5 ms·

People talk about the 'good old days' of the web, but boy, in a multi-tab environment it stucks to try and read something that doesn't put any effort at all int

People talk about the 'good old days' of the web, but boy, in a multi-tab environment it stucks to try and read something that doesn't put any effort at all into side margins.

politelemon 2y ago
Reader mode (FF) helps a lot here.
hexo 2y ago
And yet, it is 1000 times more readable than any "modern" website.
- brettermeier 2y ago
  Hell no. Typograhy class Lesson 1, never put more than a certain number of words per column (in any case never the whole screen width, on desktops)...
  - Timwi 2y ago
    And yet, for some reason, most people want their tabs and toolbars on the top, and the taskbar on the bottom, taking away vertical space that is actually used, and leave swathes of space on the left and right completely unused. I will never understand the resistance against putting things on the side.
    - globular-toast 2y ago
      Probably because English is written left to right and doesn't work so well top to bottom. So vertical bits tend to not include text, which is quite limiting. I do remember older UIs that included text at 90 degrees on sidebars, but that seems to have gone completely out of fashion. The real problem is our screens are the wrong shape. 16:9 is a stupid aspect ratio for a computer monitor if you work mostly with text. Square is probably the best. Using floating windows (like classic Mac OSX) is an option, but for some reason people like full screen windows these days. A tiling window manager is another option to effectively divide the screen up into better shaped areas. I tend to have 6 columns across 2 screens which works well.
      - creata 2y ago
        > 16:9 is a stupid aspect ratio for a computer monitor if you work mostly with text. Why? I also usually use it with three columns of text, and it works well at that aspect ratio.
        globular-toast 2y ago
        Right, so you essentially use mini 16:27 screens which is a better aspect ratio than 16:9. What you really have to ask yourself is why 16:9 is a better choice than anything else. It wasn't picked because 3 16:27 columns is ideal for text. The main reason we have them is because it's easier for the screen manufacturers to have just one aspect ratio to deal with. With 16:9 we're forced to have three columns per screen, but what if I only need two? What if I want more lines of text per screen? Square seems like a much more obvious middle ground.
        creata 2y ago
        That makes sense, thanks. I've seen people give similar praise to 4:3 and 3:2 laptops.
        zahlman 2y ago
        >The main reason we have them is because it's easier for the screen manufacturers to have just one aspect ratio to deal with. Not just that, but it was an average of aspect ratios considered for the aesthetic of video data. Not text presentation.
      - Timwi 2y ago
        > Probably because English is written left to right and doesn't work so well top to bottom. My browser tabs are on the left side of the screen and they are all written left to right. There is ample space on the sides of websites to fit this and show the entire tab title. Meanwhile, other people have tabs along the top of the screen that all show one or two letters followed by “...”. My taskbar is on the right and consists entirely of icons. The only text on it is the date/time and that is also written normally and not rotated. This is the setup that I was saying I don't understand the resistance against — not 90° rotated text. When people say “vertical tabs”, they are not talking about rotating the text.
    - codingdave 2y ago
      > I will never understand the resistance against putting things on the side. It is a side effect of mobile devices -- Mobile-first design. When apps got popular, people decided that everything needed to be designed for mobile devices first, and adjusted for larger browsers screens later. So people started making everything tall and narrow. And said it was bad practice to do otherwise. Now people who learned UI design after those days often follow that idea. Personally, I am not a fan, but that is where it comes from.
      - Timwi 2y ago
        That explains the layout of websites and web apps, but not the desktop taskbar and the desktop browser’s tab bar.
nxpnsv 2y ago
the lack of large video ads really is jarring too
- baxtr 2y ago
  I was hyper confused that I didn’t need to hide ANY HTML element. Also, reader mode was not suppressed by some naughty trick. Unreal.
  - nxpnsv 2y ago
    And what is the deal with functional scrolling?
  - matusp 2y ago
    It also did not ask about my cookie policy, how am I supposed to tell the site my preferences? I just wrote them via email to make sure.
    - subscribed 2y ago
      It depends on the purpose of the cookies: https://www.blackboxdesign.co.uk/gdpr-do-i-need-a-cookie-warning-on-my-small-business-website/ https://www.blackboxdesign.co.uk/gdpr-do-i-need-a-cookie-war... for in-depth answer.
dgoldstein0 2y ago
Works great on mobile, fwiw
globular-toast 2y ago
What does multi-tab have to do with it? You are in control of your computer aren't you? Just make the window narrower.
- drivers99 2y ago
  Or set the zoom to around 240-300%
creata 2y ago
It's annoying for sure, but at least you can resize the window. Side note: Dan Luu claims[0][1] that there's no readability advantage to narrow line width. I haven't really looked into it, but in my experience it feels like he's very wrong. [0]: https://danluu.com/slow-device/ https://danluu.com/slow-device/ [Appendix: this site vs. sites that don't work on slow devices or slow connections] [1]: https://nitter.net/danluu/status/1115707741102727168 https://nitter.net/danluu/status/1115707741102727168
- orlp 2y ago
  I'd suggest you not take readability advice from a guy who uses a red-green color scheme for their tables.
- lelanthran 2y ago
  He makes that claim because he doesn't like the sources, not because the sources are wrong. Reading the wikipedia references show me that this is well studied and sourced. Academic sources for his argument either dont exist or are so rare even he can't find them. IOW, it's a post hoc rationalisation from him.
mdp2021 2y ago
Open the "developer's tools", find the '<body>', inject a 'margin' CSS - customize the page locally.
flysand7 2y ago
Folks, just for these kinds of websites I made an extension that trims the body of the text to 80 characters. I don't have a way to pay to get it on google's or firefox's extension marketplace, so you'd have to install it from source. https://github.com/flysand7/breader https://github.com/flysand7/breader
- deadbabe 2y ago
  Well I can see why you can’t afford to put it on a marketplace.
- schneehertz 2y ago
  Just a suggestion You can write this feature as a userscript and then publish it to greasyfork
ghusto 2y ago
We did have ways to create margins, you know :/ Aside from simple CSS, you could still do it with pure HTML.
bslanej 2y ago
Screens were much narrower then so constraining the width of text was not necessary.
danadam 2y ago
I have a bookmarklet, since forever, labelled "sane width", with the following code: javascript:(function(){var newSS, styles='body { width: 800px ! important; margin: auto !important } '; if(document.createStyleSheet) { document.createStyleSheet("javascript:'"+styles+"'"); } else { newSS=document.createElement('link'); newSS.rel='stylesheet'; newSS.href='data:text/css,'+escape(styles); document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(newSS); } })(); It forces the body width to 800px and centers it. Crude but it is enough for me.
TZubiri 2y ago
I haven't checked and I don't know how it would render. But it is worth noting that since this was designed against an earlier version of css, it might render differently in older browsers. For example, older monitors had less pixels, so it's likely that the wrapping was sensible in older monitor/browser configs. To say nothing of browser defaults being different, if this was pre-css, then the margins might have been baked into the default browser interpretation. In other words, pre-margin property, a webpage without margin didn't mean "this has no margin", in the sense that a modern webpage without margin specified would mean "DO NOT ADD MARGIN TO THIS!".

