Can we use up some of the crazy whitespace on larger displays?

Currently there is a ton of whitespace around the main content of the pages on my 1920x1200 display, while everything else is very small and packed into the middle 960 pixels. It probably looks great on mobile, but it’s really compressed on desktop-sized monitors.

Could we get a bit of responsiveness in the design to let the elements spread out as display width increases? Maybe throw in some breakpoints or percentage sizing?

Thanks!

Tyrphanax said:

Currently there is a ton of whitespace around the main content of the pages on my 1920x1200 display, while everything else is very small and packed into the middle 960 pixels. It probably looks great on mobile, but it’s really compressed on desktop-sized monitors.

Could we get a bit of responsiveness in the design to let the elements spread out as display width increases? Maybe throw in some breakpoints or percentage sizing?

Thanks!

What I came here to say.

Sorry, I broke the image link. It’s fixed now, but it looks basically like Jeebus posted.

As to what to fill it with, that’s why I mentioned responsive design. Make the content flow out to fit larger displays better. Have fonts and divs get larger and whatnot. That kinda thing.

I really like this new design, though. Lots of improvements over the previous!

Here’s how it looks like on my 13" MacBook display:

After pressing ⌘+ a couple of times:

So yes, it could use some improvement even on smaller displays.

Also: There’s this pretty cool feature in Safari where you can press ⌥ ⌘ R and see how the site looks on various sized devices.

Jay said:

Tyrphanax said:

Sorry, I broke the image link. It’s fixed now, but it looks basically like Jeebus posted.

As to what to fill it with, that’s why I mentioned responsive design. Make the content flow out to fit larger displays better. Have fonts and divs get larger and whatnot. That kinda thing.

I really like this new design, though. Lots of improvements over the previous!

Thanks for the compliments.

It is a responsive design…and it’s actually the same width it was before the update 😃

The overall size of elements is smaller based on previous feedback that everything was too big. I might tweak some of the font sizes though.

Yeah, I really do love the layout and font choices and buttons and everything with the new layout. It feels like it’s matured very well. I think it’s perfect as it is now on mobiles and tablets in terms of design.

Just having the width of the main container and its children, along with font sizes (just by a few pixels, I like smaller fonts in general) expand along with monitor width would really be awesome for desktop.

Thanks for responding, Jay!

Have there been small tweeks since the recent change-up or am I just getting used to it so fast? I’m really liking this!

Jay said:

I bumped up the default font size just a bit (to 14px). I might bump it up another pixel or two, which would put the font size at what it was previously.

For comparison’s sake:

http://web.archive.org/web/20160314090816/http://originaltrilogy.com/announcement/Status-of-the-first-forum-update/id/47378
http://originaltrilogy.com/announcement/Status-of-the-first-forum-update/id/47378/page/1

I doubt I’ll make the main container any wider. The only effect that will have is to make lines of text longer and less comfortable to read, and only for the sake of filling up a large display (the same argument made for open matte and cropped scope film transfers, which is no argument at all). We’re already many more characters per line than most typographers would recommend and I’m fighting the urge to tighten it up:

http://baymard.com/blog/line-length-readability

I might remove the dark background resulting in the sidebars, which would give the impression that the page is wider. It might be the bounding box that makes things feel squished.

I think the default font up has pretty much addressed it.

I do agree stretching the main container much wider than this wouldn’t really fit the format now that I’m thinking about it (and your analogy is good). I think maybe I was just reacting to the contrast between the background and the main content making it feel more claustrophobic than it was?

Either way, with the font a bit larger it’s definitely comfortable enough for me to zoom back out to default scaling, and I feel like it’s the perfect middle ground between the old style (too big) and the newer (too small), so I think we’re good on the font front at least.

It seems a lot better now. I really think just bumping the font up a lot made it all mesh much better.

btw: dig the new quote designs. I hated the bigass quote trains that would happen in some threads (to the points that I wouldn’t quote in certain situations) and the expand button and dividers are fantastic. Great work.