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GeneralRe: The trend to use LARGE BIG SCREAMING FONTS Pin
MarkTJohnson16-Oct-19 7:39
professionalMarkTJohnson16-Oct-19 7:39 
GeneralRe: The trend to use LARGE BIG SCREAMING FONTS Pin
Gandalf_TheWhite16-Oct-19 19:02
professionalGandalf_TheWhite16-Oct-19 19:02 
GeneralRe: The trend to use LARGE BIG SCREAMING FONTS Pin
TNCaver17-Oct-19 16:55
TNCaver17-Oct-19 16:55 
GeneralRe: The trend to use LARGE BIG SCREAMING FONTS Pin
Gandalf_TheWhite17-Oct-19 20:18
professionalGandalf_TheWhite17-Oct-19 20:18 
GeneralRe: The trend to use LARGE BIG SCREAMING FONTS Pin
#realJSOP16-Oct-19 9:19
professional#realJSOP16-Oct-19 9:19 
GeneralRe: The trend to use LARGE BIG SCREAMING FONTS Pin
  Forogar  16-Oct-19 9:49
professional  Forogar  16-Oct-19 9:49 
GeneralRe: The trend to use LARGE BIG SCREAMING FONTS Pin
jeron116-Oct-19 10:25
jeron116-Oct-19 10:25 
GeneralRe: The trend to use LARGE BIG SCREAMING FONTS Pin
kalberts17-Oct-19 7:02
kalberts17-Oct-19 7:02 
Count me in.

Even if the typeface is large enough by itself, web fashion of today is to use fonts made up of hairlines only. Single pixel width, or thereabouts. Sometimes medium or light grey as well. I think the designers might use the term "elegance" in describing the style. They definitely should not use the term "readability".

In theory this should create no problems with web pages ... if what we were told 20 years ago had been true. It was said that the "cascading" nature of CSS allows you to define the typeface and size at the top level, and it would sift through the layers, adjusting whatever you wanted to adjust. We were told that the same page could be viewed using one CSS for large, high contrast text, another CSS for poor resolution screens, hence different fonts and other layout, yet another CSS for users with a braille terminal. This was a blatant lie. In the very first years, I tried to make alternate CSSes. Essentially it might affect websites that didn't use CSS at all (they did exist, 20 years ago!). For very simple, almost pure text pages, you might be able to affect some text, but often just part of it. I never saw a web site providing a "If you can't read this text because it is too small, click on it to enlarge font size" that could be scaled up by adding a local CSS. I never saw a single demo of a CSS that would give a braille reader access to the web page text, or a reduced-vision person higher contrast and larger typefaces, not even in the early days when absolute measures were considered inappropriate.

Today, most websites set both typeface and size explicitlty, very close to the actual graphics, and in absolute values rather than relative. Changing a default has no effect whatsoever. I don't even know if today's browsers have facilities for inserting CSS files or set defaults. Why should they, when 99,99% of page elements will ignore it anyway?

In theory I can, for each and every web page, pick up the specific CSS of that web page and edit it. Although there in theory is no difference between theory and practice, in pratice there is. The onlyu workable solution would be one a single "private" CSS, setting defaults for all web pages.

Our only rescue is the zoom function. But that cannot change a light grey hairline font to a solid black font of a fatter design. To make the text readable I have to zoom up far more than I would do with a proper typface choice.

I suspect that there is some way of setting up a global (on my machine) font substitution table so that any request for a hairline typeface would return some roboust, readable face. I don't know how to do that. And I would probably have to add several new typefaces to the table every day for a year before it would calm down. Maybe I could even manipulate a color name-to-RGB table - but is seems like the great majority of CSS files today use RGB directly, rather than color names. I am sure that web designers have ways to circument such substitutions and replacements anyway: They see it as they d*** right to force their style onto me. If I can't read it (with ease), then that is my problem, not their problem!

Or they present the stuff as a PDF file where everything is absolute. Especially for sales brochures you see this - and a lot of "elegant" hairline typefaces. In one case it was so bad that I was happy to discover that the PDF permitted me to create an MS-Word copy, where I could replace the font by a readable one. Most PDFs won't permit this. Or they represent a significant part of text info as images of text. In any case: This is not what I consider a workable solution.
GeneralRe: The trend to use LARGE BIG SCREAMING FONTS Pin
TheGreatAndPowerfulOz16-Oct-19 11:40
TheGreatAndPowerfulOz16-Oct-19 11:40 
GeneralRe: The trend to use LARGE BIG SCREAMING FONTS Pin
Mycroft Holmes16-Oct-19 15:22
professionalMycroft Holmes16-Oct-19 15:22 
GeneralRe: The trend to use LARGE BIG SCREAMING FONTS Pin
Eddy Vluggen16-Oct-19 13:12
professionalEddy Vluggen16-Oct-19 13:12 
GeneralRe: The trend to use LARGE BIG SCREAMING FONTS Pin
MKJCP17-Oct-19 3:16
MKJCP17-Oct-19 3:16 
GeneralRe: The trend to use LARGE BIG SCREAMING FONTS Pin
Eddy Vluggen17-Oct-19 3:54
professionalEddy Vluggen17-Oct-19 3:54 
GeneralRe: The trend to use LARGE BIG SCREAMING FONTS Pin
MKJCP17-Oct-19 3:58
MKJCP17-Oct-19 3:58 
GeneralRe: The trend to use LARGE BIG SCREAMING FONTS Pin
Eddy Vluggen17-Oct-19 4:05
professionalEddy Vluggen17-Oct-19 4:05 
GeneralRe: The trend to use LARGE BIG SCREAMING FONTS Pin
den2k8816-Oct-19 21:25
professionalden2k8816-Oct-19 21:25 
GeneralRe: The trend to use LARGE BIG SCREAMING FONTS Pin
Sander Rossel16-Oct-19 23:25
professionalSander Rossel16-Oct-19 23:25 
GeneralRe: The trend to use LARGE BIG SCREAMING FONTS Pin
Gary Wheeler17-Oct-19 2:26
Gary Wheeler17-Oct-19 2:26 
GeneralRe: The trend to use LARGE BIG SCREAMING FONTS Pin
Dan Neely17-Oct-19 2:42
Dan Neely17-Oct-19 2:42 
GeneralRe: The trend to use LARGE BIG SCREAMING FONTS Pin
agolddog17-Oct-19 2:43
agolddog17-Oct-19 2:43 
GeneralRe: The trend to use LARGE BIG SCREAMING FONTS Pin
TNCaver17-Oct-19 16:52
TNCaver17-Oct-19 16:52 
GeneralRe: The trend to use LARGE BIG SCREAMING FONTS Pin
dandy7220-Oct-19 4:14
dandy7220-Oct-19 4:14 
GeneralThought of the Day Pin
OriginalGriff16-Oct-19 4:32
mveOriginalGriff16-Oct-19 4:32 
GeneralRe: Thought of the Day Pin
W Balboos, GHB16-Oct-19 4:35
W Balboos, GHB16-Oct-19 4:35 
GeneralRe: Thought of the Day Pin
MKJCP17-Oct-19 3:22
MKJCP17-Oct-19 3:22 

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