From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org ([208.92.234.80] helo=lists.gentoo.org) by finch.gentoo.org with esmtp (Exim 4.60) (envelope-from ) id 1P1Mia-00041S-N9 for garchives@archives.gentoo.org; Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:14:53 +0000 Received: from pigeon.gentoo.org (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 3DCF7E0700; Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:13:52 +0000 (UTC) Received: from smtp.gentoo.org (smtp.gentoo.org [140.211.166.183]) by pigeon.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 1F2F0E0700 for ; Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:13:52 +0000 (UTC) Received: from localhost (localhost [127.0.0.1]) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id A87F01B4092 for ; Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:13:51 +0000 (UTC) X-Virus-Scanned: by amavisd-new using ClamAV at gentoo.org X-Spam-Score: -2.247 X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-2.247 required=5.5 tests=[AWL=0.352, BAYES_00=-2.599] Received: from smtp.gentoo.org ([127.0.0.1]) by localhost (smtp.gentoo.org [127.0.0.1]) (amavisd-new, port 10024) with ESMTP id LOYgQSWpx-MR for ; Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:13:45 +0000 (UTC) Received: from lo.gmane.org (lo.gmane.org [80.91.229.12]) by smtp.gentoo.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E6C571B403C for ; Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:13:44 +0000 (UTC) Received: from list by lo.gmane.org with local (Exim 4.69) (envelope-from ) id 1P1MhL-0003HA-GX for gentoo-user@gentoo.org; Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:13:35 +0200 Received: from dsl.comtrol.com ([64.122.56.22]) by main.gmane.org with esmtp (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:13:35 +0200 Received: from grant.b.edwards by dsl.comtrol.com with local (Gmexim 0.1 (Debian)) id 1AlnuQ-0007hv-00 for ; Thu, 30 Sep 2010 19:13:35 +0200 X-Injected-Via-Gmane: http://gmane.org/ To: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org From: Grant Edwards Subject: [gentoo-user] ridiculously wide handbook pages Date: Thu, 30 Sep 2010 17:13:24 +0000 (UTC) Message-ID: Precedence: bulk List-Post: List-Help: List-Unsubscribe: List-Subscribe: List-Id: Gentoo Linux mail X-BeenThere: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Reply-to: gentoo-user@lists.gentoo.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Complaints-To: usenet@dough.gmane.org X-Gmane-NNTP-Posting-Host: dsl.comtrol.com User-Agent: slrn/pre0.9.9-102 (Linux) X-Archives-Salt: 9d85e2a1-94ae-476b-a686-760c2f5ac2ac X-Archives-Hash: fd32fff39b7414f645d89dbbb7552d26 I've noticed recently that the Gentoo handbook web pages are ridiculously wide. (It seems to me that they didn't used to be, but I wouldn't swear to that). For example, look at this page: http://www.gentoo.org/proj/en/base/embedded/handbook/?part=1&chap=2 The normal text paragraphs have lines that average over 160 characters per line. The generally accepted guideline for line length in order to maintain good readability is 40-80. The above page's lines are 2-4 times as long as recommended for good readability, and they are in fact so long that I can't make my browser wide enough to see an entire line. Line lengths that long make the pages hard to read even if you _can_ make your browser wide enough to show an entire line. The regular handbook is a little better: http://www.gentoo.org/doc/en/handbook/handbook-x86.xml?full=1 That has lines that average about 140 characters. That's still much longer than what I'd consider good practice. Do the extremely long lines in the handbook web pages bother anybody else? I can understand that things like example code blocks or sample command input/output blocks might need to be wide enough to require horizontal scrolling of a browser window, but normal text paragraphs with 160 characters per line? -- Grant Edwards grant.b.edwards Yow! Is this going to at involve RAW human ecstasy? gmail.com