[Freelance Traveller] Presentation Opinions Sought

[FreeTrav]

As you have seen in the PDF magazine, the "print" version of Freelance Traveller is in two columns. The website, however, even if you choose to print an article from it, is only one column. There is a technique that many (but not all) recent browsers honor that can be used to cause the articles to print in two columns from the website.

QUESTION THE FIRST: Shall I implement this technique, so that when a visitor chooses to print an article from the website, it prints in a two-column format? Browsers that do not honor the technique will see no change from the current print format.

QUESTION THE SECOND: The same technique is honored by the same browsers for screen display as well. However, whereas the print version sensibly breaks columns for page breaks, on the screen, one would end up scrolling down whilst reading the first column, then manually jumping back to the top of the page, then reading down the second column. Shall I implement the technique for screen display? Again, browsers that do not honor the technique will see no change from the current display format.

 

[Whipsnade]

Jeff,

I should think that if these techniques are now common practice for websites, they should be common practice at your website.

UNLESS implementing them is burdensome to you in any manner whatsoever.


Regards,
Bill

 

[Hemdian]

Screen and dead tree are different mediums and what works for one doesn't necessarily translate. I generally prefer full-sized dead tree to be 2 columns and screen to be one. The exception being that when printing a web page I like to see it on paper exactly as it was on the screen.

Answer to QUESTION THE FIRST: Perhaps make it optional?

Answer to QUESTION THE SECOND: No thank you.

 

[Spinward Scout]

Sounds like a lot of extra trouble since you already have a 'print' version on PDF. It's good that you want to go the extra mile, but I don't think it's necessary.

 

[saundby]

Fine As-Is

I don't feel it's necessary to go to extra effort to provide two columns for a web-print. If the full formatting is desired, the pdf of the magazine itself is available.

There are enough potential problems with a print css file without trying to maintain something dramatically different from the screen page, to my mind. I just try to take away the stuff that only makes sense onscreen and reduce the colors on my own site. E.g., no navbar or backdrop foofoo, and high contrast.

Anyway, that's my view.

 

[FreeTrav]

Actually, they're NOT burdensome at all; they're a minor change to the stylesheet(s), and it immediately propagates through the entire site. What's more, if you're using a browser that doesn't (yet) support it, you see no change; only those browsers that support it will see the change.

Feedback elsewhere has led me to the decision that it will NOT be applied to screen presentation; I am still undecided about printing the web page.

The format of the PDF magazine will NOT be changing in the forseeable future.

 

[FreeTrav]

Answer to QUESTION THE FIRST: Perhaps make it optional?

Unfortunately, current browsers do not admit of a reasonable, easy, and useful way to do so. It's either yes or no; Opera ostensibly does support such a mechanism, but I've never gotten it to work in testing.

As far as

...when printing a web page I like to see it on paper exactly as it was on the screen. ...

, it's been years since that was actually the case for Freelance Traveller; early on, I did a print-friendly version via print stylesheets which eliminated the massive overuse of black ink for the navigation and masthead areas, and used a serif font for text and sans-serif for titling rather than vice-versa, simply because the differing actual resolution made those decisions user-friendly. This would simply be extending the user-friendliness a little farther - but into an area where it's a bit more open to opinion as to whether it should be done.

 

[FreeTrav]

My response to this is "thank you for considering the trouble-to-me issue, but that's actually for me to worry about!". It is far less trouble than you might think; I literally have to add maybe six lines of code to *one* file on the website to accomplish it. The question is whether visitors would find the change positive or not.

 

[saundby]

OK, cool.

Onscreen I typically prefer one column of main text to avoid scroll-down then scroll-up, with my eyes having strayed ahead while reading the first column (more of a problem onscreen than in print, for me.) I don't mind sidebars in the main flow.

This is especially the case on smaller screens (like the 1024x600 netbook I'm presently posting from.)