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Tags to make HTML work like you expect

blog.jim-nielsen.com

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Re: Tags to make HTML work like you expect

#111

Post by majora2007 »

notepad0x90 wrote: post #110

I'm not a web developer, so if someone can please enlighten me: Why does this site, and so many "modern" sites like it have it so that the actual content of the site takes up only 20% of my screen? My browser window is 2560x1487. 80% of the screen is blank. I have to zoom in 170% to read the content. With older blogs, I don't have this issue, it just works. Is it on purpose or it is it bad css? Given the title of the…

I'm not sure, but when I was working with UX years ago, they designed everything for a fixed width and centered it in the screen.

Kinda like how HackerNews is, it's centered and doesn't scale to my full width of the monitor.

Re: Tags to make HTML work like you expect

#112

Post by bazoom42 »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #12
Aransentin wrote: post #4

Note that and auto-close and don't need to be terminated. Also, wrapping the tags in an actual is optional. You also don't need the quotes as long the attribute doesn't have spaces or the like; is OK. (kind of pointless as the average website fetches a bazillion bytes of javascript for every page load nowadays, but sometimes slimming things down as much as possible can be fun and satisfying)

This kind of thing will always just feel shoddy to me. It is not much work to properly close a tag. The number of bytes saved is negligible, compared to basically any other aspect of a website. Avoiding not needed div spam already would save more. Or for example making sure CSS is not bloated. And of course avoiding downloading 3MB of JS. What this achieves is making the syntax more irregular and harder to parse. I w…

> I wish all these tolerances wouldn't exist in HTML5 and browsers simply showed an error, instead of being lenient.

Who would want to use a browser which would prevent many currently valid pages from being shown?

Re: Tags to make HTML work like you expect

#113

Post by Izkata »

rob wrote: post #96
ano-ther wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don’t. HN has just the right information density with its small default font size. In most browsers it is adjustable. And you can pinch-zoom if you’re having trouble hitting the right link. None of the ”content needs white space and large fonts to breathe“ stuff or having to click to see a reply like on other sites. That just complicates interactions. And I am posting this on an iPhone SE while my sight has st…

Yeah, I'm really asking for tons of whitespace and everything to breathe sooooo much by asking for the default font size to be a browser default (16px) and updated to match most modern display resolutions in 2025, not 2006 when it was created. HN is the only site I have to increase the zoom level, and others below are doing the same thing as me. But it must be us with the issues. Obviously PG knew best in 2006 for de…

On the flipside, HN is the only site I don't have to zoom out of to keep it comfortable. Most sit at 90% with a rare few at 80%.

16px is just massive.

Re: Tags to make HTML work like you expect

#115

Post by Menu_Overview »

notepad0x90 wrote: post #110

I'm not a web developer, so if someone can please enlighten me: Why does this site, and so many "modern" sites like it have it so that the actual content of the site takes up only 20% of my screen? My browser window is 2560x1487. 80% of the screen is blank. I have to zoom in 170% to read the content. With older blogs, I don't have this issue, it just works. Is it on purpose or it is it bad css? Given the title of the…

Often times that is to create a comfortable reading width. (https://ux.stackexchange.com/questions/108801/what-is-the-be...)

Re: Tags to make HTML work like you expect

#116

Post by mock-possum »

ilaksh wrote: post #19

Anyone else prefer to use web components without bundling? I probably should not admit this, but I have been using Lit Elements with raw JavaScript code. Because I stopped using autocomplete awhile ago. I guess not using TypeScript at this point is basically the equivalent for many people these days of saying that I use punch cards.

God yes, as little tool chain as I can get away with.

Re: Tags to make HTML work like you expect

#117

Post by flufluflufluffy »

notepad0x90 wrote: post #110

I'm not a web developer, so if someone can please enlighten me: Why does this site, and so many "modern" sites like it have it so that the actual content of the site takes up only 20% of my screen? My browser window is 2560x1487. 80% of the screen is blank. I have to zoom in 170% to read the content. With older blogs, I don't have this issue, it just works. Is it on purpose or it is it bad css? Given the title of the…

Probably to not have incredibly wide paragraphs. I will say though, I set my browser to always display HN at like 150% zoom or something like that. They definitely could make the default font size larger. On mobile it looks fine though.

Re: Tags to make HTML work like you expect

#118

Post by Izkata »

martin-t wrote: post #108
askonomm wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm assuming you have a rather small resolution display? On a 27" 4k display, scaled to 150%, the font is quite tiny, to the point where the textarea I currently type this in (which uses the browsers default font size) is about 3 times the perceivable size in comparison to the HN comments themselves.

1920x1080 and 24 inches Maybe the issue is not scaling according to DPI? OTOH, people with 30+ inch screens probably sit a bit further away to be able to see everything without moving their head so it makes sense that even sites which take DPI into account use larger fonts because it's not really about how large something is physically on the screen but about the angular size relative to the eye.

Yeah, one of the other cousin comments mentions 36 inches away. I don't think they realize just how far outliers they are. Of course you have to make everything huge when your screen is so much further away than normal.

Re: Tags to make HTML work like you expect

#119

Post by marcosdumay »

eska wrote: post #55
dugmartin wrote: post #38

I know this was a joke: but I feel there is a last tag missing: ... that will ensure screenreaders skip all your page "chrome" and make life much easier for a lot of folks. As a bonus mark any navigation elements inside main using (or role="navigation").

I’m not a blind person but I was curious about once when I tried to make a hyper-optimized website. It seemed like the best way to please screen readers was to have the navigation HTML come last, but style it so it visually comes first (top nav bar on phones, left nav menu on wider screens).

Just to say, that makes your site more usable in text browsers too, and easier to interact with the keyboard.

I remember HTML has an way to create global shortcuts inside a page, so you press a key combination and the cursor moves directly to a pre-defined place. If I remember that right, it's recommended to add some of those pointing to the menu, the main content, and whatever other relevant area you have.

Re: Tags to make HTML work like you expect

#120

Post by neRok »

aragonite wrote: post #29

Fun fact: both HN and (no doubt not coincidentally) paulgraham.com ship no DOCTYPE and are rendered in Quirks Mode. You can see this in devtools by evaluating `document.compatMode`. I ran into this because I have a little userscript I inject everywhere that helps me copy text in hovered elements (not just links). It does: [...document.querySelectorAll(":hover")].at(-1) to grab the innermost hovered element. It works…

A uBlock filter can do it: `||news.ycombinator.com/*$replace=/<html/`
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