People talk about the 'good old days' of the web, but boy, in a multi-tab environment it stucks to try and read something that doesn't put any effort at all into side margins.

politelemon 2y ago

Reader mode (FF) helps a lot here.

hexo 2y ago

And yet, it is 1000 times more readable than any "modern" website.

brettermeier 2y ago
Hell no. Typograhy class Lesson 1, never put more than a certain number of words per column (in any case never the whole screen width, on desktops)...
- Timwi 2y ago
  And yet, for some reason, most people want their tabs and toolbars on the top, and the taskbar on the bottom, taking away vertical space that is actually used, and leave swathes of space on the left and right completely unused. I will never understand the resistance against putting things on the side.
  - globular-toast 2y ago
    Probably because English is written left to right and doesn't work so well top to bottom. So vertical bits tend to not include text, which is quite limiting. I do remember older UIs that included text at 90 degrees on sidebars, but that seems to have gone completely out of fashion. The real problem is our screens are the wrong shape. 16:9 is a stupid aspect ratio for a computer monitor if you work mostly with text. Square is probably the best. Using floating windows (like classic Mac OSX) is an option, but for some reason people like full screen windows these days. A tiling window manager is another option to effectively divide the screen up into better shaped areas. I tend to have 6 columns across 2 screens which works well.
    - creata 2y ago
      > 16:9 is a stupid aspect ratio for a computer monitor if you work mostly with text. Why? I also usually use it with three columns of text, and it works well at that aspect ratio.
      - globular-toast 2y ago
        Right, so you essentially use mini 16:27 screens which is a better aspect ratio than 16:9. What you really have to ask yourself is why 16:9 is a better choice than anything else. It wasn't picked because 3 16:27 columns is ideal for text. The main reason we have them is because it's easier for the screen manufacturers to have just one aspect ratio to deal with. With 16:9 we're forced to have three columns per screen, but what if I only need two? What if I want more lines of text per screen? Square seems like a much more obvious middle ground.
        creata 2y ago
        That makes sense, thanks. I've seen people give similar praise to 4:3 and 3:2 laptops.
        zahlman 2y ago
        >The main reason we have them is because it's easier for the screen manufacturers to have just one aspect ratio to deal with. Not just that, but it was an average of aspect ratios considered for the aesthetic of video data. Not text presentation.
    - Timwi 2y ago
      > Probably because English is written left to right and doesn't work so well top to bottom. My browser tabs are on the left side of the screen and they are all written left to right. There is ample space on the sides of websites to fit this and show the entire tab title. Meanwhile, other people have tabs along the top of the screen that all show one or two letters followed by “...”. My taskbar is on the right and consists entirely of icons. The only text on it is the date/time and that is also written normally and not rotated. This is the setup that I was saying I don't understand the resistance against — not 90° rotated text. When people say “vertical tabs”, they are not talking about rotating the text.
  - codingdave 2y ago
    > I will never understand the resistance against putting things on the side. It is a side effect of mobile devices -- Mobile-first design. When apps got popular, people decided that everything needed to be designed for mobile devices first, and adjusted for larger browsers screens later. So people started making everything tall and narrow. And said it was bad practice to do otherwise. Now people who learned UI design after those days often follow that idea. Personally, I am not a fan, but that is where it comes from.
    - Timwi 2y ago
      That explains the layout of websites and web apps, but not the desktop taskbar and the desktop browser’s tab bar.

