Wrapping Code Samples on Mobile Devices
One part of being a technical blogger that I've had to come to grips with is code samples and small mobile device screens. I was amazed when I saw a double-digit percentage of visits to this blog were from mobile phones -- mental! I started paying more attention to detail on said devices and I realized that code samples required loads of horizontal scrolling: yuck. By utilizing CSS white-space, we can make code wrap and avoid arm-numbing scrolling on small screens:
pre {
white-space: pre-line;
}
I like using PrismJS so that requires a different selector:
pre[class*='language-'], code[class*='language-'] {
white-space: pre-line;
}
Thankfully white-space lets me help you all avoid horizontal scrolling on mobiles. Of course you'll need to choose which media query you want to apply that to, but I'll let you do that. In some cases it may be difficult to read the line-broken code, but that's surely better than all that crazy scrolling.
![Welcome to My New Office]()
My first professional web development was at a small print shop where I sat in a windowless cubical all day. I suffered that boxed in environment for almost five years before I was able to find a remote job where I worked from home. The first...
![CSS Gradients]()
With CSS border-radius, I showed you how CSS can bridge the gap between design and development by adding rounded corners to elements. CSS gradients are another step in that direction. Now that CSS gradients are supported in Internet Explorer 8+, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome...
![CSS Counters]()
Counters. They were a staple of the Geocities / early web scene that many of us "older" developers grew up with; a feature then, the butt of web jokes now. CSS has implemented its own type of counter, one more sane and straight-forward than the ole...
![MooTools Text Flipping]()
There are lots and lots of useless but fun JavaScript techniques out there. This is another one of them.
One popular April Fools joke I quickly got tired of was websites transforming their text upside down. I found a jQuery Plugin by Paul...
I’m also using PrismJS. Any tips to get the line-numbers to adjust?
Also, by default tab size is about 4 i believe, this snippet brings it back a little…
// @media query here for small screens... pre{ webkit-tab-size: 2; -moz-tab-size: 2; -ms-tab-size: 2; -o-tab-size: 2; tab-size: 2; }That is, assuming you’ve got tabs over spaces (which you should of course).
Interesting post. I have thought about this for quite some time. The thing is that code is much more readable, in my opinion, when not wrapping it like this.
Since we are used to large screens, reading wrapped code like this is hard and unfamiliar. We do not code on small screens and therefor it makes more sense to scroll horizontally when viewing code then to force line breaking/wrapping.
No offense, but I would rather go with all the crazy scrolling. I honestly think it looks nicer than the broken up code, and it is easier to read and understand code samples.