Re: why does the text run on and on and on to the right, endlessly?

On 24 April 2017 at 08:33, Scott Kostyshak <[email protected]> wrote:

> On Mon, Apr 24, 2017 at 04:27:15PM +1000, [email protected] wrote:
> > Hi, Scott. Thanks for replying.
> >
> > Agreed, no, you don’t need a horizonotal scrollbar
> > on a proply-designed page, because you don’t need one.
>
> OK good. I just wanted to make sure we were seeing the same thing.
>
> > As they (all) say:
> >
> > Readability: the Optimal Line Length: Having the right amount of
> characters on each line is key to the readability of your text. It
> shouldn’t merely be your design that dictates the width of your text, it
> should also be a matter of legibility. The optimal line length for your
> body text is considered to be 50-60 characters per line, including spaces
> (“Typographie”, E. Ruder). Other sources suggest that up to 75 characters
> is acceptable.
> >
> > So can we have a page width of say 50 to 60 characters per line,
> including spaces?
>
> I would be in favor of previewing this change. It should be configurable
> somewhere in the Wiki settings.
>

Hi John,

I agree that from the perspective of readability it's not good with long
lines of text.
However, I think the way it works is simply due to how regular HTML/CSS and
your browser works -- and perhaps also what was standard 10+ years ago when
I set up the wiki.

Btw, as a workaround that I just verified works in at least Safari:
Make your browser window less wide, then the lines break earlier.


As for settings in the wiki, I don't remember a setting for changing line
width, it's all controlled via CSS that would need to be changed. Note that
such a setting should likely only affect some of the HTML elements, e.g. we
probably wouldn't want to limit the width of <code> or tables.

If you want to propose a (CSS) change, we can give it a try. The basic CSS
are as per the following file if I remember correctly:
   https://wiki.lyx.org/pub/skins/LyX/pmwiki.css

Note: I don't know CSS well enough to know where/how to implement something
that changes the line widths.

Regards,
Christian