5 ms·

Digital brutalism is under appreciated. How did we reach a point where a technical write up is forced into a column 6 inches wide on my 32 inch monitor? Why d

Digital brutalism is under appreciated. How did we reach a point where a technical write up is forced into a column 6 inches wide on my 32 inch monitor? Why does practically every code snippet exceed this 6 inch width, requiring a scroll bar? Why is there a 50-50 chance that this scroll bar will be so tall that it actually hides the code snippet, and the fastest way to read the bits of information which are the point of the entire write up is to pop open developer tools by inspecting the element and read the code directly from the html?

astrodust 9y ago
I'd rather not have to follow a line of text from one side of my large screen all the way back to the other, nor be forced to scrunch down the window because they never considered that screens could be so large when that site was laid out in 1996. LWN at least has a reasonable max width, but some sites don't.
- tomsthumb 9y ago
  I agree with this sentiment in general, but having to read the full width of my screen instead of playing copy-paste + text selection games with page elements which _cannot_ be viewed in their entirety (or sometimes at all) is an option I would take all day every day.
  - astrodust 9y ago
    This is why some browsers have "Reader Mode" which strips out all the garbage and leaves you with a well-formatted article.
- mavhc 9y ago
  The trend to run everything full screen is an odd one, probably was never even a thing on Windows, with its terrible window resizing options. Of course tabs in browsers is a side effect of terrible window management in GUIs, and causes more full screenness
  - teddyh 9y ago
    I have a theory about how this obsession with running web browsers in full screen came about, based on my personal observations on what happened at the time: The graphical web browser was originally mostly used on computers like Sun SPARCstations and NeXTcubes with desktop resolutions like 1152×900 (Sun) and 1120×832 (NeXT). The web browser, in these desktop environments, were not maximized, but were instead used as one window (or multiple windows) among many other windows on a desktop full of other applications, icons, and menus. (See for example the fact that the normal shortcuts Ctrl/Command-N (for new browser window) and Ctrl/Command-W (for close window), which are standard in all current web browsers, actually originated as built-in features of the NeXTSTEP window environment, and not as a feature of the first web browser (which was written for NeXTSTEP). Tabs were not a feature in any web browsers yet – separate windows were used for approximately the same purpose.). Anyway, the first graphical web sites were written with these non-maximized pixel widths in mind, with a typical web site being a bit above 600 pixels in width and assuming a maximum window height of around 700 pixels. PCs, around this time, typically had 640×480 pixels on their whole display (or maybe 800×600 or 1024×768 if they had a more expensive monitor and enough graphic card memory, but this was more rare). At that time, a user on a normal cheap PC, browsing a web site made for about 600 pixels in width, would find it easiest to simply maximize the window. And running multiple applications at the same time was not a practical option anyway for these PCs, considering the limited CPU and RAM available, so maximizing the web browser was natural. A few years later, as PCs became commonplace, and therefore became the norm for web browsing, and as monitors and graphic card memory became cheaper, web designers started using the full-screen mode as the assumed mode for using web sites, and as 800×600 (and later 1024×768) desktop resolutions became more common on PCs, web site designers jumped to using these widths as their assumed web browser widths. (See the common practice at the time to have little buttons on web sites stating “Best viewed in 800×600”, and similar.) PC users, during all this time, were thus implicitly taught to always maximize the web browser window. Meanwhile, Sun/NeXT/SGI/etc. workstation users did not really complain since they had ample resolution to spare for viewing these ever widening web sites, and workstations were on the way out anyway. However, nowadays, with both “retina” displays and much wider than 4:3 aspect ratios (initially 16:10 and later 16:9) being the absolute norm, it’s ludicrous to run (and design) a web site in full screen mode. I mean, the line length shouldn’t be over 55 characters per line anyway¹, so a web site has no business being wider than that. And personal computers are now more than capable of running more than one program at a time, which is only made more difficult by programs assuming they can cover the whole desktop for themselves. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_length https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_length
- the8472 9y ago
  > I'd rather not have to follow a line of text from one side of my large screen all the way back to the other I read wikipedia articles in fullscreen 2560x in desktop mode. The mobile site is a huge waste of space to me to forces me to scroll more than necessary. On the other hand I have no trouble with scrunching browser windows when it makes sense since I use a tiling window manager and have keyboard shortcuts to rearrange windows.
- pwg 9y ago
  What about a userContent.css entry on your personal browser that enforces a max-width that you like? After all, it is your browser on your computer, it should render how you want, not how the site author wanted.
WalterBright 9y ago
I've been called old-fashioned with the way I format my articles from the disco era: https://digitalmars.com/articles/b76.html https://digitalmars.com/articles/b76.html but they are readable, no javascript, the browser reflows the text as required, the fonts work, they load fast because there's little there & they're static, the fonts can be resized by the browser without breaking the layout, they work with screen readers, etc.
- astrodust 9y ago
  You need a max width on that. On a 27" or larger screen those lines go on endlessly.
  - Retra 9y ago
    Make your browser narrower?
    - astrodust 9y ago
      Then all new windows end up narrower which is annoying. I'll just close the window and move on.
    - marvy 9y ago
      You can manually make the window narrower of course, but it doesn't play nice with tabbed browsing. In particular, you now face a choice: 1. Make the current window narrow. But when I switch to other tabs in this window, I need to expand it again, because the people who wrote them assumed there would be many horizontal pixels available. (Responsive layout? What's that?) 2. Move this tab into it's own window. But what to do if I then follow further links that point to other sites? If I open them in the same tab, I must resize again. If in a new tab: should this tab be manually migrated to my wide window? Or should I resize the narrow one? The ideal solution would be a browser feature (like Reader Mode or Reading View).
  - pwg 9y ago
    Can you insert a max-width entry in your local userContent.css file to enforce your own max-width no matter what the site author may, or may not, specify?
jaredsohn 9y ago
This is an example of what could be a code snippet that automatically gets a scrollbar added to it if I wrote this correctly. At least it is more than six inches across when I view it on a 21.5 inch monitor, although it could be a lot wider.

