[shdon]

Because it would make scrolling more frequent? For multicolumn text to reduce scrolling, the column height would have to match the available viewport height. And if your text exceeds what can fit in multiple columns on a single screenful, scrolling also becomes awkward, because you'd have to scroll exactly to the next screenful to have any consistency. Multiple text columns only make sense on extremely restricted layouts, or where the volume are entirely independent instead of a single flowing piece of text, or where there is still a direct horizontal relationship (like annotations or translations beside the main text).

[wtallis]

> And if your text exceeds what can fit in multiple columns on a single screenful, scrolling also becomes awkward, because you'd have to scroll exactly to the next screenful to have any consistency.

That used to be a solved problem, before every website started to include multiple oversized "dickbars" floating over the real content and taking up 15+% of the available vertical space. Pressing the "Page Down" button on a keyboard would scroll down by exactly one screenfull. We also used to have scrollbars that on most operating systems would let you scroll down by exactly one screenfull with a single click.

[andai]

>you'd have to scroll exactly to the next screenful to have any consistency.

Or to the right. (That might be even worse though, I don't know.)

[zelphirkalt]

Interesting idea. Maybe we could have a standard action of moving one column further.

[geokon]

oh good question

i have never hit this issue bc you need a massive amount of text to fill the whole screen. I have some natural breaks and subheaders. Each section is wrapped in its own columns