Post an Entry: flexible width, centered page

[ninetydegrees]

Title:
Post an Entry: flexible width, centered page

Area:
http://www.dreamwidth.org/update, http://www.dreamwidth.org/editjournal

Summary:
Make the width of 'Post an Entry/Edit Entry' flexible and center it for better posting/editing in all types of screen resolution.

Description:
I have a widescreen laptop and the forms on 'Post an Entry'/'Edit Entry' are ridiculously small. The largest form is only about half the width of my screen and the whole page's aligned on the left making using this page really uncomfortable for me. I think a flexible width would work for everybody. Y/N?

Poll #1218 Post an Entry: flexible width, centered page

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 36

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
14 (38.9%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
17 (47.2%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
1 (2.8%)

(I have no opinion)
4 (11.1%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[zvi]

Flexible width, yes, centered no.

[snakeling]

Yes, this.

[turlough]

+1

[kerravonsen]

+1

[msilverstar]

yes please

[existence]

Word.

+1

[inarticulate]

+1

[syderia]

+1

[cheyinka]

+1

[coraa]

This!

[schnurble]

+1

[triadruid]

*scratches head* How would that be different? Maybe we're talking about different methods of centering...

...Actually, I was just going to mock up an example, but http://www.dreamwidth.org/update already is flexible width for me. dreamwidth.org/editjournal isn't, which is odd, but ideally it should look like the other, in my book.

editjournal:


update:

[ninetydegrees]

You can have flexible width but a larger margin on the right/left than on the opposite side. So flexible but not centered.

It's odd indeed as #updateForm has a max-width set to 800px. Maybe your browser ignores this? And yeah, strangely, the two pages are coded slightly differently. It took me a while to understand how to make Edit Entry flexible.

[chemicallace]

As I'm working on this bug right now, what is overriding #updateForm on the Edit Entry page? I've been sifting through code for a while now and haven't hit on it. I do wonder why they're coded differently, as it makes it a pain to correlate the area of one page to the other.

[denise]

I don't know, but if nobody has a good answer, do feel free to move the construction of it out into a function that's called in both places. Refactoring 4tw.

[ninetydegrees]

On Edit Entry you've got a table with no defined width (and that's what I had to override) then a div then the form:

<table><tr><td><div style='width: 100%; float: left;'><form

On Post Entry you've got a table with a defined width then the form:

<table width='100%'><tr valign='top'><td>

<form method='post' action='update' id='updateForm' name='updateForm'>

I don't understand why Edit Entry is coded that way. I didn't try to see what would happen if I recoded it using the Post Entry way of doing things.

I think Denise has the right idea here: refactoring and making it the same on both pages.

[chemicallace]

I was thinking that might be the problem but didn't want to start re-coding because the end tag for the edit page div is unpleasant to deal with in the bml document. Oh, tables...

The other issue is making the entry box wider than the site scheme. It's easy to change the width in updateForm, but it's still not going to be wider than the toolbar at the top of the site scheme in tropo. I'm not sure if that's desirable, so I'm going to write the patch for the easy way out and let it be discussed on zilla. As someone with a 12" laptop and a 1024x768 screen, it all looks huge to me.

[ninetydegrees]

Well, I set the max-width to 85% and it doesn't really change anything for me when viewing the page in a 1024px wide resolution - it's what? 70px wider if I do the maths. However, it's quite bigger in my normal resolution so maybe something smaller (70%?) would be better. It would make the box smaller on lower resolutions too.

[charmian]

I'm not sure this should be implemented for all users, because people have so many different systems, it might end up messing things up for some. Perhaps as an option for those who choose it?

[ninetydegrees]

Can you explain how it could mess things up?

[charmian]

Some people may dislike centered boxes. I myself would highly prefer the box either being on the left, as it is.

[ninetydegrees]

Ok, thanks for clarifying.

[susanreads]

I'm not bothered either way about centring, but making the boxes wider, so much yes! Also, on comment entry boxes, which are OK for comments like this but break up long link addresses.