Why so much light gray type on web pages?
AES
to put so much of the text -- especially the body text of articles -- in
an unreadably light gray font color on a white background, rather than a
crisp dark black?
I often find this text sufficiently unreadable (admittedly using a pair
of fairly aged eyeballs) that I Select and Copy the full article text
from Safari web pages; export it via a Mac Service into an RTF document;
and use the font editing capability in Bean to convert the font color to
100% black. (Doing this often highlights just how much lighter than
full black the type color has been initially set.)
Is there a settingor preference in Safari I can modify to force this
automatically on every web page? (It's NOT a result of any monitor
systems or system preferences ibn my Mac.)
Jukka K. Korpela
> What are the design or other considerations that lead web page creators
> to put so much of the text -- especially the body text of articles -- in
> an unreadably light gray font color on a white background, rather than a
> crisp dark black?
Beats me. Probably they think gray text looks cooler, perhaps because
black text reminds some people of books and newspapers. Or rerhaps
because they have looked at black on white text on display devices with
high luminosity, thereby with very high black vs. white contrast.
> I often find this text sufficiently unreadable (admittedly using a pair
> of fairly aged eyeballs) that I Select and Copy the full article text
> from Safari web pages; export it via a Mac Service into an RTF document;
> and use the font editing capability in Bean to convert the font color to
> 100% black.
That's unnecessarily complicated.
> Is there a settingor preference in Safari I can modify to force this
> automatically on every web page?
On most browsers, you can use a user style sheet to force your
preferences. On Safari, it appears to be easy:
http://webdesign.about.com/od/css/ht/htcssusersafari.htm
A style sheet to force all text to black on white is
* { color: black !important; background: white !important; }
It does not affect images, of course. It may affect borders, since a
border set in CSS has by default the same color as the element's content.
(You need to set background as well, since otherwise pages that specify,
say, white text on black background would be unreadable.)
--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Jeffrey Goldberg
> What are the design or other considerations that lead web page creators
> to put so much of the text -- especially the body text of articles -- in
> an unreadably light gray font color on a white background, rather than a
> crisp dark black?
Can you give an example site or two? Then we will know whether this is a
property of the websites or whether this related to the fact that you
don't see iCal highlighting the current day.
> Is there a settingor preference in Safari I can modify to force this
> automatically on every web page?
Yes. There are user style sheets, but other when they first appeared in
Opera ages ago, I haven't played with them.
> (It's NOT a result of any monitor systems or system preferences ibn my Mac.)
I hope you will understand why I am skeptical of that after the whole
iCal discussion. So please post some links to example pages that
illustrate the problem. Once we see what is happening on those pages, it
will be easier to recommend fixes.
Cheers,
-j
--
Jeffrey Goldberg http://goldmark.org/jeff/
I rarely read HTML or poorly quoting posts
Reply-To address is valid
Salmon Egg
AES <sie...@stanford.edu> wrote:
I have complained about this situation often. My eyes are pretty lousy.
I really have difficulty reading ordinary printed material. E-books and
scanning have been very helpful. I use inverse video to minimize the
glare from my screen. Nevertheless, I am often shocked by the typos I
send out.
My son is trying to make a living designing web pages. He tells me that
these lousy designs are now part of the arty-farty movement no popular.
He does it himself.
Adobe is notorious for having large patches of both black and white on
their page designs. Switching to inverse video cannot reduce glare under
those circumstances. I find Photoshop Elements useless because of that.
Microsoft seems to have followed suit for Office 2011 for Mac. To
Adobe's credit, however, Buried in Adobe Reader Preferences, there are
some arcane setting to alleviate the problem somewhat.
Sam
--
Conservatives are against Darwinism but for natural selection.
Liberals are for Darwinism but totally agains any selecytion.
Jolly Roger
> What are the design or other considerations that lead web page creators
> to put so much of the text -- especially the body text of articles -- in
> an unreadably light gray font color on a white background, rather than a
> crisp dark black?
Pure idiocy.
--
Send responses to the relevant news group rather than email to me.
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my very hungry SPAM
filter. Due to Google's refusal to prevent spammers from posting
messages through their servers, I often ignore posts from Google
Groups. Use a real news client if you want me to see your posts.
JR
Jolly Roger
You've been told umpteen times now to recalibrate your display because
it's obviously calibrated badly. What's your problem?
this
Jolly Roger <jolly...@pobox.com> wrote:
> > I often find this text sufficiently unreadable (admittedly using a pair
> > of fairly aged eyeballs) that I Select and Copy the full article text
> > from Safari web pages; export it via a Mac Service into an RTF document;
> > and use the font editing capability in Bean to convert the font color to
> > 100% black. (Doing this often highlights just how much lighter than
> > full black the type color has been initially set.)
> >
> > Is there a settingor preference in Safari I can modify to force this
> > automatically on every web page? (It's NOT a result of any monitor
> > systems or system preferences ibn my Mac.)
>
> You've been told umpteen times now to recalibrate your display because
> it's obviously calibrated badly. What's your problem?
Selecting the reader button in Safari's URL bar or view > no style in
Firefox will give you high contrast text. No style will move much of the
display around on some sites.
Jolly, even with a well calibrated display, some people require more
contrast than you to read text.
Good day to you.
Jolly Roger
this <del...@delete.nowhere.invalid> wrote:
Yes, but with a badly calibrated display, he's making it worse for
himself. That's my point.
Mike Rosenberg
> Can you give an example site or two? Then we will know whether this is a
> property of the websites or whether this related to the fact that you
> don't see iCal highlighting the current day.
I'm really curious to see some examples, too. I have a WordPress blog
that's using the default grey text colors for the theme I chose. In my
experimentation with customization I set it for black text at one point
and it was, in my opinion, rather harsh looking. I settled on the
default, and I haven't had feedback from the at least five people who
regularly read my blog saying there are any problems.
--
Kick the tobacco habit:
http://www.greensmoke.com/mikerose23
Use coupon code disc10-23856 to save 10%
Richard Maine
> I'm really curious to see some examples, too. I have a WordPress blog
> that's using the default grey text colors for the theme I chose. In my
> experimentation with customization I set it for black text at one point
> and it was, in my opinion, rather harsh looking. I settled on the
> default, and I haven't had feedback from the at least five people who
> regularly read my blog saying there are any problems.
>
> http://mikes-musings.net/
Looks fine to me. (And I'm quite fond of my new Prius also. :-))
--
Richard Maine | Good judgment comes from experience;
email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgment.
domain: summertriangle | -- Mark Twain
AES
"Jukka K. Korpela" <jkor...@cs.tut.fi> wrote:
> > Is there a settingor preference in Safari I can modify to force this
> > automatically on every web page?
>
> On most browsers, you can use a user style sheet to force your
> preferences. On Safari, it appears to be easy:
> http://webdesign.about.com/od/css/ht/htcssusersafari.htm
>
> A style sheet to force all text to black on white is
> * { color: black !important; background: white !important; }
> It does not affect images, of course. It may affect borders, since a
> border set in CSS has by default the same color as the element's content.
>
> (You need to set background as well, since otherwise pages that specify,
> say, white text on black background would be unreadable.)
Thanks very much -- that's very helpful. I'll try it, and if it works
it should do just what I want.
AES
Jeffrey Goldberg <nob...@goldmark.org> wrote:
> I hope you will understand why I am skeptical of that after the whole
> iCal discussion. So please post some links to example pages that
> illustrate the problem. Once we see what is happening on those pages, it
> will be easier to recommend fixes.
OK, try
<http://www.busymac.com/busysync/index.html>
(which is typical of what I see on many many other web pages
Take the first two headings (above the graphic):
BusySync
Add sharing capabilities to iCal
The first heading is in a larger font, and is pretty dark black; the
subhed is pale blue. Then take a snippet of text from below the
graphic, namely
In addition to syncing calendars on your LAN, BusySync syncs
iCal with Google Calendar, allowing you to:
Ä View and edit calendars online ã Calendar events can be
viewed/edited in both iCal and Google Calendar and
automatically synchronized between the two.
