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Even longer ago, with fixed width fonts and fixed size screens things were even better. On C64 the keyboard had --- ||| characters to draw line with corner char

by 6510 4y ago

Even longer ago, with fixed width fonts and fixed size screens things were even better. On C64 the keyboard had --- ||| characters to draw line with corner characters T splits and + . The empty space was filled with space characters so you could just move around your cursor. Someone with no previous experience could draw boxes and make cool looking menus. Could stick a few sprites on it with absolute positioning. Supporting all kinds of screen sizes is a dumb idea but we are stuck with it. If you also want to support different languages the screen is mostly empty with logograms and the languageswithgiantwords stick out of the boxes. We are pretty lucky English is a reasonable middle ground.

DaiPlusPlus 4y ago
> Supporting all kinds of screen sizes is a dumb idea No, it isn't a dumb idea. > If you also want to support different languages the screen is mostly empty with logograms and the languageswithgiantwords stick out of the boxes. ...what you're describing only happens if a page/screen/layout is designed without reflow in-mind. Otherwise it will look fine and natural. Every layout system that supports text reflow will support forced hyphenation for dealing with zeverylongcompoundwords in German and other languages.
- 6510 4y ago
  If you make a painting it is suppose to be viewed at a specific size. If you specifically create it to work at different sizes (like a logo) you suffer enormous constraints. I took a picture one time of a boat on the horizon under a beautiful sky with a few distant seagulls that, while small, were absolutely necessary for the composition. It looked stunning full screen, one could almost smell the ocean. When slightly scaled down the clouds turned uninteresting, the boat lost all detail, the waves and the gulls just vanished. One could certainly argue that there is no need for such things and that an interface can be (or should be?) equally usable on any kind of screen. To me it stops being art at that point. It reminds me of The Night watch, they "reflow" the painting by cutting parts of. People thought one can just do that. Or perhaps they showed it's not a problem, I dunno. It's not for me.

by 6510 4y ago

DaiPlusPlus 4y ago

> Supporting all kinds of screen sizes is a dumb idea No, it isn't a dumb idea. > If you also want to support different languages the screen is mostly empty with logograms and the languageswithgiantwords stick out of the boxes. ...what you're describing only happens if a page/screen/layout is designed without reflow in-mind. Otherwise it will look fine and natural. Every layout system that supports text reflow will support forced hyphenation for dealing with zeverylongcompoundwords in German and other languages.

6510 4y ago
If you make a painting it is suppose to be viewed at a specific size. If you specifically create it to work at different sizes (like a logo) you suffer enormous constraints. I took a picture one time of a boat on the horizon under a beautiful sky with a few distant seagulls that, while small, were absolutely necessary for the composition. It looked stunning full screen, one could almost smell the ocean. When slightly scaled down the clouds turned uninteresting, the boat lost all detail, the waves and the gulls just vanished. One could certainly argue that there is no need for such things and that an interface can be (or should be?) equally usable on any kind of screen. To me it stops being art at that point. It reminds me of The Night watch, they "reflow" the painting by cutting parts of. People thought one can just do that. Or perhaps they showed it's not a problem, I dunno. It's not for me.