Render FreeBSD Handbook using old style?

[zirias@]

The general rule some would use is that no line would extend past 75 characters but that's a rule for people who don't know what to do.

In fact, that's a rule for monospaced fonts (they need in average more horizontal space per character than proportional fonts). There's a reason 80col-terminals were very successful for a long time!

 

[zirias@]

I've yet to try Links or Lynx, but basic browsers should work fine for documentation without people having to chase latest, shiniest browsers, no?

"Should" is the key, unfortunately. Well, didn't test FreeBSD handbook so far, I kind of expect it to stand out as a good example, yet to be verified.

But in general, making sure your markup is correct (including all necessary semantics) is "forgotten" very often nowadays. That's why I said "you might run into other problems" when saying "if you dislike layout decisions, disable CSS"...

 

[Beastie7]

Slightly off topic.

I think there should be a subsection in Chapter 5 for configuring a few popular window managers; a great opportunity to bring in some content from vermadens blog. There's a lot involved in a bare bones setup; including it would make the handbook better teaching material for minimal desktops IMO.

 

[drhowarddrfine]

Beastie7 The Handbook isn't a teaching resource in that way

 

[VladiBG]

With some minor CSS changes the handbook can look like this:

diff --git a/documentation/themes/beastie/assets/styles/documentation.scss b/documentation/themes/beastie/assets/styles/documentation.scss
index 7826480db8..eaf66ac7c1 100644
--- a/documentation/themes/beastie/assets/styles/documentation.scss
+++ b/documentation/themes/beastie/assets/styles/documentation.scss
@@ -51,7 +51,7 @@
   justify-content: center;
   margin-left: auto;
   margin-right: auto;
-  max-width: 1440px;
+  max-width: 1920px;
   width: 100%;

   .article {
@@ -74,7 +74,7 @@
   justify-content: center;
   margin-left: auto;
   margin-right: auto;
-  max-width: 1440px;
+  max-width: 1920px;
   width: 100%;

   .book-menu {
diff --git a/documentation/themes/beastie/assets/styles/global.scss b/documentation/themes/beastie/assets/styles/global.scss
index 765d81b672..9a78fb17f3 100644
--- a/documentation/themes/beastie/assets/styles/global.scss
+++ b/documentation/themes/beastie/assets/styles/global.scss
@@ -50,7 +50,7 @@ body {
   padding: 0;
   margin: 0;
   font-size: 100%;
-  font-weight: 400;
+  font-weight: 300;
   font-style: normal;
   cursor: auto;
   background-color: var(--global-background-color);
@@ -64,7 +64,7 @@ body {
   justify-content: center;
   margin-left: auto;
   margin-right: auto;
-  max-width: 1440px;
+  max-width: 1920px;
   transition: padding .15s;
   background-color: var(--global-background-color);

diff --git a/documentation/themes/beastie/assets/styles/main.scss b/documentation/themes/beastie/assets/styles/main.scss
index 8d3fdbb1c9..33433e271f 100644
--- a/documentation/themes/beastie/assets/styles/main.scss
+++ b/documentation/themes/beastie/assets/styles/main.scss
@@ -28,7 +28,7 @@
 @font-face {
   font-family: 'Inter';
   font-style:  normal;
-  font-weight: 400;
+  font-weight: 300;
   font-display: swap;
   src: url("../fonts/inter/Inter-Regular.woff2") format("woff2"),
         url("../fonts/inter/Inter-Regular.woff") format("woff");
diff --git a/documentation/themes/beastie/assets/styles/variables.scss b/documentation/themes/beastie/assets/styles/variables.scss
index 717f154347..ae07481b1d 100644
--- a/documentation/themes/beastie/assets/styles/variables.scss
+++ b/documentation/themes/beastie/assets/styles/variables.scss
@@ -46,7 +46,7 @@
 .theme-light {
   --white: #FFF;
   --black: #000;
-  --global-font-color: #444;
+  --global-font-color: #000;
   --header-background: #9F0E0F;
   --header-font-color: #FFF;
   --global-background-color: #FFF;

 

[gotnull]

What's bother me is the table of content and the menu section (cf. the picture in blue), they take way too much space compared to the main reading section, and they can't hide.
That's easier to focus on text when what you want to read is the only thing displayed on screen (my resolution is 1920x1080).
The header (cf. the picture in green) is too big also, it's a book there not need for a banner that large, or even a banner at all.

TBH I think using 'mdbook' or 'gitbook' could have been more convenient (at least less work) for the authors/contributors, or even 'readthedocs'.
Documentation in markdown or restrucuredtext, from my point of view, give better results because that's what they do.

I am not saying that the handbook as it is right now is bad or unusable, it's not, it's looking good and it feels more modern than before.
It must have been a lot of work, but it's not what I expected.

 

[carlavilla]

Hi,

I just realised about this thread, I’ll try to continue with the improvements.

Right now I’m finishing the new design for the website.

Can we please move the discussion to: https://forums.freebsd.org/threads/freebsd-handbook-gets-a-new-layout.83313/page-5#post-624623 ?