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Widescreen laptops are dumb

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Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#91

Post by hsitz »

rhacker wrote: post #69

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?

In fairness, the article was not arguing that some particular aspect ratio (e.g., 3:2) was _optimal_. It's main point was that 16:9 is not optimal, especially on small laptop screens, and that something wider would work better.

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#92

Post by narimiran »

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…

> Tree-style or vertical tabs are perfect for this. But for some reason, all browser vendors follow each other, don't build alternative options (or count on the community to do it if they even allow that)

Vivaldi has in the options (without any 3rd party add-on) a possibility to put your tab bar either on top, left, right, or bottom.

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#93

Post by slantyyz »

cup-of-tea wrote: post #32
mariusmg wrote: post #26

What a moronic article. More space is always better. On Windows/Linux just chuck the taskbar on the left/right of the screen and enjoy the extra visible space. The shit some people complain about , unbelieavable......

It's not more space. My 4:3 monitor has a resolution of 1600x1200. That's 180 lines of pixels more than a 1080p screen which is about 13 lines of text.

>> It's not more space. My 4:3 monitor has a resolution of 1600x1200. That's 180 lines of pixels more than a 1080p screen which is about 13 lines of text.

And it's 320 less lines horizontally.

What matters to you may not matter to the next person, because their use case is different from yours.

No matter what laptop (and monitor) manufacturers do with respect to aspect ratio, they're never going to please everyone with their design decision.

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#94

Post by Zak »

lamename wrote: post #48

Screens are visual, and human vision is biased to search lateral space over vertical space. This is due to the nature of humans' visuospatial limitations. We're largely 2d animals in our movement: front/back & left/right, not so much up down. This is different from animals like birds and fish who constantly have to navigate all 3 dimensions to catch prey and avoid death. We aren't ignorant of vertical space, but hori…

When reading text, I believe the opposite to be true. It's why newspapers use relatively narrow columns of text despite having a lot of width to work with. It's much easier to keep my place and process information if I don't have to move my eyes much horizontally.

When it comes to scanning for unexpected information, you may be right. A high aspect ratio might be better suited for gaming, at least with games where a significant element is scanning the screen for information and responding to it quickly.

One more data point to throw in is that according to Wikipedia, the human field of view is approximately 1.5:1. That suggests to me that 1.5:1 is a good aspect ratio for a general-purpose display. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_eye#Field_of_view

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#95

Post by bsharitt »

cimmanom wrote: post #50
bsharitt wrote: post #34

I find 4:3 too square for both tablets and laptops as it seriously detracts from watching widescreen video content such as nearly all newer movies and TV shows, but 16:9 does have seem a bit too wide compared to height, especially on tablets when you try to use it in portrait mode and it seems ridiculously tall. I've found 16:10 to be a better than 16:9, and while I haven't had a 3:2 laptop, the 3:2 Nook HD+ from a f…

Sure, but a lot of us use our laptops for tasks besides watching video.

Uh, yes that was indeed the point of my comment, thank you for restating that. If video was the only important thing, 16:9 across the board would be important. But going the other way to 4:3 is a vast over correction as it would make the screen nearly useless for video.

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#96

Post by bluedino »

Toshiba released a real widescreen laptop a few years back. The 845W. 21:9, 1792x768 pixels. It was neat, Staples or OfficeMax (I can't remember) blew them out for $499, but I ended up returning it because 768 pixels is just not enough room to get anything done. Besides, it had all the issues of a typical Windows laptop of the time, battery life wasn't very good, touchpad was terrible, etc.

Sony also tried this with the VAIO P, in a smaller format with a 1600x768 screen.

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#98

Post by dawnerd »

mkhalil wrote: post #89
dawnerd wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We ended up building our own framework to solve for that with a simple tank confit if we need to change the breakpoints. Bootstrap was just too big yet too limiting for all of our client work. We don’t force the mobile menu either. https://github.com/firstandthird/clientkit

You might want to look at your website before trying to get the word out about your UI framework: This is how http://clientkit.io/ looks for me: https://i.imgur.com/H3wYjba.png

Yeah that’s been on the back burner for a while. It’s using an extremely old version and frankly I forgot about it until you mentioned. :/

We’re using the latest version on http://leanin.org

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#99

Post by ealhad »

mkhalil wrote: post #89
dawnerd wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We ended up building our own framework to solve for that with a simple tank confit if we need to change the breakpoints. Bootstrap was just too big yet too limiting for all of our client work. We don’t force the mobile menu either. https://github.com/firstandthird/clientkit

You might want to look at your website before trying to get the word out about your UI framework: This is how http://clientkit.io/ looks for me: https://i.imgur.com/H3wYjba.png

Well, wow. And it’s not even missing JS or anything.

Re: Widescreen laptops are dumb

#100

Post by kodablah »

narimiran wrote: post #92
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…

> Tree-style or vertical tabs are perfect for this. But for some reason, all browser vendors follow each other, don't build alternative options (or count on the community to do it if they even allow that) Vivaldi has in the options (without any 3rd party add-on) a possibility to put your tab bar either on top, left, right, or bottom.

Right, several non-major browsers do this with major browser's rendering engines (I wrote one: https://cretz.github.io/doogie/). I am criticizing the big four browser vendors specifically as opposed to the community.
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