Tweak it a bit?
Tweak it a bit?
Posted Aug 22, 2024 5:25 UTC (Thu) by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)Parent article: Formatted Rust kernel documentation available
1. The left panel can't be hidden.
2. The text does not scale to the full size of the screen.
Posted Aug 22, 2024 16:24 UTC (Thu)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link] (3 responses)
That's not uncommon complaint: LWN, e.g., have the exact same issues. I just come to accept that people are different and these two things are, for some reasons, desired by most readers, or else why would they persist for decades?
Posted Aug 22, 2024 16:28 UTC (Thu)
by daroc (editor, #160859)
[Link] (2 responses)
In LWN's case, you can customize how the site appears in your preferences. Specifically, you can set the width of the main text element. We don't have a way to hide the sidebar in there, but it does automatically hide itself if the window gets too narrow.
Posted Aug 22, 2024 16:40 UTC (Thu)
by corbet (editor, #1)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Aug 22, 2024 22:02 UTC (Thu)
by khim (subscriber, #9252)
[Link]
You can play similar tricks with Rust documentation, too (only there Hide persistent navigation bar is option in preferences and maximum width requires CSS styles override). My point wasn't that LWN is badly done, but more of an opposite. Countless web sites use such design. Heck, even such different things as Windows 95 Help system or Chrome/Firefox settings are done in the same fashion. Or, damn, Norton Utilities for DOS (starting from version 4.5? don't remember, but not from version 1, that's for sure). If so many adopt it, then, perhaps, that's what people perceive as “pleasant and useful”, otherwise it wouldn't have survived for so many years! Alternative would be an admission that all these designers that done so many various web sites (and not just web sites!) with this rough layout approach are all idiots that push things that people hate… or maybe that there are some worldwide conspiracy that makes them do that… and these theories are all very strange and convoluted, it's much easier to believe that something that you, personally, may not like is, in reality, something that other people, mostly, like.
Posted Aug 24, 2024 0:05 UTC (Sat)
by notriddle (subscriber, #130608)
[Link] (3 responses)
Yes it can. Click the cog wheel button, then check "Hide persistent navigation bar".
> 2. The text does not scale to the full size of the screen.
That sounds easy, until you realize that half of rustdoc's output is hard-wrapped code anyway. It's not worth it.
Posted Aug 24, 2024 0:14 UTC (Sat)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link] (2 responses)
OK, thanks! It'd be nice to add a button right on the bar, because these settings and nigh undiscoverable.
Posted Aug 24, 2024 1:02 UTC (Sat)
by notriddle (subscriber, #130608)
[Link] (1 responses)
Is the name of the setting not clear? Or is the settings button itself not easy to recognize?
(I'm trying to come up with a mitigation that doesn't add another button. Lots of people think rustdoc has too many buttons already.)
Posted Aug 24, 2024 1:17 UTC (Sat)
by Cyberax (✭ supporter ✭, #52523)
[Link]
The "persistent navigation bar" can probably also be renamed as "side panel".
Tweak it a bit?
Tweak it a bit?
Just to add to that: the sidebar disappears when the window gets too narrow, and there is also a preference (Maximum width for handset presentation) that lets you control the value of "too narrow". Set that preference to a suitably large number, and the sitebar will be banished forevermore.
Tweak it a bit?
Tweak it a bit?
Tweak it a bit?
Tweak it a bit?
Tweak it a bit?
Tweak it a bit?