Why the ridiculously wide post format?

I am amused because I finally, finally, finally, get the ability to have super-wide posts.   I have been screaming, begging, pleading for them since about 2004.

agreed Walt, there's a long thread I started in the bugs area about this.

My suggestion is that it CAN be super wide for people who want it, but it should allow the window to be shrunk to make it more readable.  Also as bumpfreaq pointed out, if you make the font larger to be more readable for us older folks,then even a wide window is a problem.

And why is that "Wide screen posts" thread now locked? I wanted to add my $.02...

> The issue isn't full width.  It's that you can't go narrow without losing the text.

Actually for me it's both. I want the text box to auto-format and not scroll no matter how narrow it is/I make the window, but I don't want the posts to go out to the width of a wide window. Like some others I find that uncomfortable to read. I prefer the narrower width typically encountered (now) at the tops of pages.

Is there a conspiracy here that somehow ties in with ski width?? Hmm...  ;-)

good theory. Epicski is going downhill fast. Crappy post editor and and wide screen crap. Drives me nuts. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by jc-ski 

And why is that "Wide screen posts" thread now locked? I wanted to add my $.02...

 

Wow, that's crazy.  

I quoted that first bit because it's just too funny.

I quoted the second bit for truth.  This wide text field really bites, afaic.

Quote:

Originally Posted by comprex 

I am amused because I finally, finally, finally, get the ability to have super-wide posts.   I have been screaming, begging, pleading for them since about 2004.

Guess it's sorta like asking "Please, Sir, may I have a glass of water...?"  - and getting a five gallon bucket of water dumped over your head for asking... 

.ma

I locked the earlier thread because your wishes have been registered and are being represented. I am asking for the column width to be a user preference option, but I think it's interesting that comprex likes the wider posts. Before we started taking ads, the posts were wider, and when we started taking ads there was an uproar over the narrower columns. So I really don't think we'll keep everyone happy all of the time until it's a user preference option. 

nolo i don't think it has to be a user option.  Notice that if you make a window smaller the text follows, but only down to a certain width, then it stops automatically resizing the text area.

All they have to do is to change the "low limit" in width so that you can make the window as narrow as the first few posts in a thread and the text will follow.  This gives everyone what they want - wide, narrow - without the complexities of a setting in the User Control Panel.

I'm am quite pleased with the wide post format, and I'm surprised, and somewhat amused by people complaining about the format being returned to where it was before all the ads started taking over.

Narrow screens are easier for those who lack the concentration to read for more than five seconds without taking a break. If one reads one word at a time, and is focusing on each word in turn, then it makes no difference how wide the line is. I expect the inability to read a longer string of words is also related to poor reading comprehension, as the attention lifts away from the page after only a second or two, before complex thoughts can be presented. The lack of continuity of attention fragments meaning, impeding comprehension.

Newspapers utilize narrow columns for the same reason they utilize narrow vocabularies, it makes them accessible to a wider range of people by limiting the potential for conveying knowledge and understanding.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Walt 

Hmm.  Focus on one word at a time.  Does it help if you move your lips too? Maybe that's what I'm doing wrong

Obviously you have some sort of attentive deficiency if reading a line of text is difficult for you. Perhaps you should stick to watching TV, then you can get your information in one second bursts, and not tax your capacity so horribly.

http://www.bastoky.com/Readability.htm

excerpt:

http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/06/19/web-typography-column-widths/

This one is excellent as it shows examples.

SMJ , the paragraph you quote is 5.25" or  31 picas on my screen; it is already therefore bloated beyond easy readability by its own criteria.

We might alternatively wonder if computer monitors have made  the range of "normal reading distances"  considerably broader than considered by that study?

Read the second link comprex, it's very good.

Quote:

Quote:

Originally Posted by SkiMangoJazz 

Read the second link comprex, it's very good.

I got as far as this part:

Sounds very much like what I was saying.

Heh, this thread reminds me of a skinny ski vs fat ski argument.

I did, SMJ.       

