3 ms·

I feel that way about most bloggish sites, until I hit the readability button. If they block that then I give up.

avian 8y ago
Funny how these things go in circles. I remember the time where many webpages were unstyled, letting you freely choose the font, size, colors, etc. in browser preferences. But that was considered ugly and non-user friendly. Now with various readability buttons we're just moving back to that.
- Sharlin 8y ago
  Without custom CSS, you couldn't, however, fix the single most important readability issue about unstyled HTML: add reasonable margins and keep body width at the recommended 60–70em or so. Readability modes finally get that right.
  - avian 8y ago
    Right. I forgot to mention that we also used to be able to resize the browser to the width we personally found comfortable for reading. I guess that's something reader modes still have to rediscover.
    - Sharlin 8y ago
      Sure. But lines running from window border to window border are still hard to read. The margins have to be clean negative space.
worble 8y ago
Every single time I see a medium link, I prime my cursor to hit Reader Mode as fast as possible, it's a godsend.
- severine 8y ago
  See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19035256 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19035256
severine 8y ago
You can open links directly in reader view with the Open In Reader View addon for Firefox/Chrome/Opera: https://add0n.com/reader-view.html https://add0n.com/reader-view.html It's great for these situations.
- bhrgunatha 8y ago
  No need for an extension. Reader view doesn't always work though (at least in Firefox.) You can use the icon in the URL bar or CTRL + ALT + R to open reader view. Firefox does some detective work to choose whether to show the reader view icon but using the keyboard shortcut used to work regardless. Recently it seems even the keyboard shortcut doesn't work unless the icon is visible - I think becausethe heuristic for showing the icon is more accurate these days.

Funny how these things go in circles. I remember the time where many webpages were unstyled, letting you freely choose the font, size, colors, etc. in browser preferences. But that was considered ugly and non-user friendly. Now with various readability buttons we're just moving back to that.

Sharlin 8y ago
Without custom CSS, you couldn't, however, fix the single most important readability issue about unstyled HTML: add reasonable margins and keep body width at the recommended 60–70em or so. Readability modes finally get that right.
- avian 8y ago
  Right. I forgot to mention that we also used to be able to resize the browser to the width we personally found comfortable for reading. I guess that's something reader modes still have to rediscover.
  - Sharlin 8y ago
    Sure. But lines running from window border to window border are still hard to read. The margins have to be clean negative space.

worble 8y ago

Every single time I see a medium link, I prime my cursor to hit Reader Mode as fast as possible, it's a godsend.

severine 8y ago
See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19035256 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19035256

severine 8y ago

You can open links directly in reader view with the Open In Reader View addon for Firefox/Chrome/Opera: https://add0n.com/reader-view.html https://add0n.com/reader-view.html It's great for these situations.

bhrgunatha 8y ago
No need for an extension. Reader view doesn't always work though (at least in Firefox.) You can use the icon in the URL bar or CTRL + ALT + R to open reader view. Firefox does some detective work to choose whether to show the reader view icon but using the keyboard shortcut used to work regardless. Recently it seems even the keyboard shortcut doesn't work unless the icon is visible - I think becausethe heuristic for showing the icon is more accurate these days.