This text snippet appears in a pale gray; the inline subhed at the start
of the second paragraph appears to be slightly darker, but that's
probably just because it's a boldface font.
I Copy and Paste these three items into an empty RTF document pre-opened
in Bean. They appear (to me, at least) more or less exactly the same as
on the web page (and on the same monitor!).
I select various items in this RTF document, and open the Text Color
pane in the Fonts editing window in Bean (which I believe is just the
standard Mac OS/Snow Leopard font editing window). There are six
different ways to look at color in this pane, but let's choose the Gray
Scale slider. It says 'BusySync' has a brightness of 16% (which is
indeed pretty black); the subhed has 37% (fairly pale); the text snippet
31% (also pretty pale). Quick looks at the other color settings display
were consistent with this.
I can also Print the starting web page to PDF, then open the PDF in
Adobe Reader or Acrobat. If I do so it appears essentially the same as
above. I could open the PDF in Illustrator and see what it says about
the font colors of the text, but haven't taken the trouble yet.
*** I believe the font colors have these greater than 0% brightness
values in the web site itself, making them appear less dark than they
could (and should!) appear (especially for the basic text; I can live
with paler colors for headers and similar stuff). This problem may or
may not be exacerbated by some misadjustment or glitch in my display or
my software. ***
With regard to the latter, I've not messed in any way with Safari's
cascaded style sheets or color settings; it's a vanilla original Apple
installation. I've calibrated the Cinema Display monitor per onscreen
instructions a couple of times; no noticeable changes. And, I recently
upgraded from a 2008-vintage MacBook to a late 2010 MacBook Pro driving
the Cinema Display (in both cases in mirrored mode), and had the same
problem.
Actually, for various reasons (not primarily this brightness problem)
I'm about to shift to a newer LED Cinema Display -- so maybe I'll learn
more then.
AES
Salmon Egg <Salm...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> I have complained about this situation often. My eyes are pretty lousy.
> I really have difficulty reading ordinary printed material.
That's my situation also (as the OP) 限 and will become the
situation of the rest of you in due time!!
> My son is trying to make a living designing web pages. He tells me that
> these lousy designs are now part of the arty-farty movement so popular.
> He does it himself.
That's my suspicion also 限 even if I don't like to stereotype
people any more than is deserved.
> Adobe is notorious for having large patches of both black and white on
> their page designs. Switching to inverse video cannot reduce glare under
> those circumstances. I find Photoshop Elements useless because of that.
Again, ditto. Photoshop Elements 3 had white backgrounds,
and was great. The black-dark gray backgrounds in PE 6
nearly stopped me from switching to it.
> To Adobe's credit, buried in Adobe Reader Preferences is
> some arcane setting to alleviate the problem somewhat.
Haven't found any such setting in Elements.
AES
this <del...@delete.nowhere.invalid> wrote:
>
> Selecting the reader button in Safari's URL bar or view > no style in
> Firefox will give you high contrast text. No style will move much of the
> display around on some sites.
>
Hey, that's gorgeous!! Just what I need in certain situations (even
though all graphics are evidently lost).
Just never noticed or learned about that button -- doing so is worth all
the other hassles associated with this thread.
AES
nos...@see.signature (Richard Maine) wrote:
> Mike Rosenberg <mike...@TOGROUPmacconsult.com> wrote:
>
> > I'm really curious to see some examples, too. I have a WordPress blog
> > that's using the default grey text colors for the theme I chose. In my
> > experimentation with customization I set it for black text at one point
> > and it was, in my opinion, rather harsh looking. I settled on the
> > default, and I haven't had feedback from the at least five people who
> > regularly read my blog saying there are any problems.
> >
> > http://mikes-musings.net/
>
> Looks fine to me. (And I'm quite fond of my new Prius also. :-))
Still a fair amount greyer, and smaller, than I would like (the OP
again). Doing an A-B test against the BusyMac/BusyCal site
<http://www.busymac.com/busysync/index.html>
also says to me that the latter is using a slightly large line spacing,
and it helps.
David Fritzinger
AES <sie...@stanford.edu> wrote:
> <http://www.busymac.com/busysync/index.html>
To me, the text appears to be a dark grey on a white background.
27" iMac (MId 2010, 3.6 GHz i5, 4 GB RAM, System 10.6.7, Safari 5.0.5)
Jonathan N. Little
> In article<1k2ozn4.1eu7x7a1otwlzcN%nos...@see.signature>,
> nos...@see.signature (Richard Maine) wrote:
>
>> Mike Rosenberg<mike...@TOGROUPmacconsult.com> wrote:
>>> http://mikes-musings.net/
>>
>> Looks fine to me. (And I'm quite fond of my new Prius also. :-))
>
> Still a fair amount greyer, and smaller, than I would like (the OP
> again). Doing an A-B test against the BusyMac/BusyCal site
Here the typical problem...
body {
font-family: tahoma, arial, sans-serif;
font-size: 0.875em;
^^^^^^^^
--
Take care,
Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com
Jeffrey Goldberg
> Still a fair amount greyer, and smaller, than I would like (the OP
> again). Doing an A-B test against the BusyMac/BusyCal site
>
> <http://www.busymac.com/busysync/index.html>
The relevant bit of that site's style sheet is in layout.css
#column1 p{
font:"Lucida Grande", Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size:.8em;
color:#636363;
}
While I wasn't happy with the size, the dark gray here didn't bother me.
I am one of those people who finds the full contrast of black on white
too harsh. But others may need the higher contrast.
As a sample (to get you started; this has loads of problems with it as
is) you can create a file called, say, high-contrast.css on your system
that contains something like
p {background-color: white; color: black}
And in Safari > Preferences > Advanced use "Style Sheet" Other ... and
select your high-constrast.css
This will force (most) paragraph text to be black on a while background.
Now what I've provided will have some really nasty side effects, so it
is not a solution. But it is an example of what user style sheets can do.
You may wish to take a look at
http://people.pwf.cam.ac.uk/ssb22/css/
as a place to get low-vision, high-contrast user style sheets.
Salmon Egg
> You've been told umpteen times now to recalibrate your display because
> it's obviously calibrated badly. What's your problem?
That is not the problem. Glare and low contrast is.
I think it should be possible to map the color space into a false color
rendition in which small change of a color vector from a web page gets
converted to a large change in the color vectors going to the final
display.
I do not know how to implement that.
Sam
--
Conservatives are against Darwinism but for natural selection.
Liberals are for Darwinism but totally against any selection.
sbt
> <http://www.busymac.com/busysync/index.html>
While the gray mainbody text is a little faint, it is still readable to
these old eyes (and I complain to website owners frequently concerning
insufficiently contrasting text). Maybe your eyes are even worse than
mine
Here's one where, between the minimal contrast and even smaller type, I
find things only marginally readable (for example the text in the blurb
on the right headed "Ambrosia Announce Mailing List"), and Ambrosia is
one of my favorite Mac developers, with excellent products and great
people. http://www.ambrosiasw.com/news/
--
Spenser
Jolly Roger
Salmon Egg <Salm...@sbcglobal.net> wrote:
> In article <jollyroger-CD6A6...@news.individual.net>,
> Jolly Roger <jolly...@pobox.com> wrote:
>
> > You've been told umpteen times now to recalibrate your display because
> > it's obviously calibrated badly. What's your problem?
>
> That is not the problem. Glare and low contrast is.
I'm sorry. Are you claiming to know how AES's (the OP) display is
calibrated?
Richard Maine
> Here's one where, between the minimal contrast and even smaller type, I
> find things only marginally readable (for example the text in the blurb
> on the right headed "Ambrosia Announce Mailing List"), and Ambrosia is
> one of my favorite Mac developers, with excellent products and great
> people. http://www.ambrosiasw.com/news/
That looks ok to me... but only because I have Firefox configured with a
minimum font size of 20pt, which overrides the ludicrous size that the
site otherwise uses. When I temporarily undo that minimum size override,
I agree that it is pretty much illegible.
I'm much more likely to bitch at web owners for sites that don't display
well with large fonts. That's by far my most common comment on sites
that ask for feedback.
