bug#40909: eww: Add max width option similar to Man-width-max

bug#40909: eww: Add max width option similar to Man-width-max

[Stefan Kangas]

Severity: wishlist
X-Debbugs-CC: larsi@gnus.org>

Please consider implementing an option for eww that works like
'Man-width-max'.  I suggest a default value of 80, the same as
Man-width-max.

Currently, we use eww by default when following links from
'display-about-screen', and it's very hard to read the rendered pages
on high-resolution monitors.  So I think this would help the new user
experience.

See also, for background:
https://debbugs.gnu.org/cgi/bugreport.cgi?bug=32536

Best regards,
Stefan Kangas

bug#40909: eww: Add max width option similar to Man-width-max

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se>
> Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2020 20:24:26 +0200
> Cc: , larsi@gnus.org
> 
> Please consider implementing an option for eww that works like
> 'Man-width-max'.  I suggest a default value of 80, the same as
> Man-width-max.
> 
> Currently, we use eww by default when following links from
> 'display-about-screen', and it's very hard to read the rendered pages
> on high-resolution monitors.  So I think this would help the new user
> experience.

Isn't shr-width enough to do what you want?

bug#40909: eww: Add max width option similar to Man-width-max

[Stefan Kangas]

Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:

> Isn't shr-width enough to do what you want?

Oh, I had missed that it exists.  It's almost there, but its default
is not 80.  Could we change that?

Also, it's too bad that it didn't show up when I did the obvious
thing: 'M-x customize-group RET eww RET' -- is there something that
could be done about that?

Best regards,
Stefan Kangas

bug#40909: eww: Add max width option similar to Man-width-max

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se>
> Cc: larsi@gnus.org,  40909@debbugs.gnu.org
> Date: Mon, 27 Apr 2020 21:20:49 +0200
> 
> Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> writes:
> 
> > Isn't shr-width enough to do what you want?
> 
> Oh, I had missed that it exists.  It's almost there, but its default
> is not 80.  Could we change that?

Isn't it enough to bind it for this display only? or change its
buffer-local value?

> Also, it's too bad that it didn't show up when I did the obvious
> thing: 'M-x customize-group RET eww RET' -- is there something that
> could be done about that?

shr is a separate package.

bug#40909: eww: Add max width option similar to Man-width-max

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se> writes:

> Oh, I had missed that it exists.  It's almost there, but its default
> is not 80.  Could we change that?

I think the natural default is the frame width -- people have presumably
chosen a frame width they are comfortable with using.

> Also, it's too bad that it didn't show up when I did the obvious
> thing: 'M-x customize-group RET eww RET' -- is there something that
> could be done about that?

shr is an HTML rendering library, eww is a browser that uses that
library.  (But you could envision a different browser based on shr.)

But it would make sense to point users to shr variables, too, when they
are customising eww.  Does Customize have support for something like
that?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#40909: eww: Add max width option similar to Man-width-max

[Stefan Kangas]

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

>> Oh, I had missed that it exists.  It's almost there, but its default
>> is not 80.  Could we change that?
>
> I think the natural default is the frame width -- people have presumably
> chosen a frame width they are comfortable with using.

I think that large, wide monitors are increasingly common, and I
suspect many people simply run Emacs in full screen mode.

It's generally easier to read text if it's restricted to 50-80
characters or so.[1]

Compare to how many large web sites no longer use the full screen
width, as was common when the web was young, but restrict it to a
predetermined maximum width even on large monitors.

I mean, ideally I suppose we would pick that out from the CSS, but
that sounds very hard to do.  So, at least to my mind, changing the
default of shr-width to 80 might be the next best thing.

> But it would make sense to point users to shr variables, too, when they
> are customising eww.

Yes, this would be good.

Best regards,
Stefan Kangas

Footnotes:
[1]  https://graphicdesign.stackexchange.com/questions/13724/recommended-column-width-for-text-reading-digital-vs-printed

bug#40909: eww: Add max width option similar to Man-width-max

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se> writes:

> Currently, we use eww by default when following links from
> 'display-about-screen', and it's very hard to read the rendered pages
> on high-resolution monitors.  So I think this would help the new user
> experience.

