themes

[Psamathe]

...
Anyway I'll 'wait and see'. My days of making a huge fuss when a forum changes its skin, are hopefully over. I learned my lesson at another place - the hard way!

My problem is that the massive large and tiny fonts make it difficult to read - and the last font size tweaks have ruined what was an excellent mobile layout.

I can't type much in this one (so will be departing soon unless something can be sorted).

I actually love change but it has to be for the better.

Ian

[661-Pete]

I can't type much in this one (so will be departing soon unless something can be sorted).

That would be a great shame . This is no way to lose an active contributor.

Actually, I'm a fine one to moralise. You and I share an interest in astronomy, so I'll mention this. One of the main reasons why I effectively cut myself off from SGL (the largest astronomy forum in the UK) was that I "doth protest too much" about a change they made in the forum 'engine' and appearance, which I disliked. Anyway, a major row with the Mods ensued, and the rest ..... is history.

Hope nothing of the sort happens here.

[NATURAL ANKLING]

Hi,
Preview and then return is seamless with out refresh On win 7. IE

Edited should have been on the other update post ....................now I am confused.

[Psamathe]

I can't type much in this one (so will be departing soon unless something can be sorted).

That would be a great shame :( . This is no way to lose an active contributor.

Actually, I'm a fine one to moralise. You and I share an interest in astronomy, so I'll mention this. One of the main reasons why I effectively cut myself off from SGL (the largest astronomy forum in the UK) was that I "doth protest too much" about a change they made in the forum 'engine' and appearance, which I disliked. Anyway, a major row with the Mods ensued, and the rest ..... is history.

Hope nothing of the sort happens here. :roll:

Issue is that some posts end-up with horizontal scroll bars in the post text and you have to scroll left and right to read each line !!

And the font sizes just look ridiculous (which is such a shame as the 1st day or two after new release the mobile version layout was fantastic - but font sizes messed up and it's destroyed the main forum and the mobile layout!!)

Ian

[RickH]

One thought for something that might make the desktop browser version (they are absent on my phone - Sony Xperia Z Ultra - in portrait mode & just a very thin edge in landscape) a little less "in your face" would be a darker shade on the borders either side (they are currently only just off white - #F5F7FA) A similar colour to the border of the sections perhaps (or a "corporate" shade for digital #009FDA / #007FAE)?

One other minor thing with the portrait mobile version. With the landscape & desktop versions each post has the title with a smaller "by JoeBloggs" underneath. In Portrait mode the author is above the title but there is a big space before the title which visually dissociates the author's name. The relative font sizes are the same in both mobile modes but the author looks much smaller when it is separated form the title like that.

My problem is that the massive large and tiny fonts make it difficult to read - and the last font size tweaks have ruined what was an excellent mobile layout.

What are you using to access the forum? I'm not finding here that font sizes are generally too big/ too small here (Firefox in both Windows 10 & Android Lollipop) which suggests it might be a user end problem - browser font rendering or suchlike - rather than a specific forum software problem (although there may be things to mitigate it in the forum software if it can be figured out what is happening).

Rick.

[Psamathe]

...

My problem is that the massive large and tiny fonts make it difficult to read - and the last font size tweaks have ruined what was an excellent mobile layout.

What are you using to access the forum? I'm not finding here that font sizes are generally too big/ too small here (Firefox in both Windows 10 & Android Lollipop) which suggests it might be a user end problem - browser font rendering or suchlike - rather than a specific forum software problem (although there may be things to mitigate it in the forum software if it can be figured out what is happening).

Rick.

The initial update was OK (in fact on mobile rather good/excellent). Fonts on laptop were not ideal (character horizontal spacing too tight to be readable - one reason why Verdana was invented).

But then it was "tweaked" and it all became a disaster with things lime horizontal scroll bars on some posts (as the text was truncated on the right/left, far too small), etc.

So the style as distributed had been setup properly (probably tested on loads of different browsers and platforms), subsequent changed destroyed it (which is probably why the distributed version was as distributed - because it worked on lots of platforms with lots of different browsers).

Ian

[admin]

My problem is that the massive large and tiny fonts make it difficult to read - and the last font size tweaks have ruined what was an excellent mobile layout.

I'm confused. People complained that the font size for message text was a bit small, and it was compared to other sites. I've increased it a little, so it is more like other sites on the web. That way people who have increased or decreased their font size in their browser will find the Forum fits that too.

Please could you tell me where you see "massive large and tiny fonts"? And what browser and device you're using?

[mjr]

One other minor thing with the portrait mobile version. With the landscape & desktop versions each post has the title with a smaller "by JoeBloggs" underneath. In Portrait mode the author is above the title but there is a big space before the title which visually dissociates the author's name.

I've not checked in detail and I've little time today (work plus a half-assembled hub gear) but I think that's a quirk in that it's allowing space next to the name for an avatar and only a minority of users on here have set an avatar. I'll go set myself one now and see if the mobile layout makes more sense next time I look from my phone (this evening, probably).

And just to make an explicit plea: when grumbling about layouts, it's probably useful to tell people the browser and operating system, so then others might be able to use one of http://ipinfo.info/html/rendering_services.php to try to see what you see and be able to test possible solutions without a load of back and forth.

[Psamathe]

I assume that this problem with the fonts is now not going to be fixed.

I cannot have to scroll left and right on each line of some posts. The font size (from the 1st release) has "broken".

I keep popping back to check if it's been fixed (normally a tweaked version will be a copy with a new name so the original is always there (unbroken).