Warren Oates
nos...@see.signature (Richard Maine) wrote:
> That looks ok to me... but only because I have Firefox configured with a
> minimum font size of 20pt, which overrides the ludicrous size that the
> site otherwise uses.
That's not totally true; if the designer specifies font-size in em, it's
a percentage of your 20px (so .875 em would come out at 17.5px). It's
still bigger than the standard font size that most browser set (16px
usually).
--
Why do we say Chicken of the Sea but not Tuna of the Farm?
-- Thomas Pynchon
AES
sbt <dogb...@chaseabone.com.invalid> wrote:
> Here's one where, between the minimal contrast and even smaller type, I
> find things only marginally readable (for example the text in the blurb
> on the right headed "Ambrosia Announce Mailing List"), and Ambrosia is
> one of my favorite Mac developers, with excellent products and great
> people. http://www.ambrosiasw.com/news/
>
Yeah -- and for another disaster:
<http://dh2011abstracts.stanford.edu/xtf/view?docId=tei/ab-263.xml;query=
%22fiber%20optic%22;brand=default>
Alan Browne
> In article<95gd57...@mid.individual.net>,
> Jeffrey Goldberg<nob...@goldmark.org> wrote:
>
>> I hope you will understand why I am skeptical of that after the whole
>> iCal discussion. So please post some links to example pages that
>> illustrate the problem. Once we see what is happening on those pages, it
>> will be easier to recommend fixes.
>
> OK, try
>
> <http://www.busymac.com/busysync/index.html>
>
> (which is typical of what I see on many many other web pages
>
> Take the first two headings (above the graphic):
>
> BusySync
>
> Add sharing capabilities to iCal
>
> The first heading is in a larger font, and is pretty dark black;
It's dark blue actually.
the
> subhed is pale blue. Then take a snippet of text from below the
> graphic, namely
>
> In addition to syncing calendars on your LAN, BusySync syncs
> iCal with Google Calendar, allowing you to:
>
> € View and edit calendars online ‹ Calendar events can be
> viewed/edited in both iCal and Google Calendar and
> automatically synchronized between the two.
>
> This text snippet appears in a pale gray; the inline subhed at the start
> of the second paragraph appears to be slightly darker, but that's
The whole page is very legible, easy to read (iMac 2007).
--
gmail originated posts filtered due to spam.
Wes Groleau
> I'm much more likely to bitch at web owners for sites that don't display
> well with large fonts. That's by far my most common comment on sites
> that ask for feedback.
Sites that use teeny-tiny fonts AND have figured out how to disable the
browser's text size controls.
--
Wes Groleau
There are two types of people in the world …
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/barrett?itemid=1157
Wes Groleau
> I think it should be possible to map the color space into a false color
> rendition in which small change of a color vector from a web page gets
> converted to a large change in the color vectors going to the final
> display.
>
> I do not know how to implement that.
Displays Pref Pane
Color tab
Calibrate button
masonc
>What are the design or other considerations that lead web page creators
>to put so much of the text -- especially the body text of articles -- in
>an unreadably light gray font color on a white background, rather than a
>crisp dark black?
snip
I'm delighted to see that someone else has this complaint.
Here is Opera's user css solution (they provide 16 css options).
I put it on a button and use it often.
@charset "utf-8";
/* Name: 1490680845
High contrast (B/W)
Copyright 2007 Opera Software */
* {
color: black !important;
background: white !important;
}
button, input[type="file"], input[type="submit"],
input[type="button"], input[type="reset"] {
color: black !important;
background: silver !important;
}
a[href] {text-decoration: underline !important;}
a[href]:hover {
color: white !important;
background-color: black !important;
}
a[href] img {border: thin solid black !important;}
@media screen, projection, handheld, tv {
input, textarea, select {
color: black !important;
background: #FFFFCC !important;
}
}
--
masonc
Osmo Saarikumpu
> ... I settled on the
> default, and I haven't had feedback from the at least five people who
> regularly read my blog saying there are any problems.
>
> http://mikes-musings.net/
Not bad. After three hits at "Ctrl" + "+" it became readable.
--
Osmo
Jolly Roger
<siegman-199467...@bmedcfsc-srv02.tufts.ad.tufts.edu>,
AES <sie...@stanford.edu> wrote:
Reads fine here.
AES
Osmo Saarikumpu <osmo.sa...@kotikanava.fi> wrote:
My reaction also (well, maybe two hits on Cmd-Plus were enough).
But then there are very good practical reasons for using unreadably
small and light gray type faces for lengthy text on web pages. If you
start with some readable font size and then reduce its size by a linear
factor of N, you reduce both storage space and transmission time for the
entire text by a factor of N^2 -- right? (N-squared, because it's the
total area that's involved.) And using gray instead of black adds a
further factor because it's lighter, right? The savings may only be
fractions of a penny per character or word -- but with a lot of words,
it's worth it. That's probably why Cmd-Plus or Ctrl-Plus is standard in
so many browsers.
sbt
AES <sie...@stanford.edu> wrote:
It doesn't work that way. Your browser is sent a font name and size,
which it then renders for all characters until it receives a new font
specification. Sending "Arial, 48" takes no more or less time than
sending "Arial, 12"...you'll save one byte by sending "Arial, 6" but
that's nothing. Similarly, the color information is transmitted as a
six-byte hex code (0x000000 to 0xFFFFFF). No bits saved in transmitting
a different color.
The reason for the light gray is, primarily, the result of an aesthetic
consideration that ignores the purpose for the text: i.e. presentation
over functionality. The reason for the small fonts is partially an
aesthetic and partially to get more content in a constrained space (and
then let the user deal with "blowing it up" to read).
--
Spenser
Mike Rosenberg
> > > http://mikes-musings.net/
> >
> > Looks fine to me. (And I'm quite fond of my new Prius also. :-))
>
> Still a fair amount greyer, and smaller, than I would like (the OP
> again). Doing an A-B test against the BusyMac/BusyCal site
>
> <http://www.busymac.com/busysync/index.html>
>
> also says to me that the latter is using a slightly large line spacing,
> and it helps.
Something important to keep in mind is that, while a site's absolute
font sizes are specified, it's really the apparent sizes on a user's
screen that matter and they, of course, differ based on monitor size and
resolution. When my clients complain that too many web sites use fonts
that are too small for them, I show them how to change screen resolution
to make everything larger, and, in general, clients who find web text
too small also find text in general too small.
Mike Rosenberg
> > http://mikes-musings.net/
>
> Looks fine to me. (And I'm quite fond of my new Prius also. :-))
Perhaps you'd like to subscribe to alt.autos.toyota.prius
Mike Rosenberg
> The reason for the light gray is, primarily, the result of an aesthetic
> consideration that ignores the purpose for the text: i.e. presentation
> over functionality.
Jeffrey and I have both said we sometimes find black text on a white
background too harsh, and we're certainly not the only two people using
web browsers who feel this way. The harsher a page appears to me, the
less likely I'm going to continue reading it.
--
My blog: http://mikes-musings.net
Mike Rosenberg
> Jeffrey and I have both said we sometimes find black text on a white
> background too harsh, and we're certainly not the only two people using
> web browsers who feel this way. The harsher a page appears to me, the
> less likely I'm going to continue reading it.
I just did a quick survey of some of the most widely viewed sites and
noticed that none of them use black on white for body text.
Tom Stiller
mike...@TOGROUPmacconsult.com (Mike Rosenberg) wrote:
I prefer black text on a light straw background for maximum readability.
--
PRAY, v. To ask that the laws of the universe be annulled in behalf
of a single petitioner confessedly unworthy. -- Ambrose Bierce
AES
> > small and light gray type faces for lengthy text on web pages. If you
> > start with some readable font size and then reduce its size by a linear
> > factor of N, you reduce both storage space and transmission time for the
> > entire text by a factor of N^2 -- right? (N-squared, because it's the
> > total area that's involved.) And using gray instead of black adds a
> > further factor because it's lighter, right? The savings may only be
> > fractions of a penny per character or word -- but with a lot of words,
> > it's worth it. That's probably why Cmd-Plus or Ctrl-Plus is standard in
> > so many browsers.
