6 ms·

> Fossil also supports bug tracking, wiki, forum, and technotes That sounds great, but I'm scared of checking these features out because I'm currently looking

by n3k5 6y ago

> Fossil also supports bug tracking, wiki, forum, and technotes That sounds great, but I'm scared of checking these features out because I'm currently looking at the quick start guide[0] and am immediately put off by how awful the CSS is. Formatting running text such that a single line can be ~500 characters wide[1] results in very low readability. There's a difference between ‘themeable’ and ‘configuring a custom theme is mandatory because the default option makes you feel sick’. In case someone working on Fossil sees this: I just bookmarked the site because the project seems very attractive in most other respects. I hope that when I eventually re-visit that link, I'll be able to go on a significantly deeper dive. A somewhat sane style sheet would certainly help. [0] https://www.fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/quickstart.wiki https://www.fossil-scm.org/home/doc/trunk/www/quickstart.wik... [1] https://i.paste.pics/A9RQ8.png https://i.paste.pics/A9RQ8.png

z2210558 6y ago
It looks totally fine to me (lines are wrapping normally). Are you sure it's not something to do with your own browser?
- t0astbread 6y ago
  I think the complaint was that lines aren't capped somewhere at 70-80 characters but rather fill the entire remaining space in the viewport which can make the text hard to read.
  - kps 6y ago
    The user chooses how big to make their window, and the site conforms to that. I wish fewer web sites tried to second-guess what I asked for.
    - t0astbread 6y ago
      I see where you're coming from but resizing the browser to your preferred text width would mean decreasing the space for elements like the tab bar or other "not-in-body" UI elements even though there's still screen space available. I'm not sure that's something most people would want. Not to mention some sites have things like side bars, images or other UI elements that make them more comfortable to user with larger viewports so you'd resize your browser often when you switch tabs. It would be useful if sites could specify a "body" element that could be resized and aligned however the user wishes without affecting other parts of the site or the browser UI.
      - ncmncm 6y ago
        There are these things called "windows" (not an MS trademark!), and you can have more than one.
        t0astbread 6y ago
        Right but then it becomes a mess to find anything if you have to look in multiple tab bars or you have a lot of windows which could also become hard to manage. My point is, while your approach works for you it's probably not useful or intuitive to enough people to justify designing your website around it.
  - n3k5 6y ago
    Yes. I'm not a stickler for 70—80 characters; IMHO the ~200 character lines on HN are excessive, but I can cope. You know, Postel's law: be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others. I took the aforementioned screenshot on a huge display to illustrate the issue more clearly, but on a garden-variety 1920×1080 monitor — stock Firefox, no extensions that would affect rendering — Fossil wiki's text formatting is still objectively bad.
    - ncmncm 6y ago
      Postel's Law is now considered not just obsolete, but a major impediment to fixing security bugs. Do not wire Postel's Law into anything new.
flohofwoe 6y ago
Not sure what you're complaining about, the page looks fine in a desktop browser window, the text automatically overflows when the window is resized.
leafmeal 6y ago
I agree this can be annoying when you have really large windows, but personally I don't mind it. I don't think it's hard to resize a window, and I _have_ been frustrated when sites (like the new Reddit) force a narrow window when sometimes you need to see more at once.
- zzo38computer 6y ago
  I agree with you about this.
cnst 6y ago
Wait, are you seriously complaining that they don't define an arbitrary max-width, or, even worse, an outright width, in their CSS?!
BareNakedCoder 6y ago
Switch to the Blaze builtin skin/theme for a page with reasonable max-width.
Jach 6y ago
> ...very low readability Citation needed, especially when the literature doesn't support such a statement. See https://twitter.com/danluu/status/1115707741102727168 https://twitter.com/danluu/status/1115707741102727168
chillfox 6y ago
maybe just use a smaller browser window?

by n3k5 6y ago

z2210558 6y ago

It looks totally fine to me (lines are wrapping normally). Are you sure it's not something to do with your own browser?

t0astbread 6y ago
I think the complaint was that lines aren't capped somewhere at 70-80 characters but rather fill the entire remaining space in the viewport which can make the text hard to read.
- kps 6y ago
  The user chooses how big to make their window, and the site conforms to that. I wish fewer web sites tried to second-guess what I asked for.
  - t0astbread 6y ago
    I see where you're coming from but resizing the browser to your preferred text width would mean decreasing the space for elements like the tab bar or other "not-in-body" UI elements even though there's still screen space available. I'm not sure that's something most people would want. Not to mention some sites have things like side bars, images or other UI elements that make them more comfortable to user with larger viewports so you'd resize your browser often when you switch tabs. It would be useful if sites could specify a "body" element that could be resized and aligned however the user wishes without affecting other parts of the site or the browser UI.
    - ncmncm 6y ago
      There are these things called "windows" (not an MS trademark!), and you can have more than one.
      - t0astbread 6y ago
        Right but then it becomes a mess to find anything if you have to look in multiple tab bars or you have a lot of windows which could also become hard to manage. My point is, while your approach works for you it's probably not useful or intuitive to enough people to justify designing your website around it.
- n3k5 6y ago
  Yes. I'm not a stickler for 70—80 characters; IMHO the ~200 character lines on HN are excessive, but I can cope. You know, Postel's law: be conservative in what you do, be liberal in what you accept from others. I took the aforementioned screenshot on a huge display to illustrate the issue more clearly, but on a garden-variety 1920×1080 monitor — stock Firefox, no extensions that would affect rendering — Fossil wiki's text formatting is still objectively bad.
  - ncmncm 6y ago
    Postel's Law is now considered not just obsolete, but a major impediment to fixing security bugs. Do not wire Postel's Law into anything new.

flohofwoe 6y ago

Not sure what you're complaining about, the page looks fine in a desktop browser window, the text automatically overflows when the window is resized.

leafmeal 6y ago

I agree this can be annoying when you have really large windows, but personally I don't mind it. I don't think it's hard to resize a window, and I _have_ been frustrated when sites (like the new Reddit) force a narrow window when sometimes you need to see more at once.

zzo38computer 6y ago
I agree with you about this.

cnst 6y ago

Wait, are you seriously complaining that they don't define an arbitrary max-width, or, even worse, an outright width, in their CSS?!

BareNakedCoder 6y ago

Switch to the Blaze builtin skin/theme for a page with reasonable max-width.

Jach 6y ago

> ...very low readability Citation needed, especially when the literature doesn't support such a statement. See https://twitter.com/danluu/status/1115707741102727168 https://twitter.com/danluu/status/1115707741102727168

chillfox 6y ago

maybe just use a smaller browser window?