[anoved]

Thanks! When I first set out to make it, I thought JavaScript would be involved - but turns out a new stylesheet was sufficient. There's JS on the page to replicate the bookmarklet maker, of course, but swapping the stylesheet URL in an existing Readability bookmarklet amounts to the same thing.

It is interesting to see the initial reaction (aversion) here and elsewhere to horizontal scrolling. I guess I concur that it is annoying in most contexts, but hadn't noticed it here. Maybe it's a difference between browsing/skimming behavior and prolonged reading?

[petercooper]

There's JS on the page to replicate the bookmarklet maker, of course, but swapping the stylesheet URL in an existing Readability bookmarklet amounts to the same thing.

That's interesting. I'd actually like to tweak the stylesheet too. Seems easy enough now you say it, but a post about doing that might fly well. (I'd quite like to hack Safari Reader to get rid of that full justification too, but I need to Google on how to crack into that..)

I guess I concur that it is annoying in most contexts, but hadn't noticed it here. Maybe it's a difference between browsing/skimming behavior and prolonged reading?

It doesn't seem to be so detested on devices like the iPad and iPhone. Page turning is a form of horizontal scrolling, after all. I haven't yet tried your system on the iPad but I think it might cut it for me.

I suspect the aversion to horizontal scrolling on the desktop is based on history and, then, habit. As you may remember, scrollwheels used to only go up/down so horizontal scrolling was cumbersome. You could also scroll by vertical page by pressing space or PgDn in most apps. Similar shortcuts for horizontal scrolling are/were rare and inconsistent. Vertical scrolling was so easy that, by comparison, horizontal scrolling was annoying and difficult.

[anoved]

I'd like to learn more about Safari Reader, too - especially the paginated-article collation feature, which is a real advantage over Readability.

Anyway, as for tweaking the stylesheets - here are some links to compare.

Here is the original Readability stylesheet: http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/css/readability...

And here is my version (featuring an inexpert mix of px, em, and % units that surely could be improved): http://anoved.net/css/mcreadability.css

To try your own modifications, edit a Readability bookmarklet and set _readability_css.href to the URL for your stylesheet.

[anoved]

FYI, minor change to the stylesheet (pre {overflow:auto;}) to improve readability of preformatted text: http://anoved.net/2010/06/mcreadability-and-preformatted-tex...

[petercooper]

Looks like this is what we need:

http://www.macosxhints.com/article.php?story=201006081343593...