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Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

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Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#111

Post by matsemann »

dahfizz wrote: post #102
matsemann wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lolno. I have to make Firefox take only half the screen, otherwise HN will render wiiide lines with text. I cannot read lines with >200 characters, then I miss the mark when jumping to the next line when it's multiple lines in a paragraph. HN is also the only site I have zoomed in on desktop, as the font is unreadably small on high dpi devices. And on mobile I find it impossible to hit the upvote arrow.

I can read long lines just fine, and I like that the full width of the viewport is used. Because HN is designed so simply, you can trivially get the layout you want (half width lines) and I can also get the layout I want. If HN instead tried to artificially limit the viewport in code (which is something lots of web developers do), they would break all sorts of other use cases for no reason. That's what I mean when I…

> Because HN is designed so simply, you can trivially get the layout you want (half width lines) and I can also get the layout I want.

Except you're ignoring mobile devices.

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#112

Post by smichel17 »

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #82
tyingq wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The example of https://www.just-eat.co.uk/ bailing out to a hamburger menu at 768px, just to deal with 5 navigation options is a bit much.

As it happens though, with the navigation design they chose, the entries wouldn't fit at that width. They certainly could have added an extra breakpoint where the navigation becomes smaller before bailing to a hamburger, but of course that does add complexity.

Two rows?

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#113

Post by madeofpalk »

asiando wrote: post #70
madeofpalk wrote: post #58

I'm kind of confused about this - I'm sure the author experiences real problems, but I wonder if there's something else at play here? I've never actually seen screen aspect ratio media queries used in practice, nor have I really seen them advocated for. When I load www.theguardian.com on my portrait monitor (1441 x 2561) I get the desktop layout https://imgur.com/a/ZpUI95Z Absolutely yes design your breakpoints aroun…

The author is actually complaining about narrow viewports and not about portrait orientations, without even realizing it.

Even then - when I set my resolution to the same 1080 × 1920 the author states, The Guardian still renders the "desktop" layout. The more compact layout from the doesn't kick in until 739px.

Maybe it's their font-scaling settings are getting in the way and changing the viewport resolution?

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#115

Post by jfk13 »

oblio wrote: post #101
dahfizz wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real real problem is that so many sites overcomplicate their design. HN works beautifully on any window / screen size.

And yet quotes don't wrap to any specific size, so you end up with an awful horizontal scroll bar. There is no way to format your text, even stuff that's available since MS Word 1.0, such as bold or italic. Even science papers have formatting so I don't buy the "overuse of styles" BS. There is no way to have avatars or some other ways to distinguish users (or mods!) to make this place feel more like a community in re…

> There is no way to format your text, even stuff that's available since MS Word 1.0, such as bold or italic

Are you entirely sure about that?

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#116

Post by forgotpwd16 »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #13

Wait, so sniffing on screen resolution is the way web developers distinguish desktops from mobile? That's just crazy . There should IMO be a preference sent, "I'm on a portable, touch-enabled device". I'm guessing it doesn't exist because it would add a bit to the fingerprint.

>"I'm on a portable, touch-enabled device".

That's what the user-agent is[0]. And all major browser engines have/had a Mobile token on relevant devices.

[0]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Browser_de...

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#117

Post by matsemann »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #80
jefftk wrote: post #48

Sites are not detecting a portrait screen and deciding that they're displaying on a phone. Someone who switches their monitor to portrait, or resizes a window to be taller than it is wide, is still going to get the desktop view. In this case the author is scaling their resolution, and so their browser is presenting itself to sites as 720px wide. Sites see that and show a layout optimized for a screen of that width. T…

This doesn't address the author's central argument, which is that websites need an effortless way of letting fonts become bigger without affecting the entire layout. I've wanted it too. I don't really care if some text gets cut off on headers and looks weird, I just want to read stuff from the comfort of my bed with my laptop a few feet away.

That's how zooming (ctrl+scroll) in the browser used to work: It increased font sizes. It has been abandoned because it just wreaks havoc on the layout and is impossible to handle properly.

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#118

Post by polytely »

rob74 wrote: post #64

Ironically, the author of dpi.lv ( https://lea.verou.me/ ) doesn't even bother to have a "desktop-friendly" site. On desktop everything (font, header, images, buttons) is huge and ~50% of the vertical space is wasted. Not the best calling card for someone living "at the bleeding edge of web standards". Or maybe it looks Ok if you view it on a Mac?

It looks fine on mobile to me, scrolling is free, and filling 100% of the screen with information has nothing to do with if a person is "at the bleeding edge of web standards".

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#119

Post by patriarchybad »

most websites dont work well on small screens because of the

modern ui with all of the extra spacing

this issue affects women particularly because we have

smaller hands and so use smaller screens

its yet anther example of how tech designed for men keeps

women out of tech, a vicious cycle

material design is perpetuating internalized misogyny

edit: and of course my comment is dead thats the kind of

behavior tolerated on the angry orange site

edit 2: i am formatting this comment to a narrow width

to be more friendly to smaller screens especially those

used by women

edit 3: i now realize that my comments exclude trans women

who may have larger hands

there was no transphobic intent in my remark simply that

since trans women are a smaller segment of women women

on average have smaller hands

Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone

#120

Post by dranka »

nobleach wrote: post #93
dahfizz wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The real real problem is that so many sites overcomplicate their design. HN works beautifully on any window / screen size.

Sure. Now let's say you're shopping for a brand new rug for your living room. Are you going to buy it from a site the looks like HackerNews? If so, I'd venture to say you're in the minority. A used rug from Craigslist, perhaps, but a brand new rug costing hundreds, you're going to want a site that looks VERY professional.

I would definetly pick the store with the hacker newsish website!
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