Needs more line width options on macOS

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On Mac, to set a nice, readable line width, you have basically 2 options: 32em, and 40em. 40em is kinda too wide, and 32em is kinda too tight, and I’d really appreciate if I could set the line width more granularly.

The current line width slider allows you to set the width to be absurdly wide. I mean, you need an ultrawide monitor to actually see the full line widths of the highest setting. I understand wanting to go to something like 50em, but 130em is just unreasonably wide and probably something no one ever uses.

My suggestion is to lower the max width to something more reasonable, set the minimum (32em) to something like 28em or 30em, and allow setting the line width in 2em increments. Or 3em, maybe max 4em.

Or even better, allow us to input a specific value. It could be nice hidden advanced option where you just click the number value and it allows me to edit it.

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Some people like absurdly long line lengths (not me - I am with you 100%). I think they are mostly coders or similar who don’t like ever seeing lines wrap.

There’s a minor thesis to be written on the influence coders have had on the world of (especially plain text based) note-taking apps.

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Yeah I instantly regretted saying “no one uses” as there’s always someone :sweat_smile:

I just think the current line width settings heavily favor ultra-wide lines and don’t leave much for us who prefer narrower options.

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As a coder, what I thought this discussion was going to be about was having TWO line-width options. One for text and one for code-blocks. I’m also a typeographer of sorts, so I want a perfectly tuned line-width for my normal text (48em works pretty well for me). But, word-wrapping code, especially when it isn’t indent-aware, is a disaster for code-readability.

A simple solution would be to allow a separate slider for code-block max width. Or, perhaps, to rethink how code-blocks work entirly. I’d actually prefer for there to be no max width, option for word-wrap or NO word-wrap on code-blocks, and if word-wrap is on, it should be syntax or at least indent aware.

If the code-block-width problem was solved separately, and the line-width only applied to non-code-block text, I endorse this thread’s idea of removing some of the wider width options and having more fine-grained control.