Re: [lmi] Wrong wxFlexGridSizer usage in about_dialog.cpp

[Greg Chicares]

On 2010-01-14 22:37Z, Vadim Zeitlin wrote:
> On Thu, 14 Jan 2010 17:33:40 +0000 Greg Chicares <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> GC> Take a look at HEAD and see if you think it can be improved without
> GC> too much work.
> 
>  This depends on what exactly do we want to do. AFAIK the ideal width of a
> line of text from readability point of view is ~35em and it would be
> trivial to just make the HTML window of the appropriate [minimal] width
> [while still allowing the user to make it wider if he wants to]. And while
> I'm pretty sure that nobody is ever reading licences anyhow, I still think
> that showing lines of 200 characters (width of first line on my monitor
> right now) is somewhat untidy. OTOH using 80% height with ~35em width
> results in a very tall and narrow window (at least on my screen) which is
> not nice neither.

For the moment, let me discuss only this single point.

I compared several renditions of the Preface to The Hunting of the Snark,
and measured the first two lines in a word processor using "arial" font:

  http://www.gutenberg.org/files/29888/29888-h/29888-h.htm
  [about 47 em]
If—and the thing is wildly possible—the charge of writing nonsense were ever 
brought
against the author of this brief but instructive poem, it would be based, I 
feel convinced,

  http://books.google.com/books?id=9EwqAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA4
  [about 31 em]
If—and the thing is wildly possible—the charge of
writing nonsense were ever brought against the author of

  http://books.google.com/books?id=gA5JAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA1
  [about 25 em]
If—and the thing is wildly possible—the
charge of writing nonsense were ever brought

Here's a handy scale that you can paste into a word processor along
with the text above if you want to count the ems yourself:

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm <--25
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm <--30
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm <--35
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm <--40
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm <--45

But now here's one line from the firefox license, as firefox displays it
at 800x600 resolution:

All of the source code to this product is available under licenses which are 
both free and open source. Most is available under

I measure that as 66 em. However, at 1600x1200 resolution, it shows this
on one line:

All of the source code to this product is available under licenses which are 
both free and open source. Most is available under any one of the following: 
the Mozilla Public License (MPL), the GNU
General Public License (GPL) and the GNU Lesser General Public

which seems to be about 140 em. Of comparable length is this single line
from another software company's "terms of use":

http://www.microsoft.com/info/cpyright.mspx
The services that Microsoft provides to you are subject to the following Terms 
of Use ("TOU"). Microsoft reserves the right to update the TOU at any time 
without notice to you. The most current
version of the TOU can be reviewed by clicking on the "Terms of Use"

That's two hundred sixty-two characters. And this excerpt from a routine
corporate email displays as a single line at 1600x1200:

A Summary Annual Report (SAR) is a summary of the financial statements filed 
with the Department of Labor for certain employee benefit plans, which federal 
law requires us to distribute annually.

I believe you're absolutely right on aesthetic grounds, and I completely
agree with you there. The 25-em "Snark" printing linked to above sets a
quoted line thus:
  "Then the bowsprit got mixed with the rud-
    der sometimes":
whereas my personal copy writes that on one physical line, apparently
following a 35-em rule: that looks better.

However, our real goal is to do what's least astonishing for end users
whose expectations have been formed by large-corporation practice, which
I believe would favor the two-hundred-character lines that HEAD displays.
I've sent email that's 65 characters wide (about 35 em) and been asked to
use a "normal" width instead--or, preferably, to write only "please read
the attached message" and attach a word-processor document.