Nice if somebody could say "don't bother checking we are leaving it broken" or "it is going to be fixed" (in which case I'll keep checking and join in again when I can read posts properly).

But silence is .... not ideal.

Ian

[mjr]

But silence is .... not ideal.

What bloody silence? Can you not see the replies from admin and myself asking for a bit more detail so we can stand some chance of tracking down where the problem is, even if it might be specific to one browser?

[Psamathe]

But silence is .... not ideal.

What bloody silence? Can you not see the replies from admin and myself asking for a bit more detail so we can stand some chance of tracking down where the problem is, even if it might be specific to one browser?

Since I raised it I've seen an offer to change the line spacing but nothing else. I've posted a few screen shots and said how the initial release layout was massively better than now (with a minor aspect that the font for post texts was a bit horizontally "tight" (inter character space too small - but that was probably more because it was Helvetica (not Trebucet MS [sic]).

But the original worked and not seen any other questions.

(But this forum section is not included in the "Recent Posts" and I've just been popping back seeing if the original has been restored).
[Edit: Does seem to now but a few times I've check "Recent posts and this thread not in it but then gone into the forum section and found posts have been added so it seems to appear in recent posts only sometimes)]

I am surprised that the original was not copied and a new skin used to make the tweaks and experiment with.

Ian

[Psamathe]

My problem is that the massive large and tiny fonts make it difficult to read - and the last font size tweaks have ruined what was an excellent mobile layout.

I'm confused. People complained that the font size for message text was a bit small, and it was compared to other sites. I've increased it a little, so it is more like other sites on the web. That way people who have increased or decreased their font size in their browser will find the Forum fits that too.

Please could you tell me where you see "massive large and tiny fonts"? And what browser and device you're using?

The main nasty (that makes some posts unreadable) is when the text is wider than the box defied for the post and a horizontal scroll bar appears in the post so you are having to scroll left and right on each line to ready each line. I posted an example earlier in the thread.

After the initial release, the latest version has very small text when reading a thread for each post (i.e. the bit people have written). This is smaller than the release version.

In the list of posts in each forum section, the title of the post has got significantly bigger and this is what has messed up the mobile version (where screen space is very limited on small screen phones). i.e. was good, then tweaked now you get massively less on the screen (font size changes are very significant on small screens).

Since the initial release the text entry for the post text (i.e. the multi-line bit I'm typing in now) text has got significantly bigger, out of scale with the Subject text entry box and the previous post texts below - a massive contrast. Minor effect of this is that as you type and the bottom of the text entry is below the screen the box dances around a bit.

I'd suggest renaming the current (tweaked/broken) prosilver to e.g. CTCprosilver (or whatever) and restore the original prosilver (i.e. original as when 1st installed). The 1st installed version was much better of small phone screens as well.

(Sorry if I missed questions but I am just popping in to see if its working again as I can't use it at the moment in this state - you get enough "didn't you read what I write" already, but when "reading what they wrote" is such a pain due to forum skin issues ...)

Using Mac/Safari on a physically small but high res screen.
Ian

[mjr]

The main nasty (that makes some posts unreadable) is when the text is wider than the box defied for the post and a horizontal scroll bar appears in the post so you are having to scroll left and right on each line to ready each line. I posted an example earlier in the thread. [...]
Using Mac/Safari on a physically small but high res screen.

Is that grey underline a scroll bar? Wow, that's style over obviousness ... but anyway, there's some stuff at the bottom of content.css about "Show scrollbars for items with overflow on iOS devices" but I don't see what limits it to iOS, so I suspect it may be activating on all webkit browsers, including your Safari on Mac... but I can't invent a combination of font and window sizes in my webkit browsers that makes scrollbars appear on the post viewtopic.php?p=1014368#p1014368 that you demonstrated it on, so I'm having trouble testing this :-/

I can't explain the posting box size changes. I'd not noticed anyone say they'd changed that.

I'll have to leave it to admin to decide about theme names/renames and so on, but I will note that the tweaks did improve display on my Android mobile as well as the desktop.

[Psamathe]

The main nasty (that makes some posts unreadable) is when the text is wider than the box defied for the post and a horizontal scroll bar appears in the post so you are having to scroll left and right on each line to ready each line. I posted an example earlier in the thread. [...]
Using Mac/Safari on a physically small but high res screen.

Is that grey underline a scroll bar? Wow, that's style over obviousness :roll: ... but anyway, there's some stuff at the bottom of content.css about "Show scrollbars for items with overflow on iOS devices" but I don't see what limits it to iOS, so I suspect it may be activating on all webkit browsers, including your Safari on Mac... but I can't invent a combination of font and window sizes in my webkit browsers that makes scrollbars appear on the post viewtopic.php?p=1014368#p1014368 that you demonstrated it on, so I'm having trouble testing this :-/

I can't explain the posting box size changes. I'd not noticed anyone say they'd changed that.

I'll have to leave it to admin to decide about theme names/renames and so on, but I will note that the tweaks did improve display on my Android mobile as well as the desktop.

The horizontal scroll bar is on the Mac not iOS. The thing about the horizontal scroll bars is that they were not there with the 1st install version of the skin. They only started after the font size changes - hence my suggestion to copy the current changed one (making a 3rd style option) and restore the original prosilver - which did not suffer from all these font size/scroll bar issues. I am guessing that the horizontal scroll bar issue is caused by the font size changes.

I think part of the size issue is aggravated by the different fonts. The post body text entry is a large font AND a larger pixel size. To me the display of other post body texts looks like Helvetica 9pt (which is small).

Ian

[Mick F]

I'm on a Mac, and I don't have any horizontal scroll bars.