Text Wrap / Text Reflow
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Text should fit the screen automatically without having to scroll side-to-side, regardless of size.
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This single missed feature prevents me from switching to Vivaldi from Opera.
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@dmitrik Agreed. When I first tried Android in the 4.0 ICS days, I tried every browser I could find, and there was only one that came close, and that was Opera (Presto). It was as close to a perfect browser as I have ever seen in mobile... but even then it was apparently getting sort of long in the tooth, and it didn't want to finish loading any pages, and it would partially hang while waiting.
Firefox had text reflow then, but it was really buggy, often taking you to random points in the page after you zoomed (and zoomed in that far it was hard to see where in the page you had been before), and rather than fix it, they opted to remove it until such time that it could be reimplemented correctly. It's been the better part of a decade, and they still haven't done it.
Boat browser had reflow back then, but it was buggy too, like Firefox's, and the person who said UC seems like malware is right-- it's doing just as s/he said, and that's not acceptable.
Text reflow is one of those must-have features for mobile, and it's a real shame that it's so rare. That and a single-bar UI at the top that didn't disappear (I was using a tablet at the time) were my main requirements, and only Opera (later Opera Classic) fit. Even the newer Chropera didn't tick all the boxes.
I am not sure why this seems to be so difficult to do well. Is it really any different than the initial text flow at page load? But maybe it is, given how only Opera seems to have done it well. I hope Vivaldi can do it eventually (or at least for Google to do so, and then it could find its way into Vivaldi by way of Chromium).
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@Ayespy Just to make sure, when you are talking about "copyright" do you mean Opera's patent on text wrapping? https://patents.google.com/patent/US9378188
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@Ascaris said in Text Wrap option:
I am not sure why this seems to be so difficult to do well.
Because it IS really, really hard to do. It borders on artificial intelligence. It has to see the page with nearly-human eyes, in the context of both the platform and of the language being displayed, and adjust everything just-so in the case of each page, each individual device size, word-length, etc. Did you know, for instance, that in the relatively mundane world of translation, the same text box sizes will not work for both English and German? People assume simplicity where there is vast complexity.
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@scarfhogg Essentially, yes.
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It has been painful to use any mobile browser after the Kitkat days.... That was the very last time when it was normal to have such a normal feature. BTW that is the main reason why I have opera installed in almost every mobile device. Like in this very moment I have this same page opened on an 8.4 inch tablet and its just painful to read it with vivaldi while it's OK with opera. I'm afraid that someone will soon post something like "but you can increase text size"..... No definetly not. In a desktop browser I decide each style and heading which font and size shall have, and a mobile device is even more powerful than conputers that are not even that old.
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@knosso
Hi, iirc the problem with this feature is it is patented from Opera and therefor not even Chrome can implement it easily.
Is there any other browser with this feature?Cheers, mib
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Kiwi browser already have this feature and it is open source also.
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The lack of this feature prevents me from switching from Opera to Vivaldi on mobile devices... I'd love to dispose Opera completely, but I do need this feature (low vision)...
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@ayespy Sad to hear this. Maybe you can revive some old contacts to your friends in the Opera team. They do pretty well on this job. And they have implemented it quite some time ago already.
For me, this is the reason why I (have to) use Opera on my mobile device. It's a crucial feature on these tiny screens, especially for people with impaired eyesight -
And another year without this crucial feature. Vivaldi could be the best browser, but without this feature it will not be usable.
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is there any example website to see the text-wrap behavior difference between opera, uc, vivaldi and others ?
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Just reminding again...
So this feature will come to top again!It's a must have feature, without it surfing web on small mobile devices is a pain
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I started using vivaldi on desktop a few days ago, very nice tool, a user centered browser finally, like opera in its old days.
Yes, I would like to have a word wrap feature like opera on mobile vivaldi too, web pages are meant to be read. Zooming text is fine, but constantly scrolling horizontally is pure horror.
Its hard to believe that wrapping around on a device border can be subject of a protected patent. Its a straight forward thing, totally natural. Kill patent offices first
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@ascaris Opera is based on Chromium if I recall correctly, so the text wrap function was developed by Opera itself, not by Google. Since Vivaldi is some sort of spin-off from Opera, I am hoping the code to text wrap on mobile (where it is more useful than on any other platform resolution) still is available somewhere.
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@vectorwhiz The text wrap option was, indeed, developed by Opera after they abandoned their roots and cleaved to Chromium. They had over 200 developers to work on the Chromium conversion and as part of that effort, they developed this text wrap function. It is their property. It is only on mobile and, interestingly, was mainly developed in connection with how to display on Apple systems.
Vivaldi was founded by a co-founder of Opera, co-founder BEFORE they switched to Chromium, who really wanted Opera to stick to the Presto engine (developed under his leadership), which would have required hiring even more developers. Investors in Opera, who came to control the company, decided to drop the Presto engine and go with Chromium. Jon, the Co-founder, could not agree with the new direction and left the company. He though Opera would continue with a customization and features philosophy. They did not.
So, totally independently from Opera, and using none of their code base, Jon decided to start developing the Vivaldi browser. He did it based on the customization and features philosophy, which he felt Opera had abandoned. He retained NO rights to Opera developments or technology. He had to start afresh. Vivaldi is, in no sense, any kind of "spin-off" from Opera. It has no Opera code or basis, but is a completely different direction.
So if Vivaldi wants text-wrap, it will have to write it from scratch, with 10% of the Opera development workforce, and be careful in the process not to violate Opera's IP rights.
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I guess ebook readers use text wrap too. Maybe there is something patent-free that helps.
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@bariton Calibre and FBReader are open-source. Don't know how compatible their code would be with a browser.
