Screen width, philosophy, rant

[tggzzz]

I remember the good old days when HTML defined the content of a page, and my browser defined how to display it on my screen. The modern fashion, and I use that word advisedly, is that some scrotty little nappy wearer defines they know I how I want to view content.

Now I have a nice wide screen, and I like using it. How do get the content, particularly images, to occupy the screen width?

Not like this:

S.jpg

[bd139]

It gets worse...

[bitseeker]

That's defined by the forum theme (the default one, Prosilver, is what's currently running). So, I'll be able to rectify this with our own theme.

[tautech]

Now I have a nice wide screen, and I like using it. How do get the content, particularly images, to occupy the screen width?

Must be a browser related problem as right from the getgo no problems here.
Just checked the Chrome I use and scaling was as simple as anything else using Ctrl and mouse scrollwheel.

[bitseeker]

Scaling the page by using the zoom feature of the browser makes the contents larger. Although that does use more of the screen, it doesn't provide any more information on the larger screen than a smaller screen does. A responsive design, rather than a fixed-size one, enables the existing content to use more of the available screen real estate (i.e., you can see more posts on the screen at once).

You can temporarily try this on the forum by using the browser's debug or developer mode, if available. The main column in which posts appear is in a div that is styled with the wrap class:

Code: Select all

.wrap {
  border: 1px solid transparent;
    border-top-color: transparent;
    border-right-color: transparent;
    border-bottom-color: transparent;
    border-left-color: transparent;
  border-radius: 8px;
  margin: 0 auto;
  max-width: 1152px;
  min-width: 625px;
  padding: 15px;
}

Disable the max-width selector and the main part of the page will use the full width of the browser viewport. Hence, if the browser is maximized, the contents of the page will use the full width of the screen that the browser makes available to it.

So, it's easy to rectify via our own theme.

[Cerebus]

Must be a browser related problem as right from the getgo no problems here.
Just checked the Chrome I use and scaling was as simple as anything else using Ctrl and mouse scrollwheel.

Scaling ≠ Layout.

[bitseeker]

+1 for the "≠" character.

[tggzzz]

+1 for the "≠" character.

So effin small on my display that it looks like a z or possibly a rotated alef א

Looks better if I scale it, but that's antithetical to the subject of the thread

[bd139]

To note on layout, due to the aspect ratio of screens these days it is generally more visually appealing and typographically correct if you set a max-width on the content container. It's not actually that much fun digging through large quantities of 12pt text which is printed A3 landscape as a comparison. Obviously some license with respect to image placement and flooding is required.

The real problem is the phpBB theme is a very 00's design without taking on any of the good bits of the 10's or 20s such as some of the more dynamic fluid layouts and image scaling.

As a mac user, ≠ is very easy to type here.

At least phpBB supports some bastardised unicode variant!

[Cerebus]

The real problem is the phpBB theme is a very 00's design without taking on any of the good bits of the 10's or 20s such as some of the more dynamic fluid layouts and image scaling.

A 00's design I'm not so keen on, a naughty design on the other hand...

Cerebus and Astoria inflegrante.jpg

As a mac user, ≠ is very easy to type here.

As is the, highly useful in the context of electronics, "±". e.g. 22kΩ±5%

[tggzzz]

To note on layout, due to the aspect ratio of screens these days it is generally more visually appealing and typographically correct if you set a max-width on the content container.

That's for me to decide, not some effin PFY with Dunning-Kruger syndrome.

Canonical example: the RS site. Each displayed item has a large number of parameters I will use to select the subset that interest me. So what do the PFY cretins do: put the displayed items inside a horizontally scrolled box - and limit the box width to half my browser width. Result: more horizontal scrolling than is necessary.

EDIT: I've just gone to try to make a screenshot, and they've made the website even more unusable! Now each item's characteristics occupy the entire and predefined screen width. All parameters are compressed into single box, written vertically. It is now impossible to scan vertically to see the differences between items.

Do they think that people use their smart phones to select components and order?

[bd139]

To note on layout, due to the aspect ratio of screens these days it is generally more visually appealing and typographically correct if you set a max-width on the content container.

That's for me to decide, not some effin PFY with Dunning-Kruger syndrome.

Canonical example: the RS site. Each displayed item has a large number of parameters I will use to select the subset that interest me. So what do the PFY cretins do: put the displayed items inside a horizontally scrolled box - and limit the box width to half my browser width. Result: more horizontal scrolling than is necessary.