astrodust 9y ago

I'd rather not have to follow a line of text from one side of my large screen all the way back to the other, nor be forced to scrunch down the window because they never considered that screens could be so large when that site was laid out in 1996. LWN at least has a reasonable max width, but some sites don't.

tomsthumb 9y ago
I agree with this sentiment in general, but having to read the full width of my screen instead of playing copy-paste + text selection games with page elements which _cannot_ be viewed in their entirety (or sometimes at all) is an option I would take all day every day.
- astrodust 9y ago
  This is why some browsers have "Reader Mode" which strips out all the garbage and leaves you with a well-formatted article.
mavhc 9y ago
The trend to run everything full screen is an odd one, probably was never even a thing on Windows, with its terrible window resizing options. Of course tabs in browsers is a side effect of terrible window management in GUIs, and causes more full screenness
- teddyh 9y ago
  I have a theory about how this obsession with running web browsers in full screen came about, based on my personal observations on what happened at the time: The graphical web browser was originally mostly used on computers like Sun SPARCstations and NeXTcubes with desktop resolutions like 1152×900 (Sun) and 1120×832 (NeXT). The web browser, in these desktop environments, were not maximized, but were instead used as one window (or multiple windows) among many other windows on a desktop full of other applications, icons, and menus. (See for example the fact that the normal shortcuts Ctrl/Command-N (for new browser window) and Ctrl/Command-W (for close window), which are standard in all current web browsers, actually originated as built-in features of the NeXTSTEP window environment, and not as a feature of the first web browser (which was written for NeXTSTEP). Tabs were not a feature in any web browsers yet – separate windows were used for approximately the same purpose.). Anyway, the first graphical web sites were written with these non-maximized pixel widths in mind, with a typical web site being a bit above 600 pixels in width and assuming a maximum window height of around 700 pixels. PCs, around this time, typically had 640×480 pixels on their whole display (or maybe 800×600 or 1024×768 if they had a more expensive monitor and enough graphic card memory, but this was more rare). At that time, a user on a normal cheap PC, browsing a web site made for about 600 pixels in width, would find it easiest to simply maximize the window. And running multiple applications at the same time was not a practical option anyway for these PCs, considering the limited CPU and RAM available, so maximizing the web browser was natural. A few years later, as PCs became commonplace, and therefore became the norm for web browsing, and as monitors and graphic card memory became cheaper, web designers started using the full-screen mode as the assumed mode for using web sites, and as 800×600 (and later 1024×768) desktop resolutions became more common on PCs, web site designers jumped to using these widths as their assumed web browser widths. (See the common practice at the time to have little buttons on web sites stating “Best viewed in 800×600”, and similar.) PC users, during all this time, were thus implicitly taught to always maximize the web browser window. Meanwhile, Sun/NeXT/SGI/etc. workstation users did not really complain since they had ample resolution to spare for viewing these ever widening web sites, and workstations were on the way out anyway. However, nowadays, with both “retina” displays and much wider than 4:3 aspect ratios (initially 16:10 and later 16:9) being the absolute norm, it’s ludicrous to run (and design) a web site in full screen mode. I mean, the line length shouldn’t be over 55 characters per line anyway¹, so a web site has no business being wider than that. And personal computers are now more than capable of running more than one program at a time, which is only made more difficult by programs assuming they can cover the whole desktop for themselves. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_length https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_length
the8472 9y ago
> I'd rather not have to follow a line of text from one side of my large screen all the way back to the other I read wikipedia articles in fullscreen 2560x in desktop mode. The mobile site is a huge waste of space to me to forces me to scroll more than necessary. On the other hand I have no trouble with scrunching browser windows when it makes sense since I use a tiling window manager and have keyboard shortcuts to rearrange windows.
pwg 9y ago
What about a userContent.css entry on your personal browser that enforces a max-width that you like? After all, it is your browser on your computer, it should render how you want, not how the site author wanted.

WalterBright 9y ago

I've been called old-fashioned with the way I format my articles from the disco era: https://digitalmars.com/articles/b76.html https://digitalmars.com/articles/b76.html but they are readable, no javascript, the browser reflows the text as required, the fonts work, they load fast because there's little there & they're static, the fonts can be resized by the browser without breaking the layout, they work with screen readers, etc.

astrodust 9y ago
You need a max width on that. On a 27" or larger screen those lines go on endlessly.
- Retra 9y ago
  Make your browser narrower?
  - astrodust 9y ago
    Then all new windows end up narrower which is annoying. I'll just close the window and move on.
  - marvy 9y ago
    You can manually make the window narrower of course, but it doesn't play nice with tabbed browsing. In particular, you now face a choice: 1. Make the current window narrow. But when I switch to other tabs in this window, I need to expand it again, because the people who wrote them assumed there would be many horizontal pixels available. (Responsive layout? What's that?) 2. Move this tab into it's own window. But what to do if I then follow further links that point to other sites? If I open them in the same tab, I must resize again. If in a new tab: should this tab be manually migrated to my wide window? Or should I resize the narrow one? The ideal solution would be a browser feature (like Reader Mode or Reading View).
- pwg 9y ago
  Can you insert a max-width entry in your local userContent.css file to enforce your own max-width no matter what the site author may, or may not, specify?

jaredsohn 9y ago

This is an example of what could be a code snippet that automatically gets a scrollbar added to it if I wrote this correctly. At least it is more than six inches across when I view it on a 21.5 inch monitor, although it could be a lot wider.