4 ms·
This guy needs to organize & format his writing better, since he does have really interesting things to say.
by AlbertCory 4y ago
This guy needs to organize & format his writing better, since he does have really interesting things to say.
- sebstefan 4y agoFirefox has the "reader view" option toggleable with F9 for when you stumble upon unreadable designs, if you want
- jwilk 4y agoIt's F9 on Windows, command-option-r on macOS, and ctrl-alt-r elsewhere. https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-reader-view-clutter-free-web-pages https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/firefox-reader-view-clu...
- xnorswap 4y agoIf you don't have a reader view in your browser, just paste this into your global CSS: p { line-height: 1.7; max-width: 60em; font-size: 1.2em; margin-left: 5em; } It pretty much fixes the default readability which is essentially zero on this site otherwise.
- sebstefan 4y agoI don't like fucking with the default CSS, my alternative is this bookmark that injects Javascript in the page and temporarily fixes the formatting at one click of a button javascript:(function(){ var bod = document.getElementsByTagName("body")[0]; bod.style.margin = "40px auto"; bod.style.maxWidth = "40vw"; bod.style.lineHeight = "1.6"; bod.style.fontSize = "18px"; bod.style.color = "#444"; bod.style.padding = "0 10px"; })(); And for a dark mode: javascript:(function(){ var body = document.getElementsByTagName("body"); var html = document.getElementsByTagName("html"); var img = document.getElementsByTagName("img"); body[0].style.background = "#131313"; body[0].style.opacity = "1.0"; html[0].style.filter = "brightness(115%) contrast(95%) invert(1) hue-rotate(180deg)"; img[0].style.filter = "contrast(95%) invert(1)"; })();
- Sesse__ 4y agoDan Luu talks a bit about this here: https://twitter.com/danluu/status/1115707741102727168 https://twitter.com/danluu/status/1115707741102727168
- AlbertCory 4y agoyes, if you ignore a millennium's worth of publishing wisdom and think the world of text began anew in 1995, then maybe you can claim that "the science is not settled." He has every right to make his choice. As do we, in deciding whether to read it.
- RoddaWallPro 4y agoOne of the more hilarious takes I've seen. "There are no papers for this, and I choose to disregard the countless number of people who say it is much easier for them to read if the line lengths are constrained as they are in a book or scroll or every other form of human writing ever put on this earth, so I will not make my site easier to read. F you."
- whats_a_quasar 4y agoI really don't think that's what he's saying. You are assuming a great deal of malice, rather than positive intent. What he's saying is that there isn't hard evidence that shorter lines are more readable, so he made the style choice of longer lines. You're claiming that most people prefer shorter line widths, but again present no evidence that most people actually have that preference, other than vague references to "countless people". I actually think you're probably right, and if you had data Dan might update his stylesheet. But in the absence of evidence, you're just presenting your opinion as fact, and assuming malice.
- RoddaWallPro 4y agoYeah, that's probably true. He also at least allows people to set their own reading width by adjusting browser. My frustration stems from the fact that I find the argument "there are no papers with sufficient evidence" to be pedantic bullshit. Like yeah, sure, you aren't even wrong, but absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. I've never seen anyone claim to like 180 char lines, whereas I've seen hordes of people who say it is very difficult for them to read that line length, and prefer something book-sized (lengthed?).
- ryandrake 4y agoYuck! I hate it when sites monkey around with max-width. I've got a nice 27 inch monitor. I want to use all of it. It's refreshing to see a site that doesn't insist on second-guessing the width that I set my browser window.
- mixmastamyk 4y agoToo hard to read. See newspapers. Multiple windows are a thing.
- ryandrake 4y agoSo, leave the choice to the user. If I want to read text in a small column, I can easily resize my window. Don't try to force one way.
- mixmastamyk 4y agoNo one reads well with 200 characters per line. Been demonstrated that they read a lot slower. Even if line height has been increased to alleviate, which it probably hasn't. I'd recommend multiple columns before super-wide text blocks.
- atoav 4y agoSo you look like you watch a tennis game when you read text? Funny. On a more serious note: A maximum length for text makes sense ergonomically, which is why especially big prints like newspapers or magazines work with columns. Columns however haven't really cought on in the web, because they do not combine very well with the whole scrolling thing.
- albertop 4y ago[flagged]
- justin_oaks 4y agoProbably being downvoted because the HN guidelines explicitly say to not comment about such things: "Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- AlbertCory 4y agoAs a matter of fact, it's in positive territory right now. No, it's not a tangential annoyance. There are times when form IS function.
- AlbertCory 4y ago[flagged]
- mixmastamyk 4y agoTalk about killing a fly with a sledgehammer. Simply needs one or two lines of css, max-width and possibly font-size.
- AlbertCory 4y agoI had two words there: "organize" and "format." This addresses only the latter.
- mixmastamyk 4y agoThe piece has several headings. Don't believe a blog site is going to magically add more to organize it.
- 4y ago
- burnished 4y agoThis is one of the few sites I find immediately and highly readable (on mobile). Does it not wrap lines on larger displays?
- pasquinelli 4y agothat site is better than most, imho.
- dang 4y ago"Please don't complain about tangential annoyances—e.g. article or website formats, name collisions, or back-button breakage. They're too common to be interesting." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html