We finally learned to center a div, then browsers added sidebars(seg6.space)
87 pointsby seg66 hours ago23 comments
  • JoshTriplett5 hours ago
    The net result of what this site is doing seems to result in one of two effects when I open the sidebar, randomly:

    1) the sidebar covers the content, while the content has blank space to the right, or

    2) the content moves off the right edge of the screen, leaving a large blank space to its left.

    Both of these are wrong. If I have a sidebar open, the site is now narrower, stop trying to be clever.

    My immediate reaction to this is why is the browser giving the site this information, and could we stop.

    • seg64 hours ago
      Agreed, both outcomes are bugs and neither is intended. The idea is simply that, content the site author intended to be horizontally centered stays literally centered on my screen when browser UI changes the viewport.
      • Borealid3 hours ago
        This is a nonsensical goal.

        If I drag a browser window to the right, making it cover the right-hand half of my monitor, it serves no useful purpose for "centered" content to migrate to the left edge of the window (the physical midpoint of the screen).

        Centered means centered within the virtual viewport, not the physical screen.

      • JoshTriplett3 hours ago
        That results in the first outcome: the content is centered on the screen, which puts it under the sidebar, while there's perfectly good space being ignored off to the right of it.

        It's a cute trick, please don't use it, this is one of many reasons why. If I have a sidebar open, it's because that space is not yours to care about.

        • hulitu14 minutes ago
          > If I have a sidebar open, it's because that space is not yours to care about.

          Drawing UI is hard. Firefox likes to draw the websites underneat the scrollbar. Google likes to draw system nabigation buttons over the window with all kind of funny interractions. That's what happenes when you train people "on the job".

      • kqp3 hours ago
        Think about users who don’t maximize the window, for whom centering to the screen, not viewport, would just be broken. It’s right to center to the viewport, and right that you’re able to turn that into centering to the screen by maximizing. The issue, I think, is that you don’t like that the sidebar changes the viewport, and really want a popup menu. I think your browser might duplicate sidebar functionality in configurable toolbar button popups, have you tried that? Failing that, I think the right solution to this problem might be a browser extension.
        • hulitu11 minutes ago
          > Think about users who don’t maximize the window, for whom centering to the screen, not viewport, would just be broken.

          This in blasphemy. Never, ever, think about the user. Users are idiots anyway. The apps shall be used for their intended purposes. All windows shall be maximized ( because we say so). /s

      • wat100004 hours ago
        The author should not intend that, and if they do, my browser should do its best to put a stop to it.
        • shijie3 hours ago
          I'm fairly certain you just replied to the author
          • 3 hours ago
            undefined
          • alterom3 hours ago
            I hope the author gets the point then.
          • wat100002 hours ago
            The author referred to themselves in the third person, so I did the same.
  • kccqzy5 hours ago
    This might be some kind of a weird requirement for a piece of art, but I would literally never expect a website to center a div according to the browser window instead of the viewport. It just looks wrong and feels wrong.
    • seba_dos15 hours ago
      Same. Thank heavens the website doesn't know the position of the browser's window in respect to the screen it's on.
      • sheept2 hours ago
        There's several web APIs for browser window positioning, like screenX/Y[0] (which is what OP uses), which allows for those classic pop-up based browser games from over a decade ago, like Browser Ball.[1]

        [0]: demo: https://mdn.github.io/dom-examples/screenleft-screentop/

        [1]: https://romanbaiocco.github.io/browser-ball-reloaded/

        • seba_dos1an hour ago
          For this to work, the browser itself would have to know where its window is placed on the screen. Not all platforms provide such information.
          • gmueckl30 minutes ago
            While providing this information to websites without user permission is probably a longstanding mistake of web browsers, windowing systems withholding proper on-screen positioning from native applications is a bug in that system - a bad one.
      • krick5 hours ago
        Actually, they do, sort of. At least, if you use GLSL shaders. I remember some demo project using it in a way that made it appear that the website "sees" another window with the same website, which blew my mind when I saw it first. Cannot recall the name or anything else to locate it.
      • fluoridation5 hours ago
        Wait until they realize that on mobile they can use accelerometer data to keep the element in the same position in space across translations of the device.
        • Izkata2 hours ago
          Translations? Not far enough, got to include rotations: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/Device_orie...

          (And yes, CSS can rotate around all three axes, so you could make a div that resists rotating your device in addition to resisting translation...)

        • jagged-chisel5 hours ago
          Wait, I have to hold my phone how in order to see the div? ಠ_ಠ
          • blamarvt5 hours ago
            I assume you have to be facing the server...
            • alterom3 hours ago
              I mean, this could have applications, if you need to be facing a certain direction to read the content.