>
> It doesn't work that way. Your browser is sent a font name and size,
> which it then renders for all characters until it receives a new font
> specification. Sending "Arial, 48" takes no more or less time than
> sending "Arial, 12"...you'll save one byte by sending "Arial, 6" but
> that's nothing. Similarly, the color information is transmitted as a
> six-byte hex code (0x000000 to 0xFFFFFF). No bits saved in transmitting
> a different color.
Come on! Recognize tongue in cheek when it's this obvious!
[I was extensively trained in this particular technique by my North
Korean colleague Dr. Tung Inn Cheeek during a period I spent at the Kim
Jong Il Institute for Scientific Truth in Pyongyang. "Scientific truth"
in North Korea is of course what Kim Jong Il wants it to be -- just as
scientific truth (or truth in general) in the U.S. is all too often what
Repugnican politicians want it to be.]
> The reason for the light gray is, primarily, the result of an aesthetic
> consideration that ignores the purpose for the text: i.e. presentation
> over functionality. The reason for the small fonts is partially an
> aesthetic and partially to get more content in a constrained space (and
> then let the user deal with "blowing it up" to read).
We do at least agree on the first sentence.
Mike Rosenberg
> > The reason for the light gray is, primarily, the result of an aesthetic
> > consideration that ignores the purpose for the text: i.e. presentation
> > over functionality. The reason for the small fonts is partially an
> > aesthetic and partially to get more content in a constrained space (and
> > then let the user deal with "blowing it up" to read).
>
> We do at least agree on the first sentence.
Something that just occurred to me, a little food for thought - if a
page is set to use grey text on a white background, people who have
trouble reading it can increase the contrast. OTOH, people who find
black on white too harsh can't easily change it.
Howard
> In article <95gd57...@mid.individual.net>,
> Jeffrey Goldberg <nob...@goldmark.org> wrote:
>
> > I hope you will understand why I am skeptical of that after the whole
> > iCal discussion. So please post some links to example pages that
> > illustrate the problem. Once we see what is happening on those pages, it
> > will be easier to recommend fixes.
>
> OK, try
>
> <http://www.busymac.com/busysync/index.html>
>
> (which is typical of what I see on many many other web pages
>
I don't acceopt this is 'pale grey'. This is grey text that is much
easier on the eye to read. I like it and yes it has spread, hapily
across the net.
I suggest you have sight problems or screen contrast problems.
Howard
Howard
Again it looks fine to me. I am 55 and use reading glasses. It reads
fine. I really wonder about your screen .... or your eyesight ... no
effense intended.
H
Randal L. Schwartz
AES> Come on! Recognize tongue in cheek when it's this obvious!
Apparently, it wasn't. I also was a bit confused until I read this
post. I kept saying "He can't actually, believe that, can he?". The
problem is, I've seen far too much in my multiple decades online to any
longer trust any sense of the limits of human stupidity.
If you're going to say something that's tongue-in-cheek, remember that
your tonality doesn't carry in print. At that point, you *must* mark
your humor of anything that could be possibly misunderstood with the
traditional smiley face. That's why it was invented.
Either that, or be sure your text is in #fff on #fff. :)
--
Randal L. Schwartz - Stonehenge Consulting Services, Inc. - +1 503 777 0095
<mer...@stonehenge.com> <URL:http://www.stonehenge.com/merlyn/>
Smalltalk/Perl/Unix consulting, Technical writing, Comedy, etc. etc.
See http://methodsandmessages.posterous.com/ for Smalltalk discussion
Mike Rosenberg
> If you're going to say something that's tongue-in-cheek, remember that
> your tonality doesn't carry in print. At that point, you *must* mark
> your humor of anything that could be possibly misunderstood with the
> traditional smiley face. That's why it was invented.
>
> Either that, or be sure your text is in #fff on #fff. :)
ROTFL! (but shouldn't that be #ffffff on #ffffff ?)
Randal L. Schwartz
AES> OK, try
AES> <http://www.busymac.com/busysync/index.html>
Fugly. Definitely someone who values color balance over readability.
I agree... too many people on the net fighting to make it pretty, while
sacrificing the actual communication. (Remember "Flash splash pages"?
Thank goodness we've gotten rid of most of those.)
Richard Maine
> >>>>> "AES" == AES <sie...@stanford.edu> writes:
>
> AES> Come on! Recognize tongue in cheek when it's this obvious!
>
> Apparently, it wasn't.
It wasn't to me either. I've seen people write a *LOT* whackier things
that they were completely serious about. Reference Poe's law. Google it
for more, but the usual form of the law is:
"Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is
impossible to create a parody of Fundamentalism that SOMEONE won't
mistake for the real thing."
Jeffrey Goldberg
>>>>>> "AES" == AES <sie...@stanford.edu> writes:
>
> AES> Come on! Recognize tongue in cheek when it's this obvious!
>
> Apparently, it wasn't.
The problem is the cross-posting. In the comp.sys.mac.apps community, we
all (well, almost all) know AES; so no smileys were needed. But I guess
we've hit an instance of a (generalized) Poe's Law:
“Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is
impossible to create a parody of fundamentalism that someone won't
mistake for the real thing.”
Cheers,
-j
--
Jeffrey Goldberg http://goldmark.org/jeff/
I rarely read HTML or poorly quoting posts
Reply-To address is valid
Mike Rosenberg
> Randal L. Schwartz <mer...@stonehenge.com> wrote:
>
> > >>>>> "AES" == AES <sie...@stanford.edu> writes:
> >
> > AES> Come on! Recognize tongue in cheek when it's this obvious!
> >
> > Apparently, it wasn't.
>
> It wasn't to me either. I've seen people write a *LOT* whackier things
> that they were completely serious about.
I'm thinking now about the guy who was sure that a time traveling
industrial rock band had hacked his PowerBook. And if that's not enough,
the reason he said he was certain was that they had left everything
exactly as it was.
And, of course, there's always Mark Conrad and his hex zeroes. Say, we
haven't heard from him in quite some time.
masonc
wrote:
I have neither sight problems nor screen contrast problems.
I see the "busymac" page as lacking contrast overall. It is
in a fog.
I suggest you will develop a sight problem using such a high-contrast
screen as you have.
--
masonc
AES
mer...@stonehenge.com (Randal L. Schwartz) wrote:
>
> If you're going to say something that's tongue-in-cheek, remember that
> your tonality doesn't carry in print. At that point, you *must* mark
> your humor of anything that could be possibly misunderstood with the
> traditional smiley face. That's why it was invented.
>
Very good advice. I should have thought of that.
Jeffrey Goldberg
> And, of course, there's always Mark Conrad and his hex zeroes. Say, we
> haven't heard from him in quite some time.
I figure that he's been off-line ever since one of his weekly
re-installations didn't work as planned when and he learned that his
backup and recovery scheme of manually editing the partition table and
using dd for backup and restore turned out to not be quite as robust as
he claimed. He just used ASCII "0"s where he needed hex 0s (but never
octal or binary zeros) when fucking with partition tables.
The extent that people will go to to make life hard for themselves is
astounding.
dorayme
<1k2r0xx.g7n55o69csu8N%mike...@TOGROUPmacconsult.com>,
mike...@TOGROUPmacconsult.com (Mike Rosenberg) wrote:
> Something important to keep in mind is that, while a site's absolute
> font sizes are specified, it's really the apparent sizes on a user's
> screen that matter and they, of course, differ based on monitor size and
> resolution. When my clients complain that too many web sites use fonts
> that are too small for them, I show them how to change screen resolution
> to make everything larger, and, in general, clients who find web text
> too small also find text in general too small.
You are giving your clients bad advice! It is simply crazy to
change your monitor resolution because some website authors don't
quite know what they are doing. Learn about text controls in
browsers instead, learn also about text preferences in browsers,
learn about the concept of normal for font-size (not that you
need to tell your clients too much about this latter).
