-moz-column-width

commenter2

@It_Figures: Multi-column layouts should be part of the CSS3 spec. Gecko and Webkit already support it through the use of the browser specific prefixes. I know, not good enough, but you know who to blame for that one.

soggy_cheerio

@rscotta:

"Read words. Not too much. Mostly wisdom."

Sorry, the Pollan mantra is only for food/nutrition postings. :P

Deprong Mori

different strokes for different folks, I guess. I can't say I have any major issues with readability across wide spans of text. maybe I'm just speshul.

StrangeTikiGod

I'm dismayed. Isn't there some way we can work "Eat good food, mostly veggies, and not too much," into this discussion?

...Tongue planted in cheek...

rscotta

Everyone's who's mentioned the readability thing: you're spot on. It's the first thing that struck my mind too.

There's a reason newspapers use columns, and it isn't just to look, er, pretty.

johnmcga

@Sean Robertson:

And yet another example: newspapers (yes, the deadtrees kind) have been using multiple columns for centuries.

Deprong Mori

Sean Robertson

"any plans to roll this into the Better GReader extension?"
@StrangeTikiGod: Yes indeedy, slated for the next rev, though not on by default, since everyone's point about the hard-to-readness is well taken.

Gina Trapani

@milrtime83: Agree, but as anyone who's done a scrap of web design will tell you, it can be a royal pain to try to get text to flow across columns. It's certainly been done (cleanly) with article summaries that are within a known character limit, but for entire articles, I'm not sure there's a good solution for a single-article, multi-column web page as of yet.*

* Call to arms: if anyone out there does know of a way to do this, I'm very interested in hearing what you have to say. :)

For now, I'll stick to the given layout. Shorter line lengths make eyes happy.

It_Figures

@hometoast: No - that's a well known usability consideration. The problem is that it is virtually impossible to track back to the beginning of a long line without ending up looking at the wrong line and losing your place. That's also why tables of data frequently use rows with alternating background colors.

Sean Robertson

@hometoast: No kidding. I swear lifehacker has actually posted other scripts that help to *narrow* the width of text so as to make it more readable. I actually *hate* when text goes all the way across my screen. It's a pain having to race my eyes back and forth the screen just to read. I much prefer somewhat narrow blocks of text. Think about printing on a normal book - that's exactly how I like my text to go.

Aristeia

@hometoast: I agree. I prefer my text to stay in narrower columns.

brainwav

It would be better if it were broke into columns like a newspaper (I'm pretty sure they've done studies to determine the optimal width of their columns for ease of reading)

milrtime83

@Gina, any plans to roll this into the Better GReader extension?

StrangeTikiGod

Am I the only one who has a hard time reading text when it's spread out over 16 inches wide?

hometoast

Nice for people with widescreen monitors. i got a 19" 4:3.

fredygamer

@soggy_cheerio:

All.
Too.
Well.

However, you bring up a valid point; I hadn't been paying much attention to CSS3 as it hasn't gained widespread traction, and most of my time is spent making sure my clients' sites work across currently-prevalent browsers.

But: if Greasemonkey scripts are basically Gecko-specific already, there's really nothing stopping people from using the CSS3 properties that Gecko supports.

Wish I wasn't juggling so much right now, or I'd play with the above script and see if I couldn't kludge together something column-friendly.

It_Figures

@It_Figures: IIRC, columnar layout is going to be part of CSS3 spec.
Meaning we'll see it in widespread use (meaning Internet Explorer) around when the CSS4 spec begins to make its way though the W3C.

brainwav

Come on, who actually maximizes windows on a widescreen? 2/3 of a 1680x1050 display is all I need for my browser.

strabes

I have a pet peeve about people buying really big monitors only to maximize every window in them. It defeats the purpose and it makes you look dumb.

I equate keeping an Internet Explorer window maximized on a 24" monitor with people who program in ASP.

sam-i-am

@USBman: Well done! I'd nominate that for Better GReader inclusion in a heartbeat.

Guess I just did. :)

It_Figures

I already wrote a Stylish style to accomplish the very same widescreen functionality.

In order to accommodate the complaints about the readability of widescreen posts, I've created another style that makes the posts multi-column.

Enjoy!

USBman

Can't you just do this with a user stylesheet?

adamjaskie

@adamjaskie: Certainly, but there are users of GReader (and other apps) whose comfort zone may include installing extensions, and even user scripts, but may not include writing CSS or managing CSS files.

I'm no slouch at CSS, but I did have to look up where to find the userContent.css file. Extensions and scripts (presently) are more easily manageable by end users, via the Add-Ons menu and the Greasemonkey interface. As an example, my cousin uses GReader, and she's comfortable installing and uninstalling extensions, but she's no web developer.

It's an ease-of-use-for-the-masses thing.

It_Figures

has anyone mentioned, if you type "u" google reader goes into "full screen mode" hiding the folders on the left, and unwrapping the text in the content column to full browser width?

lots of useful shortcuts in google reader. type ? to see them :)

mikeyboy

>Install the script to take advantage of a wide browser window and scroll up and down less than you have to.

Or, rotate your widescreen monitor into portrait mode! If we do most of our scrolling up to down, why place the longest axis of our screens sideways?

rejewvenator

I don't know how good this really is. It's like reading a word document in landscape view. Annoying. By the time I read all the way to the end of a line and scan back, I lose the line that I was on. I'd rather use my widescreen (if I had one) to read my google reader on one side while luxuriously being able to watch porn, i mean documentaries on the other. Full screen is for movies, games, design, etc.

larrrn

on widths and readability...

if I recall correctly, somewhere around 66 characters per line is the maximum width the majority of folk can handle whilst reading at a full clip and return to the beginning for the next line. This also happens to be the default paragraph width in TeX/LaTeX.

turbulence

@mikeyby : you beat me to the punch. I was reading this Lifehacker article in Google Reader and I was "But I already have wide text !". That was because I toggle the sidebar off when reading, which unwrap the text by default.

christofk

Long text lines like that are strenuous for the eyes. Open up a random book and see how long the lines are.

dragon

@turbulence: You likely pulled that from The Elements of Typographic Style, or from someone else who did.

Richard Rutter of Clearleft has an ongoing project called The Elements of Typographic Style Applied to the Web, and this page references the measure of which you speak. All of the above (the book and the site) should be, IMO, required reading for anyone who wants to be a web designer.

It_Figures

Ideal on-screen readability is 100 characters. Much longer than that, and reading efficiency slows way down. (Same goes for too short, as well.)

seanmcleary

Or just put this in your userChrome/Stylish (adjust % as desired, and BTW you have to put the real URL in there that Lifehacker "linkifies" within comments):

@-moz-document url-prefix([www.google.com]),
url-prefix([www.google.com]) {

#entries .entry-body {
max-width: 95% !important;
}

#entries .entry-title {
max-width: 90% !important;
}

}

GlennA

BTW, if one really wants to widen the body to use up that white space, which in itself is annoying, then one should also increase the size of the font/typeface:

font-size: 120% !important;

and maybe even change which font (to something more readable, more serif):

font-family: georgia !important;

(and, again, adjust the % as desired)

GlennA