Sphene Community Tools

Easiest to explain with an example:

http://sct.sphene.net/board/thread/836/?page=1#post-836

If you have a screen with a width of 1024 pixels or less it is impossible to read this thread. The first code block in the thread is wide and forces all the content to this width. Process: read the first part of line, move to bottom of page, scroll right, move to top of page and read remainder of line. Line 2 repeat process...etc., etc.

In the site I am presently creating I have changed the template for the board so the navigation goes at the top of the page and therefore gives more available width.

Another solution might be to put each post in its own div with an overflow: scroll. A very long post would still have the problem described above.

Yet another solution might be to restrict the editor to a certain width (like with text email) configurable within the admin interface. Though I could see that annoying some users when posting code.

Thoughts?

hmm.. i'm not even sure why the content scrolls in the thread you've linked.

i don't think limiting the width in the posts is a good idea.. you would need to limit a word length because in "normal" text the words are wrapped anyway .. so there wouldn't be scroll bars ?

maybe the best way would be really to have every post surrounded by a overflow:scroll div .. this way at least only one post is hard to read, instead of the whole thread..

Thanks for the reply.

Herbert Poul said @ 2008-10-20 17:54:40:

hmm.. i'm not even sure why the content scrolls in the thread you've linked.

My mistake it is actually a line in the last post on that page (I have broken the line in two so as not to break this thread too ;) )

ROOT_PATH/communitytools/sphenecoll/sphene/
<application>/templates/<path-provided-by-extend>

Herbert Poul said @ 2008-10-20 17:54:40:

i don't think limiting the width in the posts is a good idea.. you would need to limit a word length because in "normal" text the words are wrapped anyway .. so there wouldn't be scroll bars ?

I think URLs and some code can be the problem. There is also a correlation between available width and text size. A possible problem for people with sight issues, think WAI, and people with smaller devices, think PDA.

Herbert Poul said @ 2008-10-20 17:54:40:

maybe the best way would be really to have every post surrounded by a overflow:scroll div .. this way at least only one post is hard to read, instead of the whole thread..

I'll maybe think of moving the user information to the top, as well, to increase available width. This is not an issue limited to SCT I often see it with wikis and blogs.

well .. i guess the best way would be if the whole page design would be dynamic :) but i have no idea if this is even possible with floating divs in css .. (by dynamic i mean that the whole page simply grows to the right.. so you scroll the whole page.. not just the center column..)