--
dorayme
Jolly Roger
Jeffrey Goldberg <nob...@goldmark.org> wrote:
> On 11-06-12 6:56 PM, Mike Rosenberg wrote:
>
> > And, of course, there's always Mark Conrad and his hex zeroes. Say, we
> > haven't heard from him in quite some time.
>
> I figure that he's been off-line ever since one of his weekly
> re-installations didn't work as planned when and he learned that his
> backup and recovery scheme of manually editing the partition table and
> using dd for backup and restore turned out to not be quite as robust as
> he claimed. He just used ASCII "0"s where he needed hex 0s (but never
> octal or binary zeros) when fucking with partition tables.
>
> The extent that people will go to to make life hard for themselves is
> astounding.
>
> Cheers,
>
> -j
That, or he finally electrocuted himself...
Jeffrey Goldberg
>>>>>> "AES" == AES <sie...@stanford.edu> writes:
> AES> <http://www.busymac.com/busysync/index.html>
> Fugly. Definitely someone who values color balance over readability.
> I agree... too many people on the net fighting to make it pretty, while
> sacrificing the actual communication.
I certainly agree that that is a general failing, I think that the case
here is different. We find some people who find black on white "harsh"
in a way that impairs readability, and others who need the full contrast.
It would be nice we could have a client side configuration that would,
for the former, detect black text on while and reduce the contrast. For
the others, it would be nice it would increase contrast.
In a sense, we would need a dynamically generated user style sheet. I
don't want to reduce contrast on all pages, but I do wish to reduce it
on some. Likewise, AES probably doesn't want to increase contrast an all
pages.
Completely off-topic, if you are the Randal L. Schwartz, I need to thank
you for two very important things I learned from you. One is the basics
of Perl. The other is to never, ever, ever audit passwords without
getting permission carved in stone and signed in blood by everyone in
and above the organization. I am really sorry that that was so awful for
you.
dorayme
<1k2r6th.44ac5ywshxv1N%mike...@TOGROUPmacconsult.com>,
mike...@TOGROUPmacconsult.com (Mike Rosenberg) wrote:
> Something that just occurred to me, a little food for thought - if a
> page is set to use grey text on a white background, people who have
> trouble reading it can increase the contrast. OTOH, people who find
> black on white too harsh can't easily change it.
This is not true. You are badly confused on all this stuff. You
seem overstuck on hardware solutions.
--
dorayme
Wes Groleau
> You are giving your clients bad advice! It is simply crazy to
> change your monitor resolution because some website authors don't
> quite know what they are doing. Learn about text controls in
Amen! Designing a page that can only be guaranteed readable on a
600x800 screen is just as bad as designing a site that is only usable
on the T1 connection of the guy that built it.
--
Wes Groleau
There are two types of people in the world …
http://Ideas.Lang-Learn.us/barrett?itemid=1157
Wes Groleau
> I just did a quick survey of some of the most widely viewed sites and
> noticed that none of them use black on white for body text.
So? However unpleasant a small minority might find it, empirical
research has demonstrated a high correlation between contrast and
readability.
If "the right thing to do" in web design is whatever the majority
is doing, then ....
Where are we going and why am I in this handbasket?
Wes Groleau
> Something that just occurred to me, a little food for thought - if a
> page is set to use grey text on a white background, people who have
> trouble reading it can increase the contrast. OTOH, people who find
> black on white too harsh can't easily change it.
I suspect most people have their contrast at the default, leaving lots
of room to increase OR decrease. Not that it justifies me forcing
however many readers I might have to keep fiddling with their display
settings.
Wes Groleau
I've never tried the short form, but I've read that it is equivalent
dorayme
> The extent that people will go to to make life hard for themselves is
> astounding.
You Mac folk really think you are the ants pants! I am so ashamed
of you all. Now you might realise why my first reply to this
thread cut out all non-Mac groups (Mike asked why and I fed him
some story or other, I forget). When I post to Mac groups I draw
the curtains so no one catches me at it. You lot will talk dogs
off meat carts, nothing stops you on any subject.
Why the hell cannot you be like me? Focussed, always to the
point, accurate, straightforward, unemotional and totally
unconcerned with self? Is it so hard?
--
dorayme
Mike Rosenberg
> > Something that just occurred to me, a little food for thought - if a
> > page is set to use grey text on a white background, people who have
> > trouble reading it can increase the contrast. OTOH, people who find
> > black on white too harsh can't easily change it.
>
> This is not true. You are badly confused on all this stuff. You
> seem overstuck on hardware solutions.
And the reason you're not enlightening me on the topic is what exactly?
Randal L. Schwartz
Wes> On 06-12-2011 19:41, Mike Rosenberg wrote:
>> Randal L. Schwartz<mer...@stonehenge.com> wrote:
>>> Either that, or be sure your text is in #fff on #fff. :)
>>
>> ROTFL! (but shouldn't that be #ffffff on #ffffff ?)
Wes> I've never tried the short form, but I've read that it is
Wes> equivalent
Indeed. Why waste three bytes? :)
Randal L. Schwartz
Jeffrey> Completely off-topic, if you are the Randal L. Schwartz, I need
Jeffrey> to thank you for two very important things I learned from
Jeffrey> you. One is the basics of Perl. The other is to never, ever,
Jeffrey> ever audit passwords without getting permission carved in stone
Jeffrey> and signed in blood by everyone in and above the
Jeffrey> organization. I am really sorry that that was so awful for you.
I am that guy, and you're most welcome.
Please subscribe to FLOSS Weekly (http://twit.tv/floss) and make me even
more happy. :)
Steve Fenwick
<siegman-199467...@bmedcfsc-srv02.tufts.ad.tufts.edu>,
AES <sie...@stanford.edu> wrote:
> In article <110620111358247818%dogb...@chaseabone.com.invalid>,
> sbt <dogb...@chaseabone.com.invalid> wrote:
>
> > Here's one where, between the minimal contrast and even smaller type, I
> > find things only marginally readable (for example the text in the blurb
> > on the right headed "Ambrosia Announce Mailing List"), and Ambrosia is
> > one of my favorite Mac developers, with excellent products and great
> > people. http://www.ambrosiasw.com/news/
> >
>
> Yeah -- and for another disaster:
>
> <http://dh2011abstracts.stanford.edu/xtf/view?docId=tei/ab-263.xml;query=
> %22fiber%20optic%22;brand=default>
Is <cmd><+> not working for you? Works great on both these sites in
Safari 5.0.5.
Steve
--
steve <at> w0x0f <dot> com
"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of
arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to
skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, sidecar in the other, body thoroughly
used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"
dorayme
Jeffrey Goldberg <nob...@goldmark.org> wrote:
> It would be nice we could have a client side configuration that would,
> for the former, detect black text on while and reduce the contrast. For
> the others, it would be nice it would increase contrast.
>
> In a sense, we would need a dynamically generated user style sheet. I
> don't wan
I gave you the means to do something close to this very easily in
Safari, and similar would be possible for other browsers. It
involved keeping an alias of your user style sheet on the
desktop.
--
dorayme
dorayme
<1k2rq48.twjx96zx5nxcN%mike...@TOGROUPmacconsult.com>,
mike...@TOGROUPmacconsult.com (Mike Rosenberg) wrote:
I did give you the biggest hint of them all, in the reply that
you chose instead to ask about why I cut out all non-Mac groups.
It is called a user style sheet. CSS has many facilities to
change foreground (text and borders for example) and background
colours. I even told you about how to have the user sheet at your
finger tips.
There is a better way than the rudimentary way I suggested. Get
or write a set of rules and turn them off by commenting them out
as a default practice, uncommenting them when needed. You can
even have different sets of rules, useful for different lousy web
pages.
If you don't want or can't write your own rules, there are sets
you can copy/paste. Read the thread and you will see some.
--
dorayme
Jeffrey Goldberg
> In article <95l5ro...@mid.individual.net>,
> Jeffrey Goldberg <nob...@goldmark.org> wrote:
>
>> It would be nice we could have a client side configuration that would,
>> for the former, detect black text on while and reduce the contrast. For
>> the others, it would be nice it would increase contrast.
