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Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone
211–220 of 399 posts
Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
I love that Chrome on Android lets me zoom into any content on any site, regardless of how bad the devs borked the UX. (Yes, devs, if you don't allow me to zoom using the browser's built-in capabilities, you have borked the UX, and should be ashamed of yourselves.)
Unless its, say, a mapping web app. In which case, pinch-zoom adjusts the canvas map zoom, allowing regular zoom would actually break the UX.
I agree though, let me zoom on a blog post. The diagrams are often unreadable on mobile.
Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone
#213Sites 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…
I prefer to browse with portrait-mode windows, and often find that sites give me the mobile layout unless I stretch the browser out wider than I'd prefer. It is annoying.
Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone
#214Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, and webdevs have been trying for over 10 years now to figure out how to get this right. Has no one just stopped to consider having a browser send a `prefersMobileView` or `viewport:phone` or anything like that? I can remember back a few years ago, an iPhone 6+, turned sideways could get a desktop view on some sites... simply because it met the requirements set by the author. Now, the author's assumptions were wr…
One of the original selling points of the iPod touch/iPhone was that it could display full desktop websites...
Fair, although back at the time they came out it meant something different. Mobile-optimized websites in 2008 were horrible, stripped-down things.
Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone
#215Sites 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…
Yes, and webdevs have been trying for over 10 years now to figure out how to get this right. Has no one just stopped to consider having a browser send a `prefersMobileView` or `viewport:phone` or anything like that? I can remember back a few years ago, an iPhone 6+, turned sideways could get a desktop view on some sites... simply because it met the requirements set by the author. Now, the author's assumptions were wr…
IMO the best solution is to just have natural breakpoints (i.e. when a part of the design of the given page would cease to work, add a breakpoint to change the format of that component, rather than at predefined points) and then for logged in users have an option to request the desktop design, which you can do by simply setting a viewport to 1000px width and leaving everything else unchanged
what would be really nice would be element-size-based media queries. you can use javascript to do it but that sucks
Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone
#216Aren't CSS breakpoints usually based on width and not orientation? I have always done it based on width.
The width of the window is probably dropping below a breakpoint when he reorients the screen.
Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone
#217Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, and webdevs have been trying for over 10 years now to figure out how to get this right. Has no one just stopped to consider having a browser send a `prefersMobileView` or `viewport:phone` or anything like that? I can remember back a few years ago, an iPhone 6+, turned sideways could get a desktop view on some sites... simply because it met the requirements set by the author. Now, the author's assumptions were wr…
One of the original selling points of the iPod touch/iPhone was that it could display full desktop websites...
It can. As can Chrome on Android. Just request the "Desktop site" version. It's pretty unusable though, which is why we have responsive websites :-)
Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone
#218As a product manager, my immediate response is... not worth the time. You've chosen to have a unique setup, which is fine, but your use case represents some absolutely miniscule fraction of users. On top of that, it's not even that websites are unusable, just that they're not ideal. When you decide to do weird/special/unique stuff, don't expect the world to adapt to you. You can rotate your monitor back or live with…
You don't need to rotate your screen; just shrink your browser. I know that lots of people like to use fullscreen windows, but that makes me feel claustrophobic; text ought to be formatted in narrower columns for comfortable reading, so I like narrower browsers. This often fools websites into sending me the phone layout, which is unhelpful and annoying.
Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone
#219I have 3 monitors. Once of them is portrait mode because it's easier to read longer posts and articles this way.
I've never had such a problem as described by the blog post, but my resolution doesn't drop to 720px like the author.
Scaling the size of fonts has always been discouraged, even by Windows. I used to use larger fonts on Windows way back and it would mess up the spacing of many apps, because it's just so uncommon. I fought against the wind for years and gave up.
Re: Just because I have a vertical screen doesn’t mean I’m on a phone
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
Agreed completely. One mistake that designers/developers do though is to completely give up under 1000px so we get this swaths of whitespace and a hamburger. That’s a waste of estate and a waste of my time.
I've emailed one of YC's huge successes multiple times over years about how it's frustrating to have horizontal scrolling on a browser that's half of a 1080p display wide (i.e., nearly 1000px). Unfortunately, the horizontal scrolling UX with substantial wasted whitespace on the sides remains.
It could be worse. One particular web app I use daily has horizontal scroll bars even when full screen (and has some off the main info at far right).