              While the Silicon Valley is merely a figurative Mecca for all things tech, Apple could require people to be facing Cupertino if you want to watch a WWDC stream :D

          • dpkirchner4 hours ago
            It's easy, you just need to hold your phone such that your eyes are pointed directly at the ads as they scroll up and down the screen. Thank you for consuming content.
          • giancarlostoro5 hours ago
            The same way Steve Jobs said to hold the iPhone.
        • p1mrx3 hours ago
          So the content falls down at 10 m/s^2 unless you're falling alongside it.
          • fluoridation2 hours ago
            But the problem is, you can never quite catch up to it without a rocket.
            • valleyeran hour ago
              No, you can also take your clothes off and throw them upward with sufficient force.
        • LocalHan hour ago
          Stop giving them ideas! :(
        • 1bpp4 hours ago
          position: hyperfixed;
    • kazinator3 hours ago
      Televisions used to have "sidebars", like a speaker on one side only, with some knobs co-located there also. Yet a test pattern would center in the picture tube, not the TV box.
      • hulitu9 minutes ago
        Thank god there was no Google then. They would have put the knobs on the screen.
    • seg65 hours ago
      The point of centering an element horizontally is to make sure that the content you’re viewing is directly in front of you. Browsers with a sidebar shift the content to the right, assuming the sidebar is on the left, which I’ve come to dislike! Others have expressed the same preference, hence this little snippet on my website.
      • stevage5 hours ago
        > The point of centering an element horizontally is to make sure that the content you’re viewing is directly in front of you.

        That's an awfully big assumption. For starters, you're assuming that the browser window itself is centered on the screen, and that the device is centered in front of the user.

        I don't think this is the point of centering an element horizontally at all, and the result you have created here is not at all what I as a user want.

      • danillonunes3 hours ago
        I don't usually use browsers sidebars, but when I do I mentally compensate for it. The viewport is in fact the part of the web page I expect to be the full width, and what things should be centered on.

        The same way the vertical centering counts the viewport height only, not the url bar and the tab bar.

      • wizzwizz45 hours ago
        As a rule, you should not add functionality to a website to compensate for browser misfeatures. People who want the browser to work differently can get a different browser: that's why we call them "user agents". Making the web all complicated like this mainly serves to make it harder for people to use alternative browsers, or for browsers to change their misfeatures without breaking compatibility.
        • seg64 hours ago
          Fair enough, that criticism resonates. I've decided to keep this behaviour only in the extension and have reverted it from the blog. Thanks!
      • scubbo4 hours ago
        I salute your dedication to understanding and fixing a problem that bothers you - but I must add my voice to those who think that this is not a good design for general use. The viewport is the region within which content should be positioned, and thus within which they should be centred. By your logic, left-aligned content in a browser with a left sidebar should be deliberately covered.
      • nkrisc5 hours ago
        Joke’s on you: my browser window isn’t centered.
        • sebastiennight2 hours ago
          Ah but see, exploiting a Chromium API has let us know you've got this second screen on the side, so we're centering the div on your overall work space.

          PS: if you switch from the touchpad to a wireless mouse, we'll move the div accordingly

      • LocalHan hour ago
        Stop worrying about what's happening outside the viewport. Your website has no right to care or even know what's happening outside the viewport.

        Anyone got a Tampermonkey script or tiny extension to re-override this to make such sites actually center in the viewport, like I prefer?

      • wat100004 hours ago
        This all sounds like a really elaborate way of not taking advantage of the fact that modern windowing operating systems don't require windows to be full screen, and allow you to position the sides of your browser window wherever you want them to be.
  • Brajeshwar6 minutes ago
    One of my favorite interview questions was asking how many ways a developer can center a DIV or any block element in a container/browser with pre-defined height, or responsive heights. I have special soft corner heart for people who said TABLES.
  • krick5 hours ago
    Screenshots would be helpful, because (you may be surprised to learn that) it is not entirely obvious which mode of behavior is supposed to be "wrong".

    Anyway, I wouldn't say it currently behaves nicely (like something I would like to reuse anywhere whatsoever). Tested on Firefox opening Bookmarks on the left. First off, there is this ugly flicker, as browser first renders the "wrong" version, then your JS "fixes" it. Second, there is some concurrency problem, as by opening and closing Bookmarks repeatedly I somehow managed to render both versions: centered to viewport and covered by sidebar.

    And, yeah, as others have said, I also think that allowing sidebar to cover your webpage content is absolutely bogus and don't foresee myself wanting this behavior, ever. But that's up to you.

    • seg64 hours ago
      I’ve added GIFs showing the intended behavior. The brief movement doesn’t bother me, opening or closing a sidebar already resizes the webview and causes pages to reflow in the browsers I use. Ending in the wrong state after repeatedly toggling it is a bug. And yeah, if you prefer viewport centering, there’s no reason you’d want to use the extension.
      • jdiff2 hours ago
        Not trying to argue you out of your preference, but trying to understand it: Why would you want to be able to accidentally hide parts of the page by having a sidebar open, or extended too far? I don't understand why the page should pretend to take up the whole window and ignore that it does truly live in just a viewport. I get why aesthetically it might be pleasing, but isn't that pretty short-lived when faced with serious practical drawbacks?
  • proc08 minutes ago
    Z-index has been invented.
  • fluoridation5 hours ago
    I had no idea what this was talking about at first because I had JS blocked, so nothing special seemed to happen when I opened the bookmarks panel. This looks absolutely goofy. I don't know why you'd want the content potentially getting covered by unrelated UI elements.
    • busymom05 hours ago
      > This looks absolutely goofy. I don't know why you'd want the content potentially getting covered by unrelated UI elements.

