5 ms·

JavaScript Justifies Everything (well, text anyway)

• plesn 17y ago
  It would be cool to integrate that to Readability (http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/)
  • petercooper 17y ago
    Readability's job is to make text easier to read, not harder. Fully justified text is harder to read and has negative effects on retention. http://www.adamsdrafting.com/2007/05/03/justified-text-versus-ragged-right-text/ http://www.adamsdrafting.com/2007/05/03/justified-text-versu... Study 1: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120024982/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120024982/abstrac... Study 2: http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordDetails/detailmini.jsp?_nfpb=true&_&ERICExtSearch_SearchValue_0=ED337749&ERICExtSearch_SearchType_0=no&accno=ED337749 http://www.eric.ed.gov/ERICWebPortal/custom/portlets/recordD... The UK government also gives this advice in a style guide: Avoid fully-justified text - the 'ragged' right edge can particularly help people with dyslexia in keeping reading position.
• jeremyswank 17y ago
  It doesn't hyphenate correctly. I get the word 'columns' hyphenated like this: 'colu-mns' and 'manuscript' as 'manuscri-pt'. A nice idea, but this implementation is unusable. Justification without correct hyphenation is just a non-starter.
  • jcapote 17y ago
    The source for it is right here: http://github.com/aristus/sweet-justice http://github.com/aristus/sweet-justice
    • carussell 17y ago
      Needs some Knuth: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/113445055/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0 http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/113445055/abstrac... (Edit: bummer. A quick glance through the code at the following link leads me to believe it doesn't actually do hyphenation, though I may be wrong.) http://ajaxian.com/archives/tex-line-breaking-algorithm-in-javascript http://ajaxian.com/archives/tex-line-breaking-algorithm-in-j...
• qjz 17y ago
  Fascinating. I've always fully justified the text on the sites I work on. But I've never compared samples side-by-side as demonstrated on this site. I was immediately struck by how much easier the "ragged right" version is to read. Something about fully justified text seems to slow me down.
  • plesn 17y ago
    The line length is very small here, so it may be a pathological case IMHO.
  • petercooper 17y ago
    Your hunch is supported by research: http://kaiweber.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/research-about-ragged-right-over-justified-alignment/ http://kaiweber.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/research-about-ragg...
• petercooper 17y ago
  It drives me nuts that iBooks or the Kindle doesn't use ragged right. Fully justified text has been demonstrated to be harder to read by multiple studies (though is arguably acceptable aesthetically for use in thin columns): http://kaiweber.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/research-about-ragged-right-over-justified-alignment/ http://kaiweber.wordpress.com/2009/04/23/research-about-ragg... I guess my point is.. don't be quick to jump on a bandwagon in order to achieve an aesthetic ideal at the cost of readability.