Explore Wikipedia's New Look

Post by molticrystal » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 5:19 PM UTC

trynewideas wrote: post #12

Details on the design process: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improveme... - On Wikipedia, and any MediaWiki installation, you can add the useskin query parameter to the URL to change skins on a page, even when not logged in. Current (vector-2022): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/59th_Academy_Awards?useskin=ve... Previous (vector): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/59th_Academy_Awards?useskin=ve... Olde…

    Description: Wikipedia Vector Skin
    Example URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_campbell
    Include pattern: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/*
    Redirect to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/$1?useskin=vector
    Pattern Description: Auto Redirects to vector skin version
    Advanced Options: 
        Exclude pattern: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/*?*

Post by baby » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 7:14 PM UTC

542458 wrote: post #163

Night_Thastus wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For whatever reason, especially with a bigger screen, I find that wider text becomes uncomfortable and somewhat exhausting to read. I'm not sure what the right portions/ratio are, but with a 27in screen it's definitely noticeable.

This has been studied a lot in design. Most people prefer line lengths in the 50-60 character region. Some studies show lengths up to 75 to be appropriate, but that’s about the limit. Past that people have a hard time keeping track of where they are and find reading to take more effort.

Post by autoexec » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 9:30 PM UTC

spartanatreyu wrote: post #205

autoexec wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not always, but it often is. Zoomed to 200% the new design is fine though. Content fills the entire screen and the floating table of contents disappears. Works for me at least.

That suggests to me that you're either not sitting the correct distance away from your display, and/or your display's DPI settings are wrong.

Post by Willish42 » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 9:56 PM UTC

autoexec wrote: post #150

Willish42 wrote: post #76

> Research has shown that limiting the width of longform text leads to a more comfortable reading experience, and better retention of the content itself. Is this actually true? I'm curious if anybody has sources for this and if it's a common UX practice. I tend to use wider windows than traditional 8:9 half-screens and this max-width practice drives me nuts.

I guess it depends on the person. I'm happy to accept that I'm strange, but I'd much rather read lines that mostly fill my screen with normal margins on each side than short lines in a long narrow column surrounded by an ocean of empty whitespace. I can't be the only one who feels this way. I have yet to buy a book where 90% of each page is blank and there's just a tiny column of words down the middle of the page.

Post by lmm » Thu, Jan 19, 2023, 10:08 PM UTC

spiralx wrote: post #247

lmm wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think if you really want full-width text, you could write a little custom CSS to make it work how you want it. How? Seriously, if you have a way to do this that works for pages in general I'll be extremely grateful. I tried using a user stylesheet that said * { max-width: 100% !important } for a while, but that breaks too many non-root elements on all sorts of sites. Whereas making the page narrow when it doesn't…

I use the Stylus extension for Chrome (also available on Firefox) to write user styles for sites, mostly to improve the legibility of text, but for sites like HN and Reddit that I browse a lot I've customised their look and feel extensively to match my tastes. Creating a custom style for a site just requires you to click the Stylus button in the toolbar, click on the site name at the bottom of the menu to create a ne…