      Here in Canada, the mobile website for anything related to Indian immigration (Indian passport, visa etc) is done via this absolutely goofy website with multiple levels of UI elements and popups covering the content. Have a look on mobile:

      https://www.blsindia-canada.com/ottawa-jurisdiction/index.ph...

  • crtasm5 hours ago
    Meanwhile this website has learned how to break mouse scrolling.
    • inventor77774 hours ago
      What do you mean? On macOS Safari I see a scroll bar that I can drag with my mouse if I wish.
      • crtasm3 hours ago
        Scrolling the page with mousewheel/multitouch doesn't work unless the pointer is inside the white area

        ...appears it's been fixed since my original comment. There's still no scrollbar in the expected place on the side of my browser window though.

  • saghm2 hours ago
    I'm confused about why this website is using less than half of my window for content. I understand wanting some margins, but a third of my window on each side seems pretty egregious. At least it's centered though!
    • woodrowbarlowan hour ago
      wrapping text at 55-75 characters per line is often recommended in digital typography by UX. research implies that an optimum length exists to maximize reading speed, and although it depends on many factors 55-75 is often parroted as a universal rule.
  • drewbeck3 hours ago
    You’ve effectively created a slide over sidebar. It’s an interesting hack to get there but IMO “should” properly be the domain of the browser.
    • alterom3 hours ago
      See, I'm keeping my siidebar open most of the time, so I WANT it to cover the content that would otherwise be visible - said no one ever.

      But yay, it's centered relative to the window now! God forbid the user tiles their windows, because it breaks the aesthetic the website author intended.

  • kazinator3 hours ago
    What's the substantial difference betweeen "browser added sidebar" and "the browser has allowed height and width of the window to be resized since the dawn of the web"?
  • skgough5 hours ago
    I think the scrollbar-gutter property helps with this. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Reference/P...
  • songhonglei19852 hours ago
    hah the pointer trick is clever. tbh ive been living with everything looking 5px off for years and just... accepted it. does this work with vertical tabs in firefox?
  • jszymborski6 hours ago
    margin:0 auto is the (probably incorrect) incantation I have always reached for
    • sodapopcan5 hours ago
      That's fine but it only centres horizontally. Usually when people talk about "the div centring problem" they mean x and y, dead centre (as this article is).
      • saghm2 hours ago
        The article only seems to very briefly mention the vertical axis, with pretty much all of it focusing on interactions with the sidebar (which only affects the horizontal width).
  • ezwoodland3 hours ago
    Websites should be thought of as VMS and shouldn't be trying to reverse engineer host state.
  • danielvaughn3 hours ago
    Am I the only person that loathes sidebars in browsers? Maybe it's because I've been using a browser since 1996, but my brain is deeply set in the idea that the space below the chrome 110% belongs to user space.

    I've tried a few browsers with vertical tabs, and my brain keeps seeing them as part of the page itself. It's a very distracting and uncomfortable experience.

    • Dylan1680729 minutes ago
      Do you always have browsers maximized? If you're used to other windows next to the browser then I'd be surprised if you still find sidebars distracting.
  • LocalHan hour ago
    Nah, I'd rather not. I want sites to center within the viewport, not the browser window. I keep my tabs in a vertical sidebar, and I treat the viewport as "the browser". I want things that should be centered to be centered within that viewport.
  • gerdesj4 hours ago
    I'm 55 years old. My eyes are not what they used to be and neither are my glasses. I also own a copy of "Usage and Abusage" but I'll pass on that. Click on story link. My laptop renders a page - OK its black text on a white background (thank you but I doubt its a deliberate boon) ...

    ... why on earth is the offering a "page" ie emulating a printed page? In portrait!

    I'll accept that most people are not fixated about grammar, punctuation or basic decency: that's fine.

    However a "page" in portrait that looks awful on a landscape screen is unpleasant. You can easily request my viewing parameters and adjust accordingly. It's even worse when you are dispensing advice about www page layouts.

    • sherry-sherry3 hours ago
      Longer lines of text are harder to read. There's a reason newspapers, books, articles, etc are all vertical and often have a similar amount of words per line. It's easier to follow, scan, and find your place.

      Some more on this below:

      Optimal Line Length in Reading — A Literature Review (https://journals.uc.edu/index.php/vl/article/view/5765)

      Practical Typography — Line Length (https://practicaltypography.com/line-length.html)

    • seg64 hours ago
      I’ll accept that not everyone likes a portrait page on a landscape screen, that’s a matter of taste. But if you’re going to invoke Usage and Abusage, grammar, punctuation, and "basic decency", it would help to identify an actual error. And perhaps write "it’s" correctly while doing so. I’m also unclear what moral failing you think an A4 aspect ratio represents.
  • SpyCoder774 hours ago
    There needs to be images on this
  • josefrichter6 hours ago
    Centering a div? Impossible.
  • dyauspitr4 hours ago
    Jokes on you, I never learned and now LLMs just know how to do it instead.
  • seg64 hours ago
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  • singpolyma34 hours ago
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  • mvhughes3 hours ago
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