Width of the Collectives app (white space between page content and page list)

[mejo-]

On large screens, there's a lot of unusued white space between page content and page list.

We got the feedback a few times that this looks "wrong" and ugly.

[mejo-]

In GitLab by @crobarcro on Sep 8, 2021, 13:40

I was actually planning to ask the same issue. In principle the default width is a 'good' or 'comfortable' reading width, or would be in a printed book. But in a wiki style format, usually you just want as much info on the page as possible.

[mejo-]

In GitLab by @ya-d on Sep 9, 2021, 10:58

Oh, please don't. I honestly don't know who at Wikipedia thinks its a good idea to spread lines full width on a 27" monitor. Just think of any newspaper, magazine or text based site. None is doing this because it is an awful reading experience and every typography guide tells you lines of 90+ characters harm reading. Whitespace is not a bad thing.

Of course it's something different to more closely connect page content and page list. Maybe center text-container to app-content-wrapper instead of app-content-details or simply align it to the page list on the left with some margin. (Like rich workspaces in Files.)

[mejo-]

In GitLab by @crobarcro on Sep 9, 2021, 11:24

Perhaps make it an admin or user-settable option then? I suspect there will be many opinions on this.

[mejo-]

We discussed this in the design call and didn't come up with a good solution so far.

We agreed though that simply extending the editor width is not an option - as wide text is neither legible nor looking well.

[mejo-]

In GitLab by @RCrozier on Oct 27, 2021, 11:01

Allowing at least images to be wider than the text would be a good option?

Allowing users to decide the text width seems like a good solution to me, since this is a personal preference. Some people hate wide text, others would prefer it.

[mejo-]

In GitLab by @KopfKrieg on Sep 26, 2022, 20:33

Images and tables maybe? Text is fine for me, but especially tables are a problem because the width is simply too small for more than 3-4 columns.

[theron29]

We discussed this in the design call and didn't come up with a good solution so far.

We agreed though that simply extending the editor width is not an option - as wide text is neither legible nor looking well.

Please do not think about this problem only from the 'simple text' perspective. If e.g. tables, code snippets, pictures, graphs or diagrams are included, the current (very small) width of Collectives pages is borderline with unusable :-(

If I look at e.g. Atlassian Confluence, they resolved this issue by including a small icon somewhere in the corner to switch between small width and wide(r) width. That seems like a good compromise, which is very useful for us normal people working all day long with standard widescreen displays with a need to store complex readable information/documentation online.

Thank you.

[KaeTuuN]

Today, on a modern PC or Laptop with at least a 16:9 screen, this App is rather useless as a Wiki. Looking at a table that is larger than 2x2 is just a pain in the ***.

My suggestions are:

1. Increase the standard width at least by 25%!
2. Implement a Button to switch between "Full Width" an "Standard width" (like @theron29 wrote)
3. Think about a dynamic width based on the available Space (maybe width a min and max value)
   All of these points could be developed and implemented separatly but I think this will increase the usability of Collectives a lot!

Greetings,
Kae