EDIT: I've just gone to try to make a screenshot, and they've made the website even more unusable! Now each item's characteristics occupy the entire and predefined screen width. All parameters are compressed into single box, written vertically. It is now impossible to scan vertically to see the differences between items.

Do they think that people use their smart phones to select components and order?

Actually it's not for you to decide really other than by walking away from things that offend you or overriding whatever garbage they send you. Tis the nature of the web.

Lets be clear though, there is a clear distinction between the problems with pure content delivery based web sites and web applications. You're complaining profusely about the latter which I completely agree with and will get onto in a minute. From a pure layout and typography perspective you're usually at the mercy of someone who is following one of the many design fads out there.

What I consider the canonical example of reasonable typesetting is Ham Radio Magazine (late 1960s, early 1970s):



This is a lost art which surely should be applicable to the web. Obviously as you can see that doesn't allow you to define the shape of the page at all otherwise you'd lose a lot of the contextual continuity. And that's exactly what people are doing when they fix the max-width or use a carefully designed responsive layout.

But quite frankly there are two problems we have with this whole web business which are the elephants in the room:

Firstly, it's a shitty platform on which to deploy applications. It really is garbage. The whole damn thing is held together with sticky tape, string and poo all slapped on to roughly form a technological demagogue for society to worship. This is propelled along mostly by 3-4 companies with dubious motivation who bought up everyone involved in it and supported by hoards of people defending the income stream it created through shovelling excrement and persuading people they like it. It should at the very highest level have been used to deliver content and nothing more. The moment someone added forms and CGI and Javascript and XHR it went down the toilet rapidly. Several years on, RS pops up with that steamer and here we are. Oh and don't get me started on people leveraging the stack to communicate data through it; that's a completely different and even larger rant. I'll leave it at this glorious bit of simplified JSON returned from an HTTP GET I encountered recently...

Code: Select all

{ f: "71023.01" }

Secondly, the art of publishing really still only works for static layouts and those are best read as such. What was intended versus what appears should be the same. Print out a nice LaTeX generated PDF and the print out a web site with the same content and you'll get what I mean.

Really where we should be (IMHO) and it's fundamentally a world without web browsers:

1. Applications for communications and commerce. IRC, Mail clients, Usenet clients, store applications.
3. Content location, indexing and file delivery service. Think Gopher + directory rather than search but something a little more up to date.
4. Actual tangible content delivered via single PDFs.

Note that the thought of content delivered by PDFs probably gives Windows users a headache but on other platforms it's usually a first class built in feature and it's as smooth as butter.

[tggzzz]

To note on layout, due to the aspect ratio of screens these days it is generally more visually appealing and typographically correct if you set a max-width on the content container.

That's for me to decide, not some effin PFY with Dunning-Kruger syndrome.

Canonical example: the RS site. Each displayed item has a large number of parameters I will use to select the subset that interest me. So what do the PFY cretins do: put the displayed items inside a horizontally scrolled box - and limit the box width to half my browser width. Result: more horizontal scrolling than is necessary.

EDIT: I've just gone to try to make a screenshot, and they've made the website even more unusable! Now each item's characteristics occupy the entire and predefined screen width. All parameters are compressed into single box, written vertically. It is now impossible to scan vertically to see the differences between items.

Do they think that people use their smart phones to select components and order?

Actually it's not for you to decide

The intent is that HTML contains the content, and my display device defines how the content is viewed. My browser+screen will display it in a different way to your browser+screen or a browser with a tiny horizontal screen (+phone) or browser with a tiny vertical screen (+phone).

really other than by walking away from things that offend you or overriding whatever garbage they send you. Tis the nature of the web.

And that is what I will do; my life is too short to be spend time running into the 7+-2 limitations of my brain!

Lets be clear though, there is a clear distinction between the problems with pure content delivery based web sites and web applications. You're complaining profusely about the latter which I completely agree with and will get onto in a minute. From a pure layout and typography perspective you're usually at the mercy of someone who is following one of the many design fads out there.

What I consider the canonical example of reasonable typesetting is Ham Radio Magazine (late 1960s, early 1970s):
...
This is a lost art which surely should be applicable to the web. Obviously as you can see that doesn't allow you to define the shape of the page at all otherwise you'd lose a lot of the contextual continuity.

You're missing the key points:

• screens and paper are fundamentally different
• *paper format is the same for all viewers

And that's exactly what people are doing when they fix the max-width or use a carefully designed responsive layout.

