Oh the new forum, it's damn small !!!

[Arryn]

Another problem with using pixels rather than relative sizes is that it screws up the way the HTML font attributes (such as bold, etc.) are interpreted when small styles are selected.

And I understand what Esben is going through. I use a large monitor also and I had to switch from 1600x1200 down to 1280x1024, and select large/huge (not much difference between them) just to be able to read the forum without rather serious eyestrain.

Any study of CSS/HTML coding guides will tell you exactly what Esben has said: you don't use pixels unless there's a darn good reason to, *and* you're an expert web designer.

[Thufir]

Richard said:
Actually the decision was made based on the majority of user response on the font issue. No matter what way we went someone was going to be unhappy. We may setup on larger set for those with extremely large monitors. One thing to keep in mind is that even IE has ways to bypass stylesheets so that you can set this they way you want.

Again we cant please everyone with the choices we made with the font issue, but by and large we have heard much more positive responses than negative ones.

Richard,

I for one am generally happy with the results of the forum change. I am particularly happy that Shrapnel has listened to feedback, and has continued to adjust/improve the forum software after the initial launch.

That said, I think Esben's point is more about implementation than design, and it really is widely acknowledged that hardcoding pixel sizes is a bad thing. This is something that could easily be fixed, and would enhance everyone's experience.

[Ironhawk]

Yeah I'm with Thufir on this one. I've had no problems with fonts in the new Version of the forums. And having the Posts display in the correct order is just great!

As for what particular metric to use when designing the web page: the way you described sounds like a win-win, but I hesitate to ask for much more, given that Shrapnel just made a major change that people have been groaning about for a long while.

[alexti]

Esben Mose Hansen said:
This is because the web designers in question think that specifying font sizes in pixels is the way to go, when in fact it is just about the worst possible thing to do. I've all but stopped reading these forums because of this --- even with huge fonts, the text is barely readable. Why can't people just leave the damn fontsize alone? Is it so hard?

font-size is for people who know what they are doing. If you're using font-size: xxpx, without trying to align something to an image (which is a daft thing to do in any case) you're not qualified to use that attribute. 

I've just added:
Code:

---

td.lighttable { font-size: small !important;  color: #420 !important; }

---

to my user stylesheet. Seems to be working fine

Actually, I've also added few other lines to make it look the way I want:
Code:

---

td.lighttable blockquote hr { display: none !important;  }

td.lighttable font.post { font-size: small !important; color: black !important;}

td.lighttable font.small { border-bottom: 1px solid black !important;}

td.lighttable blockquote { padding: 0.3em 0.3em 0.3em 0.3em !important; 

			margin: 0 0 0 0 !important;

			margin-left: 2em !important; }

td.lighttable br { font-size: 0.1em !important; }

---

[Esben Mose Hansen]

Wow, this got a few more responses than expected. I really do not browse the forums that often anymore, sorry about the delay. I admit I was mostly ranting --- please don't let this belittle the work you have done, Richard et al. The forums has certainly become a much nicer place to visit, and kudos to that. Now for some specific responses:

It is true that it is possible to fix this issue with user-side stylesheet --- which is how I fix two other issues that web-designers have trouble grasping.

• All links should be underlined --- or I will miss them.
• Leave the font-family alone. --- or you will probably hit some ugly font I have installed for use with consoles, which needs extreme scrolling speed.

So I have
Code:

---

a:link { text-decoration: underline ! important }

* { font-family: serif ! important }

tt, pre { font-family: monospace ! important }

---

But I dislike having site-specific fixes in there. And yes Konqueror (the name of my usual browser) does support text zoom, but it is quite annoying for a number of reasons to use on a forum.

Shrapnel forums are, BTW, far from unique in having this problem. Even Gentoo's (in every other way excellent) can't seem to get this simple fact

[alexti]

Esben Mose Hansen said:
It is true that it is possible to fix this issue with user-side stylesheet
<snip>

But I dislike having site-specific fixes in there.

Given the messy state of the web, I find it hard to avoid site specific fixes for the sites I regularly vist, and for other sites, disabling author's stylesheet is usually producing very decent results