why do pages have large blank left and right panels, wasting 50% of the available space, but comment

[hob]

When you create a confluence page, the actual page content is so narrow that you waste half the space with large blank left and right margins. However, the pages comments use the full width, and offer the same editing features.

It's actually better to leave pages blank, and just use the comments to create the wiki content, as you get more than double the width on a 1080 screen at least.

[Veera · Accepted solution]

@hob 

In the new editor, pages are fixed-width by default. The benefit of fixed-width content is that your content will look the same regardless of what screen it’s viewed on. When using full-width, the text and other page elements respond to the screen size.

You can expand the content to full-width by opening the page in edit mode and selecting the expand page full-width icon.

You can make full-width as the default in your site. Please refer to Confluence Editing Improvements for more details.

[hob]

Well, personally I think this a bad development.  Confluence, as a wiki, rather than a brochure website, should be full width by default.  Fixed width non-resonsivce websites went out 6 years ago for good reason.  Confluence should adapt to the screen size, like it always has.  I want function over form.  I have been unable to find a way to make my pages full screen, so they are wasting more than half the screen with white.  I dont have permissions to change any defaults, and the people who do have permission dont use the sites, its the project teams who do.  Certainly in corporate environments, noone uses mobile to view pages, only desktop, and no one cares if the two are identical, infact most would EXPECT that the content be responsive, rather than fixed width. 

[hob]

Along with the the loss of the "[" operator to create links to other pages, I would say the old editor is better for the task of producing clear knowledge based wikis with minium effort.

[Chuck_Martin]

You know it's 2020, right? You know that there are, oh, millions of resources on how to code responsive CSS, right? And you want to claim that the "benefit" of fixed-width content is that content "will look the same regardless of what screen it's viewed on" when that is demonstrably not true (nether that it's a "benefit" not the actual content behavior)?

Did no one on your team, not one UX designer, not one product manager, not one programmer, not one QA, not one technical writer, ever speak up any say just how bonehead an idea this was? I mean, this is just one of many awful design and implementation decision in your "new" editor; it's almost as if you want customers to go find a better content development solution.

[Dana Frost]

We have been complaining since we switched to Cloud how bad the use of culums and waisted space is in Jira.  Seems like a very similar issue across Atlassian products.

https://jira.atlassian.com/browse/JRACLOUD-69044

[ddube]

The accepted answer makes everything EXCEPT the table go into wide-screen mode. I'm finding it rather frustrating that my text can at best occupy a third of my wide screen monitor. So now I need to copy-n-paste into Notepad++ and back.

[Dana Frost]

(ignore)