4 ms·

Fix-width layouts are a pet peeve of mine. What's the point of having a large monitor with 1920 or 2048 pixels in the middle, if the content only takes up like

by V-2 8y ago

Fix-width layouts are a pet peeve of mine. What's the point of having a large monitor with 1920 or 2048 pixels in the middle, if the content only takes up like 40% of it.

saagarjha 8y ago
You can still put multiple things side-by-side…
hombre_fatal 8y ago
I don't mean to be harsh on you in particular, but I do think it's funny that, when it comes to ads, HNers will rush to say "my browser, my rules, it's me who decides how your content will render!" Meanwhile, also HNers: "Ugh, can you zoom your content for me and shape your content to my browser?"
- dspillett 8y ago
  Hear hear! As long as the design doesn't fall apart when you resize the window and/or set a zoom level other than 100%, which is far from always the case.
- kodablah 8y ago
  > HNers: "Ugh, can you zoom your content for me and shape your content to my browser?" You got it backwards. More like "Stop fixating on a width and shaping your content in a browser limiting way". They are asking for the removal of viewing restrictions in both cases, no need to pretend like they're at odds.
dustinmoris 8y ago
I agree in most cases except when reading articles. It's scientifically proven that it is easier to read anything if a line doesn't exceed ~ 75 characters. I love blogs and news websites which have very narrow fixed width UIs for optimal reading and really dislike blogs which are wider than 600-700 pixels.
- sorenjan 8y ago
  I wish more site would use columns, like in print. I agree that really wide text is hard to read, but instead of making one narrow column you need to scroll through, you can divide it into multiple columns. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/columns https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/columns
  - pintxo 8y ago
    True, but unfortunately the concept of print does not translate well to the web. CSS colums can either be width or height limited: Fix to 2 columns: you cannot control the height, if it goes beyond the screen height, users need to scroll down on the first column, then scroll back to the start of the 2nd column. Fix to the screen height: you cannot control the width, it it goes beyond the screen, users need to scroll horizontally to read the text. Although this somehow would work, it's really not general behavior on the web to scroll horizontally.
    - yellowbuilding 8y ago
      Or just keep the regular scrolling and have the second (and third, fourth, etc. if they fit) begin on the next line that would be off-screen in the previous column. This would be a great browser plugin that could be flipped on or off.
- V-2 8y ago
  So that's why books are printed on till rolls! ;) Seriously though - here's what a Wired article looks like on my 24" monitor. Chrome, no zoom. https://imgur.com/a/axlx8dX https://imgur.com/a/axlx8dX Text occupies 420px out of 1600; barely over 25% of screen width. I'm aware reading may be a dying art, and new generations are lacking long attention span, but squashing text into an average of 9 words per line feels infuriating to me, you can downvote me all you want. My eyes are dangling out of my sockets from going left to right and back and forth three times a second, not to mention constantly having to scroll the page vertically. I'm not a scientist, though - YMMV of course.
frou_dh 8y ago
Because if you're maximizing every window on a desktop OS then you're Doin' It Wrong
- egoisticalgoat 8y ago
  That might be true, but right now i don't want to focus on anything but github, so why shouldn't i be able to use all my screen space for it?
- devocracy 8y ago
  That may be true on windows or some flavours of desktop Linux where simple windows management have existed for some time (windows 10 being a real champ of multiple frame management on the same display), but if you're on a Mac you're stuck with a real mess that requires a lot of manual screen size management.
- thrownaway954 8y ago
  You forgot to add tips fedora to your comment.
- jenscow 8y ago
  No. It just means you're doing it the way you prefer. People shouldn't be required to resize their browser window to suit the site - it should adapt. (I'm not suggesting 16pt line of text running the full screen width) For Github, I use the "Github Wide" Stylus style - I now have a workable diff UI. (ironically, I think it breaks the dashboard layout) - judging by the article, I may not require it soon.
  - thewisenerd 8y ago
    I've been using cfoellmann's fork [1] ; and have updated the "Applies to" to URLs matching the regexp `https:\/\/github\.com\/.+\/.+` so it gets applied only to any content within a repository; I remember changing it when having this style (or mdo's?) enabled broke profile views. [1] https://userstyles.org/styles/108591/github-wide https://userstyles.org/styles/108591/github-wide

by V-2 8y ago

Fix-width layouts are a pet peeve of mine. What's the point of having a large monitor with 1920 or 2048 pixels in the middle, if the content only takes up like 40% of it.

