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https://github.com/frainfreeze/the-monospace-web-pandoc
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227 lines
7.7 KiB
Markdown
227 lines
7.7 KiB
Markdown
---
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title: The Monospace Web
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subtitle: A minimalist design exploration
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author: Oskar Wickström
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author-url: "https://wickstrom.tech"
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date: 2024-08-26
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lang: en
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toc-title: Contents
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version: v0.1.0
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---
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## Introduction
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Monospace fonts are dear to many of us.
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Some find them more readable, consistent, and beautiful, than their proportional alternatives.
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Maybe we're just brainwashed from spending years in terminals?
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Or are we hopelessly nostalgic?
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I'm not sure.
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But I like them, and that's why I started experimenting with all-monospace Web.
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On this page, I use a monospace grid to align text and draw diagrams.
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It's generated from a simple Markdown document (using Pandoc), and the CSS and a tiny bit of Javascript renders it on the grid.
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The page is responsive, shrinking in character-sized steps.
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Standard elements should _just work_, at least that's the goal.
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It's semantic HTML, rendered as if we were back in the 70s.
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All right, but is this even a good idea?
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It's a technical and creative challenge and I like the aestethic.
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If you'd like to use it, feel free to fork or copy the bits you need, respecting the license.
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I might update it over time with improvements and support for more standard elements.
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## The Basics
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This document uses a few extra classes here and there, but mostly it's just markup.
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This, for instance, is a regular paragraph.
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Look at this horizontal break:
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<hr>
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Lovely. We can hide stuff in the `<details`> element:
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<details>
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<summary>A short summary of the contents</summary>
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<p>Hidden gems.</p>
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</details>
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## Lists
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This is a plain old bulleted list:
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* Banana
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* Paper boat
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* Cucumber
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* Rocket
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Ordered lists look pretty much as you'd expect:
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1. Goals
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1. Motivations
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1. Intrinsic
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1. Extrinsic
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1. Second-order effects
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It's nice to visualize trees.
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This is a regular unordered list with a `tree` class:
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<ul class="tree"><li><p style="margin: 0;"><strong>/dev/nvme0n1p2</strong></p>
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* usr
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* local
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* share
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* libexec
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* include
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* sbin
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* src
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* lib64
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* lib
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* bin
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* games
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* solitaire
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* snake
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* tic-tac-toe
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* media
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* media
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* run
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* tmp
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</li></ul>
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## Tables
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We can use regular tables that automatically adjust to the monospace grid.
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They're responsive.
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<table>
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<thead>
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<tr>
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<th class="width-min">Name</th>
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<th class="width-auto">Dimensions</th>
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<th class="width-min">Position</th>
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</tr>
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</thead>
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<tbody>
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<tr>
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<td>Boboli Obelisk</td>
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<td>1.41m × 1.41m × 4.87m</td>
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<td>43°45'50.78"N 11°15'3.34"E</td>
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</tr>
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<tr>
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<td>Pyramid of Khafre</td>
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<td>215.25m × 215.25m × 136.4m</td>
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<td>29°58'34"N 31°07'51"E</td>
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</tr>
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</tbody>
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</table>
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Note that only one column is allowed to grow.
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## Forms
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Here are some buttons:
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<nav>
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<button>Reset</button>
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<button>Save</button>
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</nav>
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And inputs:
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<form class="grid">
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<label>First name <input type="text" placeholder="Placeholder..." /></label>
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<label>Last name <input type="text" placeholder="Text goes here..." /></label>
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<label>Age <input type="text" value="30" /></label>
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</form>
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## Grids
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Add the `grid` class to a container to divide up the horizontal space evenly for the cells.
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Note that it maintains the monospace, so the total width might not be 100%.
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Here are six grids with increasing cell count:
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<div class="grid"><input readonly value="1" /></div>
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<div class="grid"><input readonly value="1" /><input readonly value="2" /></div>
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<div class="grid"><input readonly value="1" /><input readonly value="2" /><input readonly value="3" /></div>
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<div class="grid"><input readonly value="1" /><input readonly value="2" /><input readonly value="3" /><input readonly value="4" /></div>
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<div class="grid"><input readonly value="1" /><input readonly value="2" /><input readonly value="3" /><input readonly value="4" /><input readonly value="5" /></div>
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<div class="grid"><input readonly value="1" /><input readonly value="2" /><input readonly value="3" /><input readonly value="4" /><input readonly value="5" /><input readonly value="6" /></div>
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If we want one cell to fill the remainder, we set `flex-grow: 1;` for that particular cell.
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<div class="grid"><input readonly value="1" /><input readonly value="2" /><input readonly value="3!" style="flex-grow: 1;" /><input readonly value="4" /><input readonly value="5" /><input readonly value="6" /></div>
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## ASCII Drawings
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We can draw in `<pre>` tags using [box-drawing characters](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Box-drawing_characters):
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```
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╭─────────────────╮
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│ MONOSPACE ROCKS │
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╰─────────────────╯
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```
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To have it stand out a bit more, we can wrap it in a `<figure>` tag, and why not also add a `<figcaption>`.
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<figure>
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<pre>
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┌───────┐ ┌───────┐ ┌───────┐
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│Actor 1│ │Actor 2│ │Actor 3│
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└───┬───┘ └───┬───┘ └───┬───┘
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│ │ │
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│ │ msg 1 │
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│ │────────►│
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│ │ │
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│ msg 2 │ │
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│────────►│ │
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┌───┴───┐ ┌───┴───┐ ┌───┴───┐
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│Actor 1│ │Actor 2│ │Actor 3│
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└───────┘ └───────┘ └───────┘</pre>
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<figcaption>Example: Message passing.</figcaption>
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</figure>
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Let's go wild and draw a chart!
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<figure><pre>
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Things I Have
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│ ████ Usable
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15 │
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│ ░░░░ Broken
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│
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12 │ ░
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│ ░
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│ ░ ░
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9 │ ░ ░
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│ ░ ░
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│ ░ ░ ░
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6 │ █ ░ ░ ░
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│ █ ░ ░ ░
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│ █ ░ █ ░
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3 │ █ █ █ ░
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│ █ █ █ ░
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│ █ █ █ ░
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0 └───▀─────────▀─────────▀──────────▀─────────────
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Socks Jeans Shirts USB Drives
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</pre></figure>
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## Media
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Media objects are supported, like images and video:
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.webm/11)](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/e/e0/The_Center_of_the_Web_%281914%29.webm)
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They extend to the width of the page, and add appropriate padding in the bottom to maintain the monospace grid.
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## Discussion
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That's it for now.
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I've very much enjoyed making this, pushing my CSS chops and having a lot of fun with the design.
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If you like it or even decide to use it, please [let me know](https://x.com/owickstrom).
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The full source code is here: [github.com/owickstrom/the-monospace-web](https://github.com/owickstrom/the-monospace-web)
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Finally, a massive shout-out to [U.S. Graphics Company](https://x.com/usgraphics) for all the inspiration.
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