I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what you mean.  Why would reading
anything be more difficult on HiDPI monitors?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#40909: eww: Add max width option similar to Man-width-max

[Stefan Kangas]

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se> writes:
>
>> Currently, we use eww by default when following links from
>> 'display-about-screen', and it's very hard to read the rendered pages
>> on high-resolution monitors.  So I think this would help the new user
>> experience.
>
> I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what you mean.  Why would reading
> anything be more difficult on HiDPI monitors?

Sorry, I mean on a large monitor with e.g. 16:9 aspect ratio.

Best regards,
Stefan Kangas

bug#40909: eww: Add max width option similar to Man-width-max

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se> writes:

>> I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what you mean.  Why would reading
>> anything be more difficult on HiDPI monitors?
>
> Sorry, I mean on a large monitor with e.g. 16:9 aspect ratio.

Oh, with the frames full-width?  It didn't even occur to me that anybody
would do something like that.  :-)

Is that a thing people do?  I mean...  why?  That'll leave a lot of
unused screen real estate for most things Emacs displays.

But, yes, rendering web pages very wide is usually not good for
readability, but...  if a person has decided to have full-width frames,
doesn't that also mean that that person likes to have really long lines?

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#40909: eww: Add max width option similar to Man-width-max

[Stefan Kangas]

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

>>> I'm sorry, I don't quite understand what you mean.  Why would reading
>>> anything be more difficult on HiDPI monitors?
>>
>> Sorry, I mean on a large monitor with e.g. 16:9 aspect ratio.
>
> Oh, with the frames full-width?  It didn't even occur to me that anybody
> would do something like that.  :-)

Yes, that's my normal use-case.  I'd rather deal with Emacs than any
window manager.

> Is that a thing people do?  I mean...  why?  That'll leave a lot of
> unused screen real estate for most things Emacs displays.

When I start Emacs it's just one full screen frame and one window.
But I generally use 2-3 windows vertically when working.

FWIW, I asked on the #emacs IRC channel and at least some people
reported they usually do something similar.

> But, yes, rendering web pages very wide is usually not good for
> readability, but...  if a person has decided to have full-width frames,
> doesn't that also mean that that person likes to have really long lines?

Not in my use, at least, it doesn't mean that.  I configure everything
to be 80 columns wide, if at all possible.  Long lines are very
annoying, arguably probably even more so in my use-case than in
others.

Best regards,
Stefan Kangas

bug#40909: eww: Add max width option similar to Man-width-max

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se> writes:

> Not in my use, at least, it doesn't mean that.  I configure everything
> to be 80 columns wide, if at all possible.  Long lines are very
> annoying, arguably probably even more so in my use-case than in
> others.

Yeah, that's the usage pattern I'd expect -- you have a window that is
the width you're most comfortable with, and then shr renders using that
width, surely?

If shr uses a width wider than the window in this scenario, that's a bug
in shr.

The problem with defaulting shr-width to anything in particular is that
the rendering will be wonky if you then have a window that's narrower
than that.

I think introducing a new variable, shr-max-width, might perhaps be
nice?  That is, no matter how wide a window you have, nobody probably
wants to read HTML formatted wider than that.  

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no

bug#40909: eww: Add max width option similar to Man-width-max

[Stefan Kangas]

Lars Ingebrigtsen <larsi@gnus.org> writes:

> I think introducing a new variable, shr-max-width, might perhaps be
> nice?  That is, no matter how wide a window you have, nobody probably
> wants to read HTML formatted wider than that.  

Yes, that makes sense and would work for my use-case.  See also
`Man-width-max'.

Best regards,
Stefan Kangas

bug#40909: eww: Add max width option similar to Man-width-max

[Lars Ingebrigtsen]

Stefan Kangas <stefan@marxist.se> writes:

>> I think introducing a new variable, shr-max-width, might perhaps be
>> nice?  That is, no matter how wide a window you have, nobody probably
>> wants to read HTML formatted wider than that.  
>
> Yes, that makes sense and would work for my use-case.  See also
> `Man-width-max'.

I've now added this to Emacs 28.

-- 
(domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.)
   bloggy blog: http://lars.ingebrigtsen.no