is there a way of....?

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nuno1959 Author

Level 1

36 points

is there a way of....?

hi guys

i use the Apple Support Communities EVERY day because i run constantly into trouