On Tue, Sep 14, 2010 at 10:33:09PM +0100, Jon Grant wrote: > On 13 September 2010 15:59, Sam Tuke <[email protected]> wrote: > > Today FSFE has launched a new campaign to remove advertising of proprietary > > PDF readers from government websites. > > > > Campaign: http://www.fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders > > This page looks good, but is incredibly wide. Not usable on modern > mobile (HTC Desire) and is even off the side of the screen on netbook > running ubuntu. > > The Petition page isn't much better. Could the site be updated to be a > max of around 600px wide so it fits in a mobile, netbook or > non-maximised
Or better don't use fixed-width CSS formatting at all. I found that when I turned CSS off I could get down to around 600px wide (possibly a tad more, I didn't get an accurate measurement) before the tables forced it to scroll sideways. > > Petition: http://www.fsfe.org/campaigns/pdfreaders/petition.en.html > > Signed.This is good. > > I'd be even more interested in government websites providing their > documents in non-PDF format though. Something like HMTL, or even > OpenOffice format etc. How about launching a campaign to get > governments to stop using PDFs instead of web pages? It is such a pain > to try edit/re-use anything published in only a PDF file. I have a version of Firefox (on RHEL4 at work) which crashes if I try to open a PDF file in it -- I have to download it, then open the directory and then open the file. A straight web page would be much easier. For that matter, unless the page needs (and I mean needs, not just uses) pictures I can read HTML using lynx or links in a terminal. I will commend three government-run websites: DVLA, the voting registration site, and AVDC's council tax site. All three are plain and "best read using a web browser" (but I would be willing to use telnet if I had to!), they present the information clearly and plainly without any JS or Flash or needing CSS (they may have a little CSS but it isn't needed to look at the page, just makes it slightly prettier). Yes, I have thanked them for it. > Even Free Software places like http://oss-watch.ac.uk/ publish in > off-line PDF files instead of HTML format. We all browse from netbooks > and mobiles nowadays, offline hard-coded, fixed-size PDFs aren't > really that good for that traditional off-line use-case! I don't use either a mobile or a netbook (except occasionally my EEE but it's an 11" model so has decent resolution), but I do use older monitors at work and frequently work over an SSH text-only link (like the one I'm using at the moment, in fact). Chris C _______________________________________________ Fsfe-uk mailing list [email protected] http://lists.gnu.org/mailman/listinfo/fsfe-uk
