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Widescreen laptops are dumb

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11–20 of 173 posts

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#12
post #6

Well, I really like being able to put a code editor on the left and then a browser, terminal, document, LaTeX output on the right of the screen without them becoming too constrained horizontally. But probably this is a very particular use case?

I do the same thing all the time. It's one reason I tend to buy very large laptops.

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#13
post #6

Well, I really like being able to put a code editor on the left and then a browser, terminal, document, LaTeX output on the right of the screen without them becoming too constrained horizontally. But probably this is a very particular use case?

The "nominally widescreen" 16:10 aspect ratio great for this. Anything shorter than that feels cramped to me.

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#15
The big problem I have started seeing is web design assuming you always browse using a maximized window. Combine this with a prevalent market of wide screens and most sites won’t look right without at least 1200px. So once you put anything like a toolbar or inspector on this side, you have a problem.

Designers of many sites I have to use daily seem to assume I’d never want to see two windows at once, let alone rearrange my UI or use non-widescreen devices. The responsive sites can be even worse too since they’ll snap into a mobile layout at anything less than 1000px wide or so and then increase all of the margins and icon sizes for touch accuracy purposes. It looks extremely silly and wastes even more space than these layers of toolbars hanging around the edge of a browser.

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#16
post #6

Well, I really like being able to put a code editor on the left and then a browser, terminal, document, LaTeX output on the right of the screen without them becoming too constrained horizontally. But probably this is a very particular use case?

If you take the same width of screen, e.g. 1920 pixels and make it taller, say, 1440 pixels, then you have the same horizontal space and all of those windows are taller with more content in them!

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#17
post #3
post #2

Pro tip: put the toolbar on the left side of the screen rather than the the bottom location.

That doesn’t work well for toolbars which have text labels ( like bookmarks or a windows style taskbar).

It works better for bookmarks, since you can fit more entries in the list before you have to scroll.

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#18
post #2

Pro tip: put the toolbar on the left side of the screen rather than the the bottom location.

Get rid of the toolbar, windoze and osx. i3 window manager is a good option -- keyboard is main interface in laptop.

"Annoyed by having toolbar take up vertical space. Easy, just change OS."

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#19
Meanwhile the site has a fixed header taking away vertical space, like many others. Maybe interface design should accomodate the fact that every single desktop user uses a widescreen display and start putting navigation on the side. Vertical tabs and taskbars can also be done in most browsers and OSes. There would probably be a lot of friction if vendors made that the default, but it's still easier than replacing every monitor in existence.

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#20
post #5

I have to say, I really miss the 4:3 ratio on tablets, as I do most of my reading there. I've been trying to read now via landscape orientation and scrolling down the page. It works (kinda) but I miss having the whole page at a view...

iPad is 4:3 HiDPI/Retina.
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