> I gave you the means to do something close to this very easily in
> Safari, and similar would be possible for other browsers. It
> involved keeping an alias of your user style sheet on the
> desktop.
I'm will hunt for that. I suppose that instead of automatically
detecting the contrast, a browser extension that increased (or
decreased) text to text-background contrast shouldn't be that hard to
create.
Jeffrey Goldberg
>>>>>> "Jeffrey" == Jeffrey Goldberg <nob...@goldmark.org> writes:
> I am that guy, and you're most welcome.
>
> Please subscribe to FLOSS Weekly (http://twit.tv/floss) and make me even
> more happy. :)
Done!
Salmon Egg
AES <sie...@stanford.edu> wrote:
> > To Adobe's credit, buried in Adobe Reader Preferences is
> > some arcane setting to alleviate the problem somewhat.
>
> Haven't found any such setting in Elements.
In a way, I would expect "Photoshop" applications to be more of a
problem than text applications. After all Photoshop is for modifying
images with nuanced changes, That is mighty difficult for someone with
kinds of impaired vision to be good at.
I think of Beethoven going deaf and still composing some of his best
music ever. It would be harder for a visual artist, I can almost think
of Beethoven seeing a score and thinking the sound it depicts. Looking
at a blurry image with poor color rendition and how to change it to look
better seems like an entirely different animal. Could it be that much of
modern art was created by people with vision problems? :(
--
Bill
Conservatives are against Darwinism but for natural selection.
Liberals are for Darwinism but totally against any selection.
Wes Groleau
> Is<cmd><+> not working for you? Works great on both these sites in
> Safari 5.0.5.
On the other hand, I have encountered pages where they have figured out
a way to disable that feature.
Salmon Egg
combination control-command-( < or > ) autorepeat. That would be very
handy for adjusting contrast to reach an optimum level. to do so now
requires repetitive pressing of the < or >, or worse, having to go to
the Universal Access panel and mousing the contrast slider.
Salmon Egg
sbt <dogb...@chaseabone.com.invalid> wrote:
>
> While the gray mainbody text is a little faint, it is still readable to
> these old eyes (and I complain to website owners frequently concerning
> insufficiently contrasting text). Maybe your eyes are even worse than
> mine
While low contrast and tiny fonts may still be POSSIBLE to read, it sure
slows you down.Why be happy with something that takes five minutes to
read, when if well thought out would take only a minue.
I find it virtually impossible to read a book with a magnifying glass.
The scanner and video capability of my computer helps greatly. In
addition to my poor resolution, I have holes in my field of vision. That
is not helpful to finding where my mouse pointer is.
While I do not expect people to do things to help me see things, I do
wish that they would not make things more difficult.
I know some visually impaired people get upset at Mr. Magoo cartoons.
They are not seen much any more. Nevertheless, I still enjoy them from
time to time. They do not upset me.
Ed Mullen
> On 06-12-2011 22:54, Steve Fenwick wrote:
>> Is<cmd><+> not working for you? Works great on both these sites in
>> Safari 5.0.5.
>
> On the other hand, I have encountered pages where they have figured out
> a way to disable that feature.
>
Please cite one and provide a URL.
Even better would be for you to explain the method used to achieve what
you claim.
--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net/
Why do people keep $50k worth of cars in the driveway and $1k of junk in
the garage?
Salmon Egg
> In article <110620111358247818%dogb...@chaseabone.com.invalid>,
> sbt <dogb...@chaseabone.com.invalid> wrote:
>
> > Here's one where, between the minimal contrast and even smaller type, I
> > find things only marginally readable (for example the text in the blurb
> > on the right headed "Ambrosia Announce Mailing List"), and Ambrosia is
> > one of my favorite Mac developers, with excellent products and great
> > people. http://www.ambrosiasw.com/news/
> >
>
> Yeah -- and for another disaster:
>
> <http://dh2011abstracts.stanford.edu/xtf/view?docId=tei/ab-263.xml;query=
> %22fiber%20optic%22;brand=default>
I is actually possible for me to read this Stanford site as downloaded
except that I am using inverse video. It is so painful to do, that I
would read it as is without very high motivation. To make it readable, I
pressed the command= twice to get the font large enough. That site is
far from the worst.
Salmon Egg
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org> wrote:
> On 06-11-2011 16:36, Salmon Egg wrote:
> > I think it should be possible to map the color space into a false color
> > rendition in which small change of a color vector from a web page gets
> > converted to a large change in the color vectors going to the final
> > display.
> >
> > I do not know how to implement that.
>
> Displays Pref Pane
> Color tab
> Calibrate button
I know that. But when you are at a site and see a gray background with
text in two place on it that are lighter and darker, how do you do that
without making a big project out of it? The content of most sites is not
worth the trouble.
dorayme
Jeffrey Goldberg <nob...@goldmark.org> wrote:
> On 11-06-12 10:03 PM, dorayme wrote:
> > In article <95l5ro...@mid.individual.net>,
> > Jeffrey Goldberg <nob...@goldmark.org> wrote:
> >
> >> It would be nice we could have a client side configuration that would,
> >> for the former, detect black text on while and reduce the contrast. For
> >> the others, it would be nice it would increase contrast.
>
> > I gave you the means to do something close to this very easily in
> > Safari, and similar would be possible for other browsers. It
> > involved keeping an alias of your user style sheet on the
> > desktop.
>
> I'm will hunt for that. I suppose that instead of automatically
> detecting the contrast, a browser extension that increased (or
> decreased) text to text-background contrast shouldn't be that hard to
> create.
Indeed, not too hard. In your sheet, to take the very simplest
and crudest example, you can simply
* {color: #000; background: #fff;}
for high contrast.
But this is very crude and there is better.
As for browser controls and extensions, there are in fact already
many such things. One of the simplest and oldest lets you turn
off author styles altogether and rely on the el basic stylesheet
that modern browsers rely on. In Safari, you can look under
Develop menu and disable styles, and you can often have a
*calmer* experience! In FF it is under View/Page Style/No Style
Fiddling with a monitors controls is rarely a good idea. Those of
us who use our monitors for graphic design go to some trouble to
calibrate and set the monitors to be reasonably good for the
practice while being OK for other things too.
But there was a time when it was easier! Remember the old CRTs
with the sensible wheels to control brightness and contrast etc.
Gone are those days! Now it is buttons that you need to press in
particular orders and goddammit, one can feel like a monkey on a
typewriter having written Hamlet when one succeeds.
There are a lot of people who do not understand how much can be
lost by losing intuitive analogy things. There was a thread on
cameras and photography where there was blank amazement at my
views.
--
dorayme
Paul Sture
sbt <dogb...@chaseabone.com.invalid> wrote:
> The reason for the light gray is, primarily, the result of an aesthetic
> consideration that ignores the purpose for the text: i.e. presentation
> over functionality.
From my observations, light gray simply became trendy a few years ago.
For some reason, quite a few web sites made the dates and times of
articles an extra low contrast, as if they don't want viewers to see it.
> The reason for the small fonts is partially an
> aesthetic and partially to get more content in a constrained space (and
> then let the user deal with "blowing it up" to read).
Compaq used to do this, and hard programmed it too. Apparently it
looked OK in Internet Explorer, but it certainly didn't in the browser
our work issue PCs had.
--
Paul Sture
Paul Sture
Jolly Roger <jolly...@pobox.com> wrote:
> In article <95l4oo...@mid.individual.net>,
> Jeffrey Goldberg <nob...@goldmark.org> wrote:
>
> > On 11-06-12 6:56 PM, Mike Rosenberg wrote:
> >
> > > And, of course, there's always Mark Conrad and his hex zeroes. Say, we
> > > haven't heard from him in quite some time.
> >
> > I figure that he's been off-line ever since one of his weekly
> > re-installations didn't work as planned when and he learned that his
> > backup and recovery scheme of manually editing the partition table and
> > using dd for backup and restore turned out to not be quite as robust as
> > he claimed. He just used ASCII "0"s where he needed hex 0s (but never
> > octal or binary zeros) when fucking with partition tables.
> >
> > The extent that people will go to to make life hard for themselves is
> > astounding.
