71–80 of 84 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I think the only time sticky headers are ever acceptable is when you need to regularly refer back to them. Long tables without sticky headers are the worst
Or use recfile syntax instead of a table.
Also tables align nicely in a grid, recfiles do not
Sticky page headers are easy to implement and bad for UX. On the contrary, sticky table headers would be really helpful for long tables and it is impossible to implement them without compromises (fixed column width only, opaque background only or JS-only etc.)
This is a real failure of browsers, by the way. The table HTML has all the semantic information necessary, browsers could use it to improve table usability (such as sticky headers) but none ever bothered to try.
th { position: sticky; top: 0; }
I don't think it would have been reasonable to include/force such functionality at the spec level.
Theres always my extension to toggle the darn things which works sometimes https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/zapfixed/jgiflpbko...
The viewport/scrollbar issue can be fixed by properly setting the css scroll-padding property: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/scroll-padd...
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Or use recfile syntax instead of a table.
Columns can be easily collapsed or hid; wasting vertical space is a worse solution than wasting horizontal space Also tables align nicely in a grid, recfiles do not
In a big grid you can't make sense of the cells anyway, so that alignment has no function beyond being just an alignment.
Sticky headers aren't necessarily full-width, or overlapping the content, which invalidates most if not all of the criticism. Eg. see the sticky headers in the mobile Google Calendar app (on Android at least). Even in this very article, which self-referentially demonstrates how a sticky header gets in the way, there are sizeable margins on both sides of the text (something I'm personally not very fond of, but I digre…
> there are sizeable margins on both sides of the text (something I'm personally not very fond of, but I digress). Really? I find having text flow to the full width of the browser to be harder to read. I think there should be some limit. But I do like your idea of using that empty space when the browser is wide enough to make it available.
But this website - on my 24" monitor - uses merely 35%; 900 out of 2560px. You (should) know you've gone over the top when the margins end up taking twice as much space as the actual content. What a waste of screen estate, what's the point of a wide monitor then?
That's why the user has to scroll constantly, and we can't read a text comprised of just several paragraphs without taking our finger off the mouse wheel anymore. It's like printing newspapers on till rolls
Sticky headers make me feel claustrophobic, I don't know why. Regardless of my screen height (it could be a 30" monitor), it feels like something is "stuck" to my browser that wasn't before and makes me feel anxious. Even without that feeling, sticky headers kill the feeling that I'm moving through a viewport of a webpage. It makes your website look like it's not of the "webpage" medium that I've been familiar with f…
Exactly. When I'm using an application called a browser to view a document on the web, I don't want the document to try to become part of the chrome: that breaks the "web page" metaphor. There is a very small subset of websites, such as Figma, that feel more like independent applications than web pages, and for those I get more annoyed by the presence of the browser chrome, for basically the same reason. What's worse…
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Earlier quoted context omitted.
> there are sizeable margins on both sides of the text (something I'm personally not very fond of, but I digress). Really? I find having text flow to the full width of the browser to be harder to read. I think there should be some limit. But I do like your idea of using that empty space when the browser is wide enough to make it available.
I don't mean literally 100% of width. But this website - on my 24" monitor - uses merely 35%; 900 out of 2560px. You (should) know you've gone over the top when the margins end up taking twice as much space as the actual content. What a waste of screen estate, what's the point of a wide monitor then? That's why the user has to scroll constantly, and we can't read a text comprised of just several paragraphs without ta…
This may sound like the same thing but it's not. It doesn't matter what percent of the page is taken up by margins, so long as the physical line length vs. font size is comfortable to read. Too long and it's harder to follow, too short and, as you say, you have to scroll constantly. If you had the same physical text width but a smaller font, it'd be better (so long as the font was still big enough to read comfortably).
Classical research suggests the ideal line length is somewhere between 45 to 75 characters. For the web it's suggested you can go up to 85 characters, depending on the font. This website sets the maximum width at 36.5em which is on the narrow side of things.