An Interesting Observation

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Sameer - 09 Jan 2006 17:04 GMT

Right from jdk1.2, I am observing that the
the main documentation page for java
\docs\index.html includes about 10 to 15 blank lines at the bottom.
Do the documentation team copies and edits the same file each time and
forgets about the blank lines at the bottom?
Nothing serious but please comment.
-Sameer

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Chris Smith - 09 Jan 2006 17:23 GMT

> Right from jdk1.2, I am observing that the
> the main documentation page for java
> \docs\index.html includes about 10 to 15 blank lines at the bottom.
> Do the documentation team copies and edits the same file each time and
> forgets about the blank lines at the bottom?
> Nothing serious but please comment.

It looks like it's intentional, and it's certainly helpful. There's
good evidence that most people don't like reading near the very bottom
of the screen, so the blank lines in a PRE block ensure that it's
possible to scroll far enough down that it's possible to read entire
page without staring at the bottom of the screen. Browsers should do
this, but Sun seems to have compensated for the fact that they don't.

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Oliver Wong - 09 Jan 2006 22:05 GMT

> There's
> good evidence that most people don't like reading near the very bottom
> of the screen, so the blank lines in a PRE block ensure that it's
> possible to scroll far enough down that it's possible to read entire
> page without staring at the bottom of the screen. Browsers should do
> this, but Sun seems to have compensated for the fact that they don't.

I'm not so sure browsers should do this automatically. If a web designer
wants to do this, it can be accomplished with the PRE block as mentioned
above, or with CSS (by adding a margin or padding at the bottom of the
document, for example). Sometimes, however, the designer might want for no
vertical scroll bar to appear at all.

- Oliver

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An Interesting Observation

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