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Apologies if this is a duplicate, I couldn't find it at all.

I agree with the SO/SE layouts being fixed width, the code formatting, predictability, etc. make perfect sense. However, I'm not sure this is the case with Data Explorer, I think the results pane should be allowed to expand to the width of the browser if needed.

When you're dealing with an unknown number of columns of tabular data, the fixed width seems like an unnecessary constraint that makes it a lot less usable in some cases. It wouldn't be a huge layout change visually, but it would add a lot to the usability. Expanding with the browser width as the maximum (horizontally scrolling the entire page would be undesirable), and the current width as the minimum I think would be a good set of limits for both look and maximizing usable real-estate.

Somewhat related: the date columns could have their extra width trimmed down as well to help on the horizontal scroll, this query is a good example.

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  • This is actually surprisingly hairy to achieve is a seamless way. I can muck around with markup and get that behavior, but the trouble is that on really wide browser stuff will look really odd ... I think I will defer on this one until we allow for 3rd party contributions and see what the community comes up with
    – waffles
    Commented Jun 14, 2010 at 6:58
  • @waffles - I'll take some time after work tonight and see if I can get something that suits all browsers, see what you think...I don't think it's a huge deal, just place it outside the constrained content area like the footer is on these pages and it should work alright. I have a pair of 30" here so I can test wide-browser and see what happens, will update this soon as I get time.
    – Nick Craver
    Commented Jun 14, 2010 at 10:33
  • @waffles - With some slight script adjustments/additions this can be done cross-browser pretty easily, are you open to adding a bit of jQuery? The SlickGrid already has the callbacks, but you can't add handlers (namely onColumnsResized) via greasemonkey, etc since they're private, it'd have to be when you create the grid (or be very wasteful). Handling all but column resizing and the overall grid expanding can be greasemonkey/user script, but that handler there's really no way to hook up to after it's created.
    – Nick Craver
    Commented Jun 16, 2010 at 13:11
  • Hold tight on this, we are probably going to open source SEDE in the next few weeks so you will be able to contribute a patch.
    – waffles
    Commented Jun 17, 2010 at 4:57
  • @waffles - Sounds good, shouldn't take but a few minutes to add what I have in, thanks :)
    – Nick Craver
    Commented Jun 17, 2010 at 10:30

1 Answer 1

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This change went live this evening, @waffles pushed the updates (found here), the grid will now resize with the following behavior:

  • Minimum width of 950px (what it was previously)
  • Maximum width of either the browser window (with 40px on each side for aesthetics) or the width needed for the current columns
  • Resize happens when you:
    • Fetch Data
    • Resize the window
    • Added: the width will recalc but not resize when changing (dragging) column widths...to do it while re-sizing is very counter-intuitive and really just frustrating, (this addition should go live in the next few pushes).
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