings: http://www.scrollsy.com/#l=treasury
Shop: http://www.scrollsy.com/#un=machelspencePHOTO
Color search: http://www.scrollsy.com/#c=art&color=0A9600
Would love to have some feedback!