Knobs are the primary interface in many DAWs because their developers copy hardware interfaces without too much thought. They translate to computer interfaces very poorly.
The main advantage of a hardware knob (over slider) is that you have very good control over it's rate of change. The main disadvantage is that it's hard to turn multiple knobs at once.
None of this applies to software knobs. I can't think of why would anyone want to use this over Tangle's sliders aside from prettiness.
The only sensible simulation of a "knob" in HTML I can think of would be a text field with a value that goes up or down based on how much you scroll mouse scroll-wheel. Thinking about it, I don't see why it should be different from a slider. You can have a tangle slider that is also scrollable with a wheel (if that is possible to capty with JS). Which is kind of the way normal UI sliders work.
Well, they also have the benefit of being compact which can be beneficial in complex audio applications, but I agree that they generally suck and would almost always be better off as a slider.
The main advantage of a hardware knob (over slider) is that you have very good control over it's rate of change. The main disadvantage is that it's hard to turn multiple knobs at once.
None of this applies to software knobs. I can't think of why would anyone want to use this over Tangle's sliders aside from prettiness.
The only sensible simulation of a "knob" in HTML I can think of would be a text field with a value that goes up or down based on how much you scroll mouse scroll-wheel. Thinking about it, I don't see why it should be different from a slider. You can have a tangle slider that is also scrollable with a wheel (if that is possible to capty with JS). Which is kind of the way normal UI sliders work.