Firstly they introduce unnecessary problems, and secondly it isn't carefully designed for technician/engineers (Arguably it is for graphic designers wanting to win an award or get praised by other non-technician/engineers)

But quite frankly there are two problems we have with this whole web business which are the elephants in the room:

Firstly, it's a shitty platform on which to deploy applications. It really is garbage.

Generic applications yes, but this is a catalogue with a basket attached. I (+4 others) won an FT award in 1999 for getting that right! Rocket science then, not now.

The whole damn thing is held together with sticky tape, string and poo all slapped on to roughly form a technological demagogue for society to worship. This is propelled along mostly by 3-4 companies with dubious motivation who bought up everyone involved in it and supported by hoards of people defending the income stream it created through shovelling excrement and persuading people they like it. It should at the very highest level have been used to deliver content and nothing more. The moment someone added forms and CGI and Javascript and XHR it went down the toilet rapidly. Several years on, RS pops up with that steamer and here we are. Oh and don't get me started on people leveraging the stack to communicate data through it; that's a completely different and even larger rant. I'll leave it at this glorious bit of simplified JSON returned from an HTTP GET I encountered recently...

Code: Select all

{ f: "71023.01" }

Even in 1999 it was obvious that RPC over HTTP (i.e. SOAP) was a crap concept, and that REST was the way to go.

The worst I heard of was someone who found their nail. The task was to get an occasional blob of structured text from applications on one UNIX box to another, all of which was owned and operated by the same individuals. The solution was for the data source to plonk the text in an SQL database, and the data receiver polled the database to see if the table had grown.

More generally, try to have a chat with the average resource to see if they know what's between the code they emit and electrons. Get them to count the number of alternating sync-async protocols on their way down.

Secondly, the art of publishing really still only works for static layouts and those are best read as such. What was intended versus what appears should be the same. Print out a nice LaTeX generated PDF and the print out a web site with the same content and you'll get what I mean.

Really where we should be (IMHO) and it's fundamentally a world without web browsers:

1. Applications for communications and commerce. IRC, Mail clients, Usenet clients, store applications.
3. Content location, indexing and file delivery service. Think Gopher + directory rather than search but something a little more up to date.
4. Actual tangible content delivered via single PDFs.

Note that the thought of content delivered by PDFs probably gives Windows users a headache but on other platforms it's usually a first class built in feature and it's as smooth as butter.

I've recently tried an Amazon Kindle, where the Amazon store contains a few PDF readers. One costs £6. The others want to receive messages from Google/Amazon/whoever, edit the pdf, know the OS has finished booting, prevent the screen dimming, prevent the xomputer sleeping, access the camera, access the vibrator(!), record audio, access GPS location, get information about currently running tasks and screenshot them. WTF!

Summary of the above: it is nappy-wearing PFY graphic designers, all the way down.

[bd139]

I'll reply to the rest later when I get a minute but the Kindle itself is no good for PDFs. No eBook readers are. They are entirely suitable for sucking up disposable content (paperbacks) and moving on and not a lot else.

Getting something that actually works and is fit for purpose costs a lot more money.



Incidentally the Files app is on the left, comes with iOS and can render PDFs perfectly, including forms, markup (which can be done by writing on the PDFs), full text search (even in scans!), fully offline reading. The right hand side is Free42. Neither apps cost a penny. The platform did cost a pretty one though. But it has a ROI far greater than that cost for me.

[tggzzz]

I'll reply to the rest later when I get a minute but the Kindle itself is no good for PDFs. No eBook readers are. They are entirely suitable for sucking up disposable content (paperbacks) and moving on and not a lot else.

Getting something that actually works and is fit for purpose costs a lot more money.

Apologies; I meant a Kindle Fire - i.e. an emasculated Android fondleslab.

My recently departed Tesco Hudl was perfectly satisfactory for reading TAoE and much more.

Incidentally the Files app is on the left, comes with iOS and can render PDFs perfectly, including forms, markup (which can be done by writing on the PDFs), full text search (even in scans!), fully offline reading. The right hand side is Free42. Neither apps cost a penny. The platform did cost a pretty one though. But it has a ROI far greater than that cost for me.

I used to have Free42 on my Hudl, but tended to use the HP15 clone since I normally have the screen horizontal.

[bd139]

Android is a minefield of garbage, the epitome of an open market. When you've stopped stepping on poop, you might find something acceptable, eventually.

[bitseeker]

+1 for Free42!

[tggzzz]

Android is a minefield of garbage, the epitome of an open market. When you've stopped stepping on poop, you might find something acceptable, eventually.

More a case of " When you've stopped stepping around poop, there might be something acceptable".

Observation plus good taste are required, there as elsewhere.