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by teddyh 4588 days ago
Well, maybe they shouldn’t do that, then. If they don’t want a web site that wide, they shouldn’t make the web browser window that wide.

(Oh, I forgot that the web browser is not an application, but a platform and an OS in its own right, and has replaced the native OS. Silly me.)
1 comments
vinceguidry 4588 days ago
One day you nerds will realize that technology serves people, not the other way around. I can't wait for that day.
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maxerickson 4588 days ago
Are you talking about the web browser or the web page here? Or maybe the OS/DE that makes it awkward to split the screen/size the window to reading width?

Or the laptop, with it's silly form factor?

But sure, everyone that publishes some text better make sure they account for every context that it might get viewed in.

In the spirit of offering solutions, here's some code you can use to add a 'Narrow' button to your browser:

https://gist.github.com/maxerickson/7771860

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vinceguidry 4588 days ago
I'm talking about a simple container div. Works everywhere.
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maxerickson 4588 days ago
Yes, I understood you.

I thought it was bizarre that you thought having every author of a webpage put some noise in their code was the right place to fix your technology stack.

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vinceguidry 4588 days ago
It's not noise, it's presentation markup. That's what HTML/CSS is for. To manage the presentation of information. It's not that hard. Learn a little responsive CSS and have the div go away if the browser's width drops below, say, 600px.

Visual presentation is a hard problem, has been ever since the tele-type days. You're always going to need some "noise". I'm not saying you have to go full-hog with design bling, but you should at least learn enough about responsive CSS so that your site is usable across the three main types of screen it will be displayed on.

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bct 4587 days ago
You don't need responsive CSS, all you need is max-width.

The (technically) ideal place to solve this is in your browser's user stylesheets (then you can have the page look however you like!), but that's a bad solution right now for obvious reasons (how many people even know that they exist?).

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maxerickson 4587 days ago
I would still argue that making the browser aware of the screen it is using (or perhaps, aware of the screen real estate it currently occupies and the text size preference of the user) is a better solution than adding a div to every serious web page.

Also, I'm pretty sure that (at least for simple pages) styling the body element will work just as well.

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