May 4, 2026
Menu-gate: back button boogaloo
Stitch Together Lots of Little HTML Pages with Navigations for Interactions
A back-to-basics web idea just sparked a very online fight over whether simple is genius or silly
TLDR: A developer says websites can stay fast and reliable by using simple page-to-page links instead of loading everything inside one screen. The comments instantly split between people cheering the back-to-basics approach and critics mocking it as old news, pointless anti-JavaScript drama, or both.
A web developer proposed something that sounds almost rebellious in 2026: instead of making every little button and menu dance with heavy code, just send people to another page and make it feel smooth. On his site, the menu isn’t a pop-out panel at all — it’s a plain old link to a menu page, dressed up with a slick visual transition if your browser can handle it. If not? It still works. That simplicity is exactly why some readers were impressed… and why others immediately reached for the flamethrower.
The comments turned into a classic internet showdown between “finally, websites that work like websites again” and “why are we reinventing the past?” One person basically said this whole thing feels like a time machine back to the era before fancy site-building tricks. Another flatly asked, what’s the point, arguing it’s easier to just use JavaScript and be done with it. Then came the truly spicy stuff: one critic accused the whole idea of anti-JavaScript posturing while still sneaking in a tiny script for the “back” button, and even dropped the brutal phrase “LLM dunning krueger derangement.” Ouch.
But it wasn’t all doomscrolling and drag sessions. One commenter was genuinely fascinated by the title-to-header animation and wanted the recipe. Another chimed in with a nerdy-but-fair “isn’t this just HATEOAS?” translation: haven’t tools like htmx and Hotwire been saying this for years? So yes, the article was about simpler websites — but the real show was the comment section, where nostalgia, skepticism, and full-on tech snark collided.
Key Points
- •The article revisits and endorses a website-building approach based on many small HTML pages instead of JavaScript-heavy in-page interactions.
- •The author’s menu is implemented as a separate page reached via a normal link rather than a JavaScript-driven expanding component.
- •CSS view transitions are used to enhance page-to-page navigation effects on modern browsers while preserving compatibility on older browsers and with JavaScript disabled.
- •The menu close control uses a link enhanced with JavaScript and `history.back()` so opening and closing the menu does not add unnecessary browser history entries.
- •The author says this approach influenced the site’s design by emphasizing essential navigation behavior, small page sizes, speed, and robustness.