Know what it reminded me of, more than anything else?    The publishing format for US patents.    Go over to the USPTO website  and click on the link to show images to see what I mean.   Frex: http://patimg1.uspto.gov/.piw?Docid=4000000&idkey=NONE

  I think you'll find that that layout is almost exactly what is shown as good in your second link.    And, it -was- good for when I was reading paper copies at half-arm length.

Nowadays my workstation screen size and reading distance is set to read the equivalent of 3 patents across (i.e. 6 full columns) with eye movement only.   And so I enjoy the wider posts.

Volantaddict, I applaud your taste for very wide lines.  That taste is not shared by everyone, especially notebook users like me.  I regret to learn that you cannot read short lines with good comprehension.  I use a 12-inch tablet exclusively, and certainly don't travel with a desktop computer.  For most computer users today, that is users of notebook computers, the usable screen width is 10-15 inches.  On such systems, most people find pages with more than 150 or so characters unpleasant to read.  The operative phrase here is "WORD WRAP."  It's one of those silly things that computers do.  To see how it works, look at this skiing site:

http://www.adaptivesportsforums.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?5-Winter-Sports

Use the Ctrl+ and Ctrl- keys and watch the text magically change size, see the different text sizes maintain sentence structure!  Even that website has a minimum line width, which is bad for anyone with a vision impairment.  Still, its minimum character/line number is a fraction that of this site.  For the majority of people who dislike squinting when they read, I ask why Epicski doesn't enable "WORD WRAP" for its readers?  You achieve it with something called "CODE."  It is breathtakingly simple to allow VA to read posts 400 characters wide, while allowing others to read the exact same text at the width of their choosing.  The current policy is called "IDIOCY."

To the moderators, sorry for the hard language.  But the answer to this problem is easy.  "Just Do It."

I've been using that .css file for a while now and love it, makes epic what it should be.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Walt 

 

Did you see this thread?:

 

http://www.epicski.com/forum/thread/96742/ridiculously-wide-posts-client-side-solution

 

It allow you to override the dumb server-side column-width settings and set the column width yourself.  I think it's the best we can do at this point pending a server-side solution.

Thanks Walt, works beautifully!  Actually I had seen It, but thought Barking Bear would have sense to let its users define line widths, plus it took a half-hour to find the directory in Vista.  Why Firefox, IE, and other browsers don't place this as a simple menu option is beyond me.  Maybe some do...

Much appreciated!
 

Folks, I have asked again and the answer continues to be: 1024 pixel width is fully supported on the Huddler platform. Widths less than 1024 will require scrolling to read the text, or the fix suggested by Walt: http://www.epicski.com/forum/thread/96742/ridiculously-wide-posts-client-side-solution

OK.  The answer is: 1024 pixel width is fully supported by the Huddler platform.  Does that mean that ONLY 1024 pixel width can be used?

Why can't our tech experts find a method to shrink the window so I don't have to scroll?

The fix posted by Walt is almost there.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nolo 

Folks, I have asked again and the answer continues to be: 1024 pixel width is fully supported on the Huddler platform. Widths less than 1024 will require scrolling to read the text, or the fix suggested by Walt: http://www.epicski.com/forum/thread/96742/ridiculously-wide-posts-client-side-solution

Tell them you need a better answer.

You will have a better experience if you size your window to 1024 pixels and greater. I understand what you're saying Telerod. I ran up against the statistic that only 6% of our users use low resolution monitors. I am reminded of the "classic skin" we insisted on having, which only a tiny percentage of people ended up using. If more people start using low resolution monitors, presumably the answer will change. 

It isn't that we should use lower resolution monitors to sway huddler, rather that we should be able to utilize the real estate on our monitor in a way that is useful for us. The solution that was provided by Walt (thank you very much for an elegant one at that) works well and could simply be a switch in our profile. Just like ads or no ads.

None of this changes the fact 1024 pixel wide text is difficult to read. It is simply too wide to read without skipping lines or loosing track of location in a line. Books are narrow relative to their height to make reading easier. Only picture books and childrens books are landscape format.

I'm sorry I was unsuccessful in pleading your case. As smaller devices like the iPad gain acceptance, this may change. Interestingly, the iPad has a screen resolution of 768x1024 (sideways).