width of the topics

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iconoclastica
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width of the topics

Post by iconoclastica »

I notice on this forum that sometimes the text is wrapped to a readable length, and sometimes it is not. For example, the topic on automated stack & stitch, popular now, I need to scale down (zoom out) to 30% in landscape mode. Normally I would be on 120-130%, for even reading 100% is straining my eyes. Reading in portrait mode is not possible. Is any of you reading this forum from a smartphone and does that work well?

I wonder what causes the difference in line length between the topics. Images seem the prime suspect, but given that they are rescaled to some 1000px, I wonder if that is true.

I have set up a number of websites with mediawiki software. By default this utilizes the entire screen width to wrap the text. This is ergonomically not the best choice, to say the least. But adding a 55em line width to the associated css nicely limits the printed block width. Wouldn't such an adaptation be posible here?
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rjlittlefield
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Re: width of the topics

Post by rjlittlefield »

iconoclastica wrote:Images seem the prime suspect, but given that they are rescaled to some 1000px, I wonder if that is true.
Oversize images are one source of the problem. Images that are displayed from an external server are not rescaled.

Another source of the problem is overlong URL's. On quick scan, that's what seems to be messing up the automated stack & stitch thread.

--Rik

iconoclastica
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Joined: Sat Jun 25, 2016 12:34 pm
Location: Wageningen, Gelderland

Post by iconoclastica »

May I suggest an experiment changing the css which, if I understand it correctly, is stored in the main page body template?

Code: Select all

/* The content of the posts (body of text) */
.postbody { font-size : 12px; line-height: 18px; padding-right: calc(100% - 55em);}
The 'padding-right' phrase is to be added. This may be a simple solution that inserts a block without normal text at the right margin to exclude text longer than 55em (or use smaller number). The proper solution of course would be to ensure that all page elements scale with the viewport with, but that requires a lot of analysis and testing.
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rjlittlefield
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Post by rjlittlefield »

iconoclastica wrote:The 'padding-right' phrase is to be added. This may be a simple solution
What I'm seeing is that the operative word is "may".

I tried the experiment, by having my Chrome browser save a copy of source for http://www.photomacrography.net/forum/v ... hp?t=38091 to local file, which I then edited and displayed in various browsers.

Displayed by Firefox 64.0 and SeaMonkey 2.26, the mod has exactly the effect that I think you wanted -- the body text shrank to a relatively narrow column which did not depend on the window size.

I'm really happy that those two browsers worked properly, because otherwise I would be convinced that I had totally botched the experiment.

In every other browser that I tried, using the very same edited file, the body text remained painfully wide, no apparent difference with and without padding-right. Despite the lack of change in appearance, Inspect Element did confirm that the padding-right phrase had been recognized. Some browsers even offered a checkbox next to the padding-right phrase, and in most cases (not all!) that box was checked.

Browsers that did not honor the padding-right phrase were:

Safari Version 11.0 (on macOS High Sierra)
Edge 42.17134.1.0 (on Windows 10; padding-right box visible and checked)
Internet Explorer 11.471.17134.0 (on Windows 10; padding-right box visible but not checked)
Internet Explorer 11.0.9600.19230 (on Windows 7; padding-right box visible and checked)
Chrome 71.0.3578.98 (on Windows 10 and Windows 7).

This experience has only reinforced my belief that browsers are harder to herd than cats.

--Rik

Lou Jost
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Post by Lou Jost »

Well, at least the addition doesn't seem to hurt anything, so it seems like a good thing to incorporate. I've long wondered why those wide pages sometimes appear...

iconoclastica
Posts: 486
Joined: Sat Jun 25, 2016 12:34 pm
Location: Wageningen, Gelderland

Post by iconoclastica »

What I'm seeing is that the operative word is "may".
For exactly the reason you found... Good thing that you were able to try so many browsers.

Wim
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