Re:On Making Oneself Less Unreadable
by cdancette on Tuesday December 05, 2017 @06:30PM
(#15857167)
You should not quote like this, use > rather. It is unreadable on mobile, we don't want that, do we?
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:On Making Oneself Less Unreadable
by germinalphrase on Tuesday December 05, 2017 @06:41PM
(#15857251)
This complaint seems to appear on a regular basis (because it's accurate). Can't we just fix that issue rather than attempting to reinforce some community norm about quote formatting?
> This complaint seems to appear on a regular basis (because it's accurate). Can't we just fix that issue rather than attempting to reinforce some community norm about quote formatting?
As you indicate, there is nothing to fix when the complaint of incorrect usage is accurate. The markup quotes _verbatim_. Therefore quoting long lines will scroll on smaller screens.
https://news.ycombinator.com/formatdoc
* Blank lines separate paragraphs.
* Text after a blank line that is indented by two or more spaces is reproduced verbatim. (This is intended for code.)
* Urls become links, except in the text field of a submission
Re:On Making Oneself Less Unreadable
by colanderman on Tuesday December 05, 2017 @09:29PM
(#15858026)
I think the "fix" GP is suggesting is for HN to add a "blockquote" syntax. i.e., make text like this:
> something quoted which is very long and let's pretend it wraps lines
look something like this (sans horizontal scrolling):
| something quoted which is very long and
| let's pretend it wraps lines
Imageboards use that syntax for quotes as well, italicizing and changing the text color, highlighting the quoted text without the scrolling issues of a blockquote.
I had a userscript doing that on HN for a while along with as other text fixes, and the result seemed quite readable.
That's a good idea.
And then you still can't quote a poem without double line spacing, because blank lines are paragraphs, and line breaks are ignored. The HN markup is really lacking.
Re:On Making Oneself Less Unreadable
by dredmorbius on Wednesday December 06, 2017 @01:28AM
(#15859028)
Markdown provides for this by double-spacing at the end of a line to indicate a hard wrap.
That's genius, and would be such a neat addition to HN.
And then you still can't quote a poem without double
linespacing, because blank lines are paragraphs, and line
breaks are ignored. The HN markup is really lacking.
Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.When the lines are short, that works, but when lines are longer, mobile users complain.
You can't start a fire sitting 'round crying over a broken heart
This gun's for hire
Even if we're just dancing in the dark
You can't start a fire worrying about your little world falling apart
And when using it for code and only code, as per "official instructions", you can't.
Line 1 Line 2
> Line 1 > Line 2
I get it. I was showing that the double space doesn't happen between quoted lines.
Re:On Making Oneself Less Unreadable
by dredmorbius on Wednesday December 06, 2017 @01:26AM
(#15859022)
I'd like to see HN get full Markdown support.
I've just added the following rule to my local HN CSS stylesheet (using the Stylus CSS manager):
pre { white-space: pre-wrap; }
My full set of mods: https://pastebin.com/jWFqQSj9
Re:On Making Oneself Less Unreadable
by EvilTerran on Wednesday December 06, 2017 @04:12AM
(#15859706)
If you're in a position to use uBlock Origin on mobile (eg, I'm using Firefox for Android), you can use its custom filters to inject arbitrary CSS. Looks like this (from my own filters):
news.ycombinator.com##.comment pre:style(max-width:none!important)
news.ycombinator.com##.comment code:style(white-space:pre-wrap)It's unreadable on desktop too, isn't it? it looks like it cuts off early
Anyone remember Opera, and the magic it could do to fit just about anything into the tiniest viewports? If a mobile browser can't handle nowrap text, demand the browser to be fixed, instead of playing whack-a-mole on every single comment. And give HN proper blockquote and inline quote styles and corresponding markup while you're at it; then non-proportional text can be used for cases where it makes sense, quotes are quotes (and can have super fancy things like italic or non-proportional text within them), and even when people use things "wrong" it's no biggie because your browser is getting the basics right.