On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 8:41 PM, Ben Finney <ben+pyt...@benfinney.id.au>wrote:
> PJ Eby <p...@telecommunity.com> writes: > > > On Sat, Mar 24, 2012 at 1:32 AM, Greg Ewing <greg.ew...@canterbury.ac.nz > >wrote: > > > > > If you don't want 1920-pixel-wide text, why make your browser window > > > that large? > > > > Not every tab in my browser is text for reading; some are apps that > > need the extra horizontal space. > > So, again, why make your browser window *for reading text* that large? > Because I have one browser window, and it's maximized. And I can do this, because most websites are designed in such a way that they have usable margins for text flows. Even PEPs and Python mailing list archives, for example, have sane text margins -- shall we go back and make *those* dependent on window width instead? Also, looking at the email I got from you, it has sane text margins in it. If you don't believe in text margins, why are you using a client that wraps lines and thereby prevents me from viewing your email with full-screen-width text? ;-) (In fairness, I am using a client that *doesn't* wrap the lines, AFAICT. But if Gmail had such an option I would probably use it if I knew where it was in the vast assortment of settings. Which ties in nicely with my next point, below...) Everyone has different needs for how large the text should be and how > much of it should go across the window. Every one of us is in a minority > when it comes to those needs; that's exactly what a configuration > setting is good for. > Designers' rules of thumb for text width are based on empirical observations of focal length, saccades, etc. If you have special needs visually, you're more likely to require the text read to you, than to have narrower text, and I at least am unable to conceive of a visual disability that would be helped by *increasing* the text width. In other words, there is a well-established *majority* need for how many characters should appear in an unwrapped line of text, based on majority physiology. Designers who limit it based on pixel size are Doing It Wrong; the max width should be based on em's rather than pixels. (Font sizes are a separate issue.) Done correctly (as visible, say, on any plaintext PEP), you may resize the window and change the font size to your heart's content without affecting the text width in characters. (Also, as a side note: adding lots of configuration options to an interface design is what adding lots of code is to a software design: a smell that the designer isn't *designing* enough.)
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