[Geany] OT: How to get shorter lines in the Geany manual?

Lex Trotman elextr at xxxxx
Tue Sep 1 10:31:27 UTC 2009


2009/9/1 Randy Kramer <rhkramer at gmail.com>:
> On Monday 31 August 2009 10:11:28 am Lex Trotman wrote:
>> 2009/8/31 Randy Kramer <rhkramer at gmail.com>:
>> > On Monday 31 August 2009 01:59:24 am Lex Trotman wrote:
>> >> 2009/8/31 Randy Kramer <rhkramer at gmail.com>:
>> >> > I think you'd have a decent CSS if the width=60 em line was
>> >> > deleted. ;-)
>> >>
>> >> I don't, I don't like infinitely long lines that wrap themselves.
>> >> Fixed size lines where everything is always in the same place is
>> >> better, My two cents worth :-)
>> >
>> > Lex (and anybody that feels the same way),
>> >
>> > How do you feel if those fixed size lines are too wide for your
>> > computer screen, and required that you scroll horizontally to read
>> > each line? (I suspect you're a younger person with good eyes and
>> > use small fonts, but treat this as a hypothetical question,
>> > please.)
>> >
>> > Randy Kramer
>> >
>> :-) and how do you feel when each line has three sentences in it as
>> : it
>>
>> streaches interminabley across your widescreen...
>
> Well, in my browser, except for very rare occurrences when there is
> presumably something wrong with the HTML, that doesn't happen for me in
> any of the normal browsers I use.  Does it happen for you?  In a
> browser?  Which browser(s)?

Firefox or whatever temperature feral animal its called in your
distribution :-) and see much of GNU documentation for the effect I
complain about.
>
>> This is a question to which there is no right answer, or
>> alternatively all answers are right for someone, we each have a valid
>> opinion based on our own preferences.  The best the creators of Geany
>> can do is provide some flexibility and hope it suits the majority of
>> people.
>
> Ok, at least until there is a perfect solution.  The feature of
> automatically wrapping to the width of the browser's (or
> whatever--editor, word processor, is a very common feature)--leaving
> the user free to adjust the width of the lines (by setting the width of
> the browser) to suit himself.
>

This won't work, I can't set the width of each tab individually so my
other ones will be too narrow.  And less experienced users may not
know to re-size their browsers to suit.

Try editing your Geany.html and make the width element max-width and
see if we get the perfect solution, I get a fixed maximum width 60em
and you get variable wrapping for documents where that won't fit due
to large text. (suggestion taken from W3C WCAG 2.0 1.4.8 Visual
presentation, how to meet)

It works for me, If it works ok for other browsers you use we'll
submit a patch to Geany

> In the case where the pre-established width (in this case, 60 em) suits
> most users, not many people will agitate for a change.  (I was thinking
> about suggesting a survey, but, the above is why I won't.)  It seems,
> though, that having an easily adjustable width would satisfy more
> users.
>

Agree, self selecting surveys are rubbish, they are never representative.

> And, even for you (although I don't know what software you're using, or
> how you're using it), you could adjust the width of your browser so
> that, for you, everything is always in the same place.

Should not be my job to format a manual each time I open it.

>
> Anyway, I'm not really here to agitate the Geany developers
> (specifically).  As a "tilting at windmills" project, I would like to
> convince all web page builders to avoid specifying a width and letting
> the browser adjust it to suit the user.  Gives me something to do in my
> copious spare time. ;-)
>
>> Oh, and I'm not sure I quality as a younger person, I was programming
>> computers pre-Unix, thats right pre-Thomson & Ritchie Unix, not
>> pre-Linux.
>
> It was just a guess--sorry if I guessed wrong.  Hmm, could I guess at
> your age--I won't, but I'm guessing we're close to the same age--I
> started programming in 1968.  That was pre-C.  Without looking it up, I
> don't know if Unix came before or after C.  I started on IBM-360s and
> Univac 1108s.  Oh, wait, there was a smaller IBM that I used before the
> 360--wow--I'll never remember what that was.

Ummmm you win, (if you call being older a win ;-) I started in early
70s on DEC PDP-10s in Fortran.  Re-targettable Unix in C didn't come
about until late 70s although I understand assembler versions were
used inside AT&T earlier.

>
> Have a great day!
>
> Randy Kramer
>
>
>
>
>
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