[openstreetmap-website] Move site on to flexible grid (#403)

[vincentdephily]

I'd be happy with "sensible defaults", but AFAICT what you propose is a hardcoded value, not a default that can be changed. As for "unlimited configuration", resizable windows have been part of the desktop for so long that most people would not think of it as "configuration".

The fact is that I'm regularly frustrated by fixed-size layouts (web or otherwise). That nice blog post makes the obvious observation that line length is important for readbility, and then shoots itself in the foot by adopting a one-size-fits-all-but-me. Their own layout also fails to take font size changes (which I need to do regularly, consider this an accessibility requirement) into account  when deciding on a width that results in the desired character count.

Liquid layouts might require the extra step of resizing the window, but usually you've just opened a new already-sized tab or window, and the size is fine. And a fixed layout can cause people to resize the window too: if I see a website wasting half of my screen real-estate, I'm likely to resize the window so that I can do other stuff on the side.

I won't argue too long about this one because this is the usual "convenient but only works 95% of the time" vs "works 100% of the time but inconvenient" debate, and I've rarely seen proponents of one opinion eventually changing to the other opinion.

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Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub:
https://github.com/openstreetmap/openstreetmap-website/issues/403#issuecomment-22510606
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