saagarjha 8y ago

You can still put multiple things side-by-side…

hombre_fatal 8y ago

I don't mean to be harsh on you in particular, but I do think it's funny that, when it comes to ads, HNers will rush to say "my browser, my rules, it's me who decides how your content will render!" Meanwhile, also HNers: "Ugh, can you zoom your content for me and shape your content to my browser?"

dspillett 8y ago
Hear hear! As long as the design doesn't fall apart when you resize the window and/or set a zoom level other than 100%, which is far from always the case.
kodablah 8y ago
> HNers: "Ugh, can you zoom your content for me and shape your content to my browser?" You got it backwards. More like "Stop fixating on a width and shaping your content in a browser limiting way". They are asking for the removal of viewing restrictions in both cases, no need to pretend like they're at odds.

dustinmoris 8y ago

I agree in most cases except when reading articles. It's scientifically proven that it is easier to read anything if a line doesn't exceed ~ 75 characters. I love blogs and news websites which have very narrow fixed width UIs for optimal reading and really dislike blogs which are wider than 600-700 pixels.

sorenjan 8y ago
I wish more site would use columns, like in print. I agree that really wide text is hard to read, but instead of making one narrow column you need to scroll through, you can divide it into multiple columns. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/columns https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/columns
- pintxo 8y ago
  True, but unfortunately the concept of print does not translate well to the web. CSS colums can either be width or height limited: Fix to 2 columns: you cannot control the height, if it goes beyond the screen height, users need to scroll down on the first column, then scroll back to the start of the 2nd column. Fix to the screen height: you cannot control the width, it it goes beyond the screen, users need to scroll horizontally to read the text. Although this somehow would work, it's really not general behavior on the web to scroll horizontally.
  - yellowbuilding 8y ago
    Or just keep the regular scrolling and have the second (and third, fourth, etc. if they fit) begin on the next line that would be off-screen in the previous column. This would be a great browser plugin that could be flipped on or off.
V-2 8y ago
So that's why books are printed on till rolls! ;) Seriously though - here's what a Wired article looks like on my 24" monitor. Chrome, no zoom. https://imgur.com/a/axlx8dX https://imgur.com/a/axlx8dX Text occupies 420px out of 1600; barely over 25% of screen width. I'm aware reading may be a dying art, and new generations are lacking long attention span, but squashing text into an average of 9 words per line feels infuriating to me, you can downvote me all you want. My eyes are dangling out of my sockets from going left to right and back and forth three times a second, not to mention constantly having to scroll the page vertically. I'm not a scientist, though - YMMV of course.

frou_dh 8y ago

Because if you're maximizing every window on a desktop OS then you're Doin' It Wrong

egoisticalgoat 8y ago
That might be true, but right now i don't want to focus on anything but github, so why shouldn't i be able to use all my screen space for it?
devocracy 8y ago
That may be true on windows or some flavours of desktop Linux where simple windows management have existed for some time (windows 10 being a real champ of multiple frame management on the same display), but if you're on a Mac you're stuck with a real mess that requires a lot of manual screen size management.
thrownaway954 8y ago
You forgot to add tips fedora to your comment.
jenscow 8y ago
No. It just means you're doing it the way you prefer. People shouldn't be required to resize their browser window to suit the site - it should adapt. (I'm not suggesting 16pt line of text running the full screen width) For Github, I use the "Github Wide" Stylus style - I now have a workable diff UI. (ironically, I think it breaks the dashboard layout) - judging by the article, I may not require it soon.
- thewisenerd 8y ago
  I've been using cfoellmann's fork [1] ; and have updated the "Applies to" to URLs matching the regexp `https:\/\/github\.com\/.+\/.+` so it gets applied only to any content within a repository; I remember changing it when having this style (or mdo's?) enabled broke profile views. [1] https://userstyles.org/styles/108591/github-wide https://userstyles.org/styles/108591/github-wide