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Unfortunately, the full-width text harms readability far more than removing the advertising and navigational clutter. My browser window is typically sized to a
by spatulon 18y ago
Unfortunately, the full-width text harms readability far more than removing the advertising and navigational clutter.
My browser window is typically sized to a width of around 1200 pixels -- pretty typical I would think -- so the printer-formatted version results in lines of around 30 words. That's too long to be able to read comfortably, and I think it's unreasonable to expect me to resize my browser depending on the type of website I'm reading (I have it as wide as 1200 pixels for a reason).
The standard, screen-formatted version (http://nymag.com/news/business/55687/ http://nymag.com/news/business/55687/) is specifically designed at a fixed width for comfortable reading.
I agree in principle that there are a lot of distractions on the screen-formatted article, but linking to the printer-formatted version does not seem like the right approach. Perhaps the best current solution is that readability Greasemonkey script that appeared a few weeks ago.
- DLWormwood 18y agoI solved that problem by putting a JavaScript bookmarklet in my browser that narrows page text. I found this online, but I forgot where; hopefully HN doesn't mangle the following text... (you'll need to remove linebreaks to get it to work) javascript:(function(){var%20newSS,%20styles='body%20{%20margin-left: auto;%20margin-right:auto;%20max-width:45em;}';if(document.createStyleSheet )%20{document.createStyleSheet(%22javascript:'%22+styles+%22'%22);%20}%20 else%20{%20newSS=document.createElement('link');%20newSS.rel='stylesheet';%20 newSS.href='data:text/css,'+escape(styles);%20document.getElementsByTagName (%22head%22)[0].appendChild(newSS);%20}%20})();
- justinweiss 18y agoI've started to use the bookmarklet at http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/ for most long articles -- it boosts the font size, increases the margins, and cuts out the background and sidebars. Unfortunately, it didn't seem to work for this particular article.
- DLWormwood 18y agoGreat find! Much easier to work with. (But it did work on my system on that article; maybe it was just your specific browser config...)
- raintrees 18y agoUnfortunately for me, that bookmark and its code requires me telling NoScript that I trust each website - Not something I care to do, at this point. But I agree that it works quite nicely on sites I "trust."