In the lovely Pinafore client.

As a laptop user primarily, it's been an uphill battle getting good clients for #fediverse which recognize and respect the fact we have lots of pixels.

Responsive Design is great – I have started learning and practising it, understand the logic. Good stuff.

But, honestly – the internet has too much to offer for real work to be performed in a mobile device. Content creation, we need better software that allows us to use what's in our chosen platform.

Case in point, Wide Screen Displays.

Which I have made various attempts at getting improvements for. The default Mastodon web client is not very friendly to wide screens. Yes, there's the TweetDeck like AWI, and I have written and spoken to Eugen with some requests.

Here's the Mastodon web client, with the Advanced Web Interface (AWI) enabled. It defaults to those dreadful, skinny, non-resizeable columns. TweetDeck inspired, as Eugen was a Twitter user for many years and freely admits the AWI provenance. 😉

A proposal, presented.

Eugen and I chatted in a topic I started at his own instance. He couldn't understand my wish of having TWO wide panels in the AWI setting, yet those two using the full width of my screen.

Not much success there. 🙄😕

Then, a solution was found. Until, it broke.

Independently, I found a great way to use wide screens with the Collapsed Mastodon Firefox add-on. Worked wonderfully, and was so productive for me that I left aside #Pinafore, my client of choice – other than the small question of it using a single column content panel.

Here's what it looked like :

Shown above – Todon.nl's local timeline, via Mastodon web client. Browsed via Waterfox (Firefox family variant) with Collapsed Mastodon Firefox addon enabled. Two Wide panels chosen, other layouts possible, as desired. This is very unique and the most efficient workspace for Fediverse I ever had.

Writer's delight

That layout is perfect for someone reading and writing long form content, which is my case. It was possible, with Collapsed Mastodon, but changes in mastodon code starting at v.3.1.4 broke the add-on. What it did was no longer possible, so game over there.

Since AWI was no more...

...I now had no reason not to use the superior, fast, elegant Pinafore. Other than the OMG, so much screen area not being used, it's the very best client I know for the Fediverse instances. Mastodon and Pleroma are both supported.

There's the small question of maybe using a little MORE of my screen, though.

(centered on the screen. On my 1600 pixels wide display, that is using 600 pixels, about 40% of my screen's width. Only. Arghhhhh)

@nolan@toot.cafe is a talented programmer, and gracious in listening to the Pinafore users. He accommodated many requests to make Pinafore the best client for people using Screen Readers, for example.

Widen up the content panel?

Now, I am tinkering and trying things out. Posted some screenshots yesterday here, with a comparison – the current layout, and a tweaked, wider content panel, showing 800 pixels screen width.

Wowa! Much more information now. 50% of my screen in use!

This 800 pixels content panel was done by a on the fly css edit, manual. (I scrolled around in the css code until found the right property to change. Worked!!)

Sadly, hitting a Refresh wiped out my handy work. Oh, my.

Is it too wide? Maybe, it's a question of taste; it makes sense to me.

Twitter supports wide screens better

For comparison's purpose, I did some testing, and on the Twitter web client I was able to get this :

Screenshot above shows what their client can do, off the box, just by manipulating the provided controls. Screen scaling to 125%, and the font size reduced to the smaller setting. Snapshot taken in the Bravo browser.

Result? The central Content panel is shown here – at 750 pixels width.

Twitter does use the right side area for various boxes, like the Trending and Who to Follow shown. So it's not unreasonable that it has the width shown.

(Detail – my scaling up the whole screen in the browser was intended to collapse the labels for the icons in the left panel; which are superfluous for regular users, who know what they do)

Pinafore Responsive Layouts

Shows 3 classes of devices, see screenshot above.

• Mobile ( 320x480p) portrait/landscape
• Small Tablet (600x800p) 2 modes also
• Tablet (768x1024p) standard iPad res, 2 modes also

If we could get a couple of added new classes it would be wonderful. Could we, please ??

Desired new modes :

• Laptop with MDPI screen at 1280 x 800 p.
• Laptop with HiDPI screen at 1440 x 900 p.

With these two added, I would be able to see Pinafore in all its elegance and using my screen more efficiently.