nxpnsv 2y ago

the lack of large video ads really is jarring too

baxtr 2y ago
I was hyper confused that I didn’t need to hide ANY HTML element. Also, reader mode was not suppressed by some naughty trick. Unreal.
- nxpnsv 2y ago
  And what is the deal with functional scrolling?
- matusp 2y ago
  It also did not ask about my cookie policy, how am I supposed to tell the site my preferences? I just wrote them via email to make sure.
  - subscribed 2y ago
    It depends on the purpose of the cookies: https://www.blackboxdesign.co.uk/gdpr-do-i-need-a-cookie-warning-on-my-small-business-website/ https://www.blackboxdesign.co.uk/gdpr-do-i-need-a-cookie-war... for in-depth answer.

dgoldstein0 2y ago

Works great on mobile, fwiw

globular-toast 2y ago

What does multi-tab have to do with it? You are in control of your computer aren't you? Just make the window narrower.

drivers99 2y ago
Or set the zoom to around 240-300%

creata 2y ago

It's annoying for sure, but at least you can resize the window. Side note: Dan Luu claims[0][1] that there's no readability advantage to narrow line width. I haven't really looked into it, but in my experience it feels like he's very wrong. [0]: https://danluu.com/slow-device/ https://danluu.com/slow-device/ [Appendix: this site vs. sites that don't work on slow devices or slow connections] [1]: https://nitter.net/danluu/status/1115707741102727168 https://nitter.net/danluu/status/1115707741102727168

orlp 2y ago
I'd suggest you not take readability advice from a guy who uses a red-green color scheme for their tables.
lelanthran 2y ago
He makes that claim because he doesn't like the sources, not because the sources are wrong. Reading the wikipedia references show me that this is well studied and sourced. Academic sources for his argument either dont exist or are so rare even he can't find them. IOW, it's a post hoc rationalisation from him.

mdp2021 2y ago

Open the "developer's tools", find the '<body>', inject a 'margin' CSS - customize the page locally.

flysand7 2y ago

Folks, just for these kinds of websites I made an extension that trims the body of the text to 80 characters. I don't have a way to pay to get it on google's or firefox's extension marketplace, so you'd have to install it from source. https://github.com/flysand7/breader https://github.com/flysand7/breader

deadbabe 2y ago
Well I can see why you can’t afford to put it on a marketplace.
schneehertz 2y ago
Just a suggestion You can write this feature as a userscript and then publish it to greasyfork

ghusto 2y ago

We did have ways to create margins, you know :/ Aside from simple CSS, you could still do it with pure HTML.

bslanej 2y ago

Screens were much narrower then so constraining the width of text was not necessary.

danadam 2y ago

I have a bookmarklet, since forever, labelled "sane width", with the following code: javascript:(function(){var newSS, styles='body { width: 800px ! important; margin: auto !important } '; if(document.createStyleSheet) { document.createStyleSheet("javascript:'"+styles+"'"); } else { newSS=document.createElement('link'); newSS.rel='stylesheet'; newSS.href='data:text/css,'+escape(styles); document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(newSS); } })(); It forces the body width to 800px and centers it. Crude but it is enough for me.

TZubiri 2y ago

I haven't checked and I don't know how it would render. But it is worth noting that since this was designed against an earlier version of css, it might render differently in older browsers. For example, older monitors had less pixels, so it's likely that the wrapping was sensible in older monitor/browser configs. To say nothing of browser defaults being different, if this was pre-css, then the margins might have been baked into the default browser interpretation. In other words, pre-margin property, a webpage without margin didn't mean "this has no margin", in the sense that a modern webpage without margin specified would mean "DO NOT ADD MARGIN TO THIS!".