Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Widescreen laptops are dumb

theverge.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 173 posts

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#61

Post by megaman22 »

vvanders wrote: post #10

Happy to see the Surface line called out there, love the 3:2 screen on my Surface Book. So much more usable space than the traditional 16:9/10.

The original Surface RT had a horrible aspect ratio. The actual screen is about 9.5" x 5.25", so it is almost double as wide as it is tall, in the normal orientation. It's really too narrow to be comfortable for reading in the portrait orientation. As a tablet, it just doesn't really work.

If you grew up in North America, the 4:3 ratio probably feels the most natural because it's closest to the standard 8.5"x11" Letter paper size that almost every sheet of paper you've dealt with in school is.

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#62

Post by cpburns2009 »

strmpnk wrote: post #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 rearra…

Another problem is the default styles for Bootstrap (which is very convenient for those of us who aren't graphic designers). If you resize or snap your windows to be half-width, they'll be relegated to the mobile styles. Bootstrap does this when the view width is at 960px or less which is exactly half of a 1080 screen (1920px). So even if your windows had no borders, you'll still end up with the mobile styles.

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#63

Post by UncleEntity »

madmulita wrote: post #46
yscik wrote: post #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 eve…

At least the header has something in it, the white margins are completely useless but eat a lot of real state.

Yes, the ability to "tweet" and "share". Neither of which I ever do so it's just a bunch of wasted space.

My favorite is the headers that mess up scrolling with the space key -- scroll down then immediately scroll up because the header is covering part of the content.

And don't even get me started on sites (looking at you Medium) that have both headers and footers...

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#64

Post by apocalypstyx »

I hear writers with this complaint alot, too. But I've never understood it. Sure, if you've only got the one file, there's black/white space on either side of the column (if you're fullscreened and in full-on anti-distraction mode), but it's just never bothered me like it does everyone else. However, I find it's great to be able to split emacs vertically and have notes/documentation/outlines on the left and the actual document on the right and both hold an 80+ character line with my preferred font. And I wouldn't go back unless I had to.

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#65

Post by flixic »

kodablah wrote: post #56

> Lateral space is simply not as valuable as vertical space in desktop apps or on the web. This is not the fault of the hardware, it's the fault of the software. I want more screen space, and I'm not asking for a square laptop and I'm not wanting my screen any taller than it is. Browsers should optimize for vertical space and let you reuse your horizontal space. Tree-style or vertical tabs are perfect for this. But f…

> Lateral space is simply not as valuable as vertical space in desktop apps or on the web.

This easily boils down to the fact that our language is horizontal, and we don't read rotated text very well.

It informs design decisions, creating horizontal tab bars, menu bars, navigations, etc.

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#66

Post by kccqzy »

Retric wrote: post #44
strmpnk wrote: post #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 rearra…

A 4.8 inch Galaxy S for example is 720x1280 or 1280x720. iPhone 6 1334 x 750 or 750 x 1334. Really, a small resolution laptop is vastly less common than mobile on most websites. Looking ugly but working for group A is much better than not working for larger group B.

I don't think you understand how browsers on mobile report resolutions. Those HiDPI devices report widths and heights as the actual widths and heights divided by the device pixel ratio.

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#67

Post by kodablah »

flixic wrote: post #65
kodablah wrote: post #56

> Lateral space is simply not as valuable as vertical space in desktop apps or on the web. This is not the fault of the hardware, it's the fault of the software. I want more screen space, and I'm not asking for a square laptop and I'm not wanting my screen any taller than it is. Browsers should optimize for vertical space and let you reuse your horizontal space. Tree-style or vertical tabs are perfect for this. But f…

> Lateral space is simply not as valuable as vertical space in desktop apps or on the web. This easily boils down to the fact that our language is horizontal, and we don't read rotated text very well. It informs design decisions, creating horizontal tab bars, menu bars, navigations, etc.

Nobody is asking for rotated text. There are many applications that have mini dockable assistant windows on either side of the main document window. Our file system browsers list items vertically, so can our browsers. Hell, most do with bookmarks, just not active tabs. It's more a problem of group think and the trend towards reduced customization that causes this, not language direction.

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#68

Post by evan_ »

strmpnk wrote: post #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 rearra…

Similar to that is that a lot of desktop sites often don’t look right if the window is taller than it is wide.

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#69

Post by rhacker »

This kind of debate has been going on forever and it will continue as formats for random purposes are invented at random times in history. There is no next better aspect ratio or pixel density that we should move to so we do our best. If we suddenly switch who is to say the next big unknown thing suddenly makes 14:10 the best ratio for the next 10 years?

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#70

Post by dredmorbius »

spystath wrote: post #21
strmpnk wrote: post #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 rearra…

Not only that, but many websites tend to have very large left and right margins. One would expect that by reducing the width of the browser window the margins would be adjusted but instead the website either "won't fit" in the resized window requiring you to scroll horizontally or will reduce the width of the central column.

My preferred styling is for a modest padding (2-4 em), auto margins, an auto width, with a max defined width of ~30 - 45 em units.

See: https://codepen.io/dredmorbius/pen/KpMqqB

Post reply on HN