I have spoken extensively with @lanodan@queer.hacktivis.me about getting this kind of support in place for #pleroma #mastoFE. He understands, and is working on it; being the only person maintaining that branch of Pleroma's FE project isn't easy, kudos to him.

Now, maybe Nolan could accept this request ? It would be wonderful.

Maximum Characters per line?

As Lanodan pointed out on a reply to the original Toot which is now this post, there are criteria for how many characters to display, per line.

We got to consider that too.

There is a time tested optimum width for text readability. The Write.freely blogs css code shows 50 em setting, for example.

I have been customizing my own blog, will try at up to 80 em like you suggested. That applies to a new wider Pinafore class of devices too — appreciate the insight!

Famous Last Words

Thank you all for the work you do in benefit of the many fediverse users.

#FediReporter on the crusade for better wide screen devices support.

(Uphill battle, but we shall persevere) #mastodev #UI #UX

Banner Photo by Alejandro Escamilla on Unsplash – Thank you!

@rgx@write.tedomum.net

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R.G. @rgx@muensterland.social Top ▲

That is a Good Question. Here's why.

A collage of recent posts on important issues we face in the Fediverse. And which we hopefully can move forward on.

Originally In response to a post by Snow

Why you chose Glitch social? It still can be affected by Eugen.

Indeed — Glitch-Social is a Much Better mastodon, but still has the heavy load of all the mastocode under the hood.

I would prefer to use Pleroma, BUT...

... There are some UGLY markdown rendering issues, and I cannot live with that.

From my Pleroma GitHub Issue post, a partial quote:

I have noticed that posts with H2 heading titles, created and displayed perfectly on a Glitch-Social instance, display without the Larger text expected for the title in Pleroma FE.

While it's possible that this is intentional, a fellow user suggested an issue be raised here, for discussion and in case this is not intended behaviour.

Example post : Marilyn. Always remembered.

Which display so in Pinafore client (logged at the source, a Glitch-Social instance, here using the Dark Greyscale theme) :

Made a big post yesterday about it and included Lain on it – hoping he would push the Pleroma FE people to fix that.

They also would need to improve the MastoFE

...under Pleroma a bit – it's the GlitchSocial web client, and very decent for me, as I am more used to this side of fedi.

PleromaFE is intriguing, but a SINGLE column to display info is so Wrong, for me — Wide Screen displays in PCs and Laptops deserve better.

And here's what I mean, better

The screenshot above is from Todon.nl — and that is running plain Vanilla Mastodon. (click image for full size version)

They just happened to have a better awi Wide Screen Theme, and without any extra software, I could get and use the work environment you see here, above.

And it can still get improved

As shown here, in another screenshot. From Todon.nl as well.

But now using a Firefox browser add-on, called 'Collapsed Mastodon'. (click image for full size version)

For me, this was the Dream Team, the best work environment for someone who likes to read and writes long form — which I do.

Sadly, changes in the Mastodon code since version 3.1.4 have disabled the styling which Collapsed Mastodon did.

It could be possible to do the same in the project's own Web Client code itself. If there's interest by the developers, which is the main obstacle to get anything done. (the user add-on, sadly no longer working. )

An ongoing battle for improvement

That's another one of my pet peeves – and one I am also working on. Hard to get changes made, I have reported things and offered suggestions.

Eugen R. doesn't even respond to me anymore. 🙄

(he thinks the skinny, narrow and ADHD inducing 4 panels awi is the shits, apparently.)

And he's not the only one...

My Suggestion for AWI enhancements on the Glitch-Social GitHub was posted 6 months ago. NO replies or comments. 🤨

My bug report at the PleromaFE Git hub was also posted a few months ago.

Issue 878 – MarkDown – Heading formatted text not displaying properly

No comments there at all. 🤔😐

Detailed explanation of the Wide Screen improvement

I have a fully explained and detailed Forum post about the proposal also. Please visit and check it out. It's publicly readable, and if you want to comment, a free registration only takes a minute.

Pleroma is the Future, but we need to fix some issues. Thank you!

#MastoFE #PleromaFE #PleromaDev #Pleroma #UI #ux

#FediReporter in action. We can do better, Fediverse.

@rgx@write.tedomum.net

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