> >
> > Cheers,
> >
> > -j
>
> That, or he finally electrocuted himself...
LOL!
He could have got his speech to text app running while editing his
partition tables...
--
Paul Sture
Alan Browne
> On Sun, 12 Jun 2011 22:31:27 +0100, Howar...@home.com (Howard)
> wrote:
>
>> AES<sie...@stanford.edu> wrote:
>>
>>> Jeffrey Goldberg<nob...@goldmark.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> I hope you will understand why I am skeptical of that after the whole
>>>> iCal discussion. So please post some links to example pages that
>>>> illustrate the problem. Once we see what is happening on those pages, it
>>>> will be easier to recommend fixes.
>>>
>>> OK, try
>>>
>>> <http://www.busymac.com/busysync/index.html>
>>>
>>> (which is typical of what I see on many many other web pages
>>>
>> I don't acceopt this is 'pale grey'. This is grey text that is much
>> easier on the eye to read. I like it and yes it has spread, hapily
>> across the net.
>>
>> I suggest you have sight problems or screen contrast problems.
>>
>> Howard
>
> I have neither sight problems nor screen contrast problems.
> I see the "busymac" page as lacking contrast overall. It is
> in a fog.
It displays fine with more than adequate contrast.
(On iMac 24").
So you have an eyesight problem, a monitor calibration or hardware
problem or a combination of the above.
--
gmail originated posts filtered due to spam.
Alan Browne
> AES<sie...@stanford.edu> wrote:
>
>>>> http://mikes-musings.net/
>>>
>>> Looks fine to me. (And I'm quite fond of my new Prius also. :-))
>>
>> Still a fair amount greyer, and smaller, than I would like (the OP
>> again). Doing an A-B test against the BusyMac/BusyCal site
>>
>> <http://www.busymac.com/busysync/index.html>
>>
>> also says to me that the latter is using a slightly large line spacing,
>> and it helps.
>
> Something important to keep in mind is that, while a site's absolute
> font sizes are specified, it's really the apparent sizes on a user's
> screen that matter and they, of course, differ based on monitor size and
> resolution. When my clients complain that too many web sites use fonts
> that are too small for them, I show them how to change screen resolution
> to make everything larger, and, in general, clients who find web text
> too small also find text in general too small.
Bzzzt. Show them how to do CMD + instead. Ideally the screen
resolution should match that of the physical monitor display to avoid
interpolation/extrapolation artifacts.
Edward Theodore Gein
Alan Browne <alan....@FreelunchVideotron.ca> wrote:
> So you have an eyesight problem, a monitor calibration or hardware
> problem or a combination of the above.
... or an attitude problem ...
--
Imbeciles are easy; toss up shit, it attracts flies
AES
Jeffrey Goldberg <nob...@goldmark.org> wrote:
>
> In a sense, we would need a dynamically generated user style sheet. I
> don't want to reduce contrast on all pages, but I do wish to reduce it
> on some. Likewise, AES probably doesn't want to increase contrast an all
> pages.
>
With this in mind, the Reader button in the Safari toolbar really does
seem to be one of the great inventions of Western man. Also gets rid of
all the advertising and other cruft, while keeping the relevant
graphics. Does a comparable button exist in other browsers?
Jeffrey Goldberg
> Apparently it looked OK in Internet Explorer, but it certainly didn't
> in the browser our work issue PCs had.
Returning slightly to the topic of c.i.www.authoriing, it wasn't that
long ago when Outhouse produced things with "font-size=2" (or whatever
the construct was) which ended up being rendered as 2pt in most places.
I believe that this is why browsers now have a preference setting for
"minimum font size".
Jeffrey Goldberg
> In article <95lh73...@mid.individual.net>,
> Jeffrey Goldberg <nob...@goldmark.org> wrote:
>> I suppose that instead of automatically
>> detecting the contrast, a browser extension that increased (or
>> decreased) text to text-background contrast shouldn't be that hard to
>> create.
> Indeed, not too hard. In your sheet, to take the very simplest
> and crudest example, you can simply
>
> * {color: #000; background: #fff;}
>
> for high contrast.
Right. Several of us, including me, suggested something like this to AES.
> But this is very crude and there is better.
I would like to see something that changed the style only when needed.
That is, it should be sensitive to what the contrast actually is from
the site provided style.
> As for browser controls and extensions, there are in fact already
> many such things. One of the simplest and oldest lets you turn
> off author styles altogether and rely on the el basic stylesheet
> that modern browsers rely on. In Safari, you can look under
> Develop menu and disable styles, and you can often have a
> *calmer* experience! In FF it is under View/Page Style/No Style
I am aware of all of this. I was trying for something more subtle,
which makes, roughly, the minimum change needed to get the reading
contrast the viewer prefers.
> But there was a time when [fiddling with monitor controls] was
> easier! Remember the old CRTs with the sensible wheels to control
> brightness and contrast etc. Gone are those days! Now it is buttons
> that you need to press in particular orders and goddammit, one can
> feel like a monkey on a typewriter having written Hamlet when one
> succeeds.
I hadn't thought about it, but I think that is exactly why I don't
bother with monitor controls. Yes, in the old days I did.
Jukka K. Korpela
> Returning slightly to the topic of c.i.www.authoriing, it wasn't that
> long ago when Outhouse produced things with "font-size=2" (or whatever
> the construct was) which ended up being rendered as 2pt in most places.
Such rendering would have been very odd, since font-size=2 meant (and
means) a size in a browser-dependent scale of fonts, right below the
normal (medium) font size. While browsers may have different ideas of
what this means, it typically means 10pt.
You might be confusing this with the Netscapism <font point-size=2>,
which would indeed have made the font size 2pt, on browsers that support
it (and Firefox seems to have retained the support!). But an authoring
program that generates such monstrosities would be much more guilty than
browsers that do what they have been told to do. After all, authoring
software can generate font-size: 2pt in CSS and produce a much bigger
mess (on all CSS-enabled browsers).
> I believe that this is why browsers now have a preference setting for
> "minimum font size".
I don't think there is any specific reason to the existence of the
setting, except the phenomenon that many authors set font size to
something below normal readability (and may make things even worse by
using gray color, small line-height, background image, etc.).
Followups trimmed to c.i.www.authoring.site-design.
--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
Wes Groleau
> He could have got his speech to text app running while editing his
> partition tables...
The reason he's off-line is that he tried to use Dragon
to edit the partition tables.
;-)
Wes Groleau
> Wes Groleau wrote:
>> On 06-12-2011 22:54, Steve Fenwick wrote:
>>> Is<cmd><+> not working for you? Works great on both these sites in
>>> Safari 5.0.5.
>> On the other hand, I have encountered pages where they have figured out
>> a way to disable that feature.
>
> Please cite one and provide a URL.
Each time it happens I get pissed off enough to remember it happened,
but I have absolutely no reason to go hunting for it again.
You have my permission to be skeptical.
> Even better would be for you to explain the method used to achieve what
> you claim.
If I knew how they did it, I would long ago have released
a free app to defeat it.
David Stone
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org> wrote:
> On 06-13-2011 01:12, Ed Mullen wrote:
> > Wes Groleau wrote:
> >> On 06-12-2011 22:54, Steve Fenwick wrote:
> >>> Is<cmd><+> not working for you? Works great on both these sites in
> >>> Safari 5.0.5.
> >> On the other hand, I have encountered pages where they have figured out
> >> a way to disable that feature.
> >
> > Please cite one and provide a URL.
>
> Each time it happens I get pissed off enough to remember it happened,
> but I have absolutely no reason to go hunting for it again.
>
> You have my permission to be skeptical.
>
> > Even better would be for you to explain the method used to achieve what
> > you claim.
>
> If I knew how they did it, I would long ago have released
> a free app to defeat it.
If you do happen to run into such a site again, try turning off JS and
reloading...
Jim Janney
> In article <siegman-7694FE...@sciid-srv02.med.tufts.edu>,
> AES <sie...@stanford.edu> wrote:
>
>> > To Adobe's credit, buried in Adobe Reader Preferences is
>> > some arcane setting to alleviate the problem somewhat.
>>
>> Haven't found any such setting in Elements.
>
> In a way, I would expect "Photoshop" applications to be more of a
> problem than text applications. After all Photoshop is for modifying
> images with nuanced changes, That is mighty difficult for someone with
> kinds of impaired vision to be good at.
>
> I think of Beethoven going deaf and still composing some of his best
> music ever. It would be harder for a visual artist, I can almost think
> of Beethoven seeing a score and thinking the sound it depicts. Looking
> at a blurry image with poor color rendition and how to change it to look
> better seems like an entirely different animal. Could it be that much of
> modern art was created by people with vision problems? :(
Seems unlikely: I'd expect vision problems to be more common before the
modern era, for most definitions of modern. But there's speculation
that the odd proportions in El Greco's paintings were the result of
astigmatism. And while I was looking that up, I found that there's a
number of famous painters who may have had vision problems: for details
see
http://www.psych.ucalgary.ca/PACE/VA-Lab/AVDE-Website/default.html
--
Jim Janney
dorayme
Wes Groleau <Grolea...@FreeShell.org> wrote:
> On 06-13-2011 01:12, Ed Mullen wrote:
> > Wes Groleau wrote:
> >> On 06-12-2011 22:54, Steve Fenwick wrote:
> >>> Is<cmd><+> not working for you? Works great on both these sites in
> >>> Safari 5.0.5.
> >> On the other hand, I have encountered pages where they have figured out
> >> a way to disable that feature.
> >
> > Please cite one and provide a URL.
>
> Each time it happens I get pissed off enough to remember it happened,
> but I have absolutely no reason to go hunting for it again.
>
It is unlikely, you generally using Macs, but if you had used one
of the versions or other of Internet Explorer, font-sizes set in
pixels would not succumb to browser controls. The control freaks
who would impose tiny fonts on others probably loved it!
...
--
dorayme
Wes Groleau
That's probably it. I know it happened many times but don't know
whether at work or home. At home I use mostly FireFox on Mac.
At work we're stuck with (gag) IE6 mainly because we have apps
that still depend on it. We can't just drop them because they
affect the care of hospital patients. But we are slowly working
on reducing their scope and someday being free of them.
Wes Groleau
> modern era, for most definitions of modern. But there's speculation
> that the odd proportions in El Greco's paintings were the result of
> astigmatism. And while I was looking that up, I found that there's a
That hypothesis always puzzled me. If astigmatism distorts things for
him, I'd think he would still draw them "normally" so that the same
astigmatism would make them look like what he's accustomed to seeing.
dorayme
Jeffrey Goldberg <nob...@goldmark.org> wrote:
> On 11-06-13 12:38 AM, dorayme wrote:
> > In article <95lh73...@mid.individual.net>,
> > Jeffrey Goldberg <nob...@goldmark.org> wrote:
>
> >> I suppose that instead of automatically
> >> detecting the contrast, a browser extension that increased (or
> >> decreased) text to text-background contrast shouldn't be that hard to
> >> create.
>
> > Indeed, not too hard. In your sheet, to take the very simplest
> > and crudest example, you can simply
> >
> > * {color: #000; background: #fff;}
> >
> > for high contrast.
>
> Right. Several of us, including me, suggested something like this to AES.
>
> > But this is very crude and there is better.
>
> I would like to see something that changed the style only when needed.
> That is, it should be sensitive to what the contrast actually is from
> the site provided style.
Difficult because what requires more contrast depends on the
user, how is the browser to know? The browser already has a
facility for folk to use their own css sheet. Do you want a
special sheet browser makers make with a button to turn it on and
off? There is almost this as someone suggested in the thread
about an Opera given sheet.
What could be the go is a user sheet with blocks of css commented
out. To be uncommented on a tactical basis or on a user preferred
basis. As an example of how we can do this, imagine we collect
competent css sheets that various individuals find useful for
their particular taste and eyesight. I am talking just sets of
rules to help contrast, though this is merely an arbitrary thing.
Now someone could collect all these sets and put them in one big
sheet, commenting out all but one set. The user could use this
sheet by selecting the one set that fits his or her need. In this
thread, a few sets of rules have been suggested. Or there could
be any number of sheets to achieve satisfaction for someone or
other and only requiring adding under a unique named sheet to a
set in the user stylesheet folder. In prefs, each person can
choose whatever sheet he or she wants.
OK, perhaps browsers could get smart and be trained by their
users to pick up on their tastes. The thing notices that when the
text is pretty light and grey, to use the
"buggerthisartyfartycrap.css". If the user hates white text on
black or white text on anything, the browser learns to auto use
the "ihatewhitetextonanybackground.css". I guess.
--
dorayme
Steve Fenwick
Alan Browne <alan....@FreelunchVideotron.ca> wrote:
Eh, I have adequate eyesight (enough for the DMV and FAA), a correctly
calibrated monitor, no HW problems, and it reads as "grey" to me, not
"black". The question to the site author is, why not use black, or a
darker grey? I don't regard it as easier to read. Same for the blue
headings--a somewhat darker blue would be more attractive to me.
Steve
--
steve <at> w0x0f <dot> com
"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of
arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to
skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, sidecar in the other, body thoroughly
used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"
Warren Oates
Michael Vilain <vil...@NOspamcop.net> wrote:
> Nope. Safari only.
I've been following this thread awhile now. Am I the only one just looks
at web pages the way they've been presented? I never turn off the CSS or
zoom in on pages. I mean, truly, never.
--
Why do we say Chicken of the Sea but not Tuna of the Farm?
-- Thomas Pynchon
Sherm Pendley
> I've been following this thread awhile now. Am I the only one just looks
> at web pages the way they've been presented?
No, you're not.
sherm--
Jolly Roger
Sherm Pendley <sherm....@gmail.com> wrote:
Same here.
--
Send responses to the relevant news group rather than email to me.
E-mail sent to this address may be devoured by my very hungry SPAM
filter. Due to Google's refusal to prevent spammers from posting
messages through their servers, I often ignore posts from Google
Groups. Use a real news client if you want me to see your posts.
JR
Paul Sture
Jeffrey Goldberg <nob...@goldmark.org> wrote:
> On 11-06-13 2:36 AM, Paul Sture wrote:
>
> > Apparently it looked OK in Internet Explorer, but it certainly didn't
> > in the browser our work issue PCs had.
>
> Returning slightly to the topic of c.i.www.authoriing, it wasn't that
> long ago when Outhouse produced things with "font-size=2" (or whatever
> the construct was) which ended up being rendered as 2pt in most places.
I have certainly come across that problem in the past, Outhouse being
the culprit.
The Compaq site had the equivalent of "font-size=1"
> I believe that this is why browsers now have a preference setting for
> "minimum font size".
>
I think you are correct. It's certainly been of use to me.
--
Paul Sture
Jonathan N. Little
> In article<m2k4cob...@sherm.shermpendley.com>,
> Sherm Pendley<sherm....@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Warren Oates<warren...@gmail.com> writes:
>>
>>> I've been following this thread awhile now. Am I the only one just looks
>>> at web pages the way they've been presented?
>>
>> No, you're not.
>>
>
> Same here.
>
Mostly, but what do you do when you come across pages like this:
<http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=190020>
--
Take care,
Jonathan
-------------------
LITTLE WORKS STUDIO
http://www.LittleWorksStudio.com
Jolly Roger
"Jonathan N. Little" <lws...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Jolly Roger wrote:
> > In article<m2k4cob...@sherm.shermpendley.com>,
> > Sherm Pendley<sherm....@gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> >> Warren Oates<warren...@gmail.com> writes:
> >>
> >>> I've been following this thread awhile now. Am I the only one just looks
> >>> at web pages the way they've been presented?
> >>
> >> No, you're not.
> >
> > Same here.
>
> Mostly, but what do you do when you come across pages like this:
>
> <http://www.perlmonks.org/?node_id=190020>
I read it. What seems to be the problem? It looks perfectly fine here:
<http://jollyroger.kicks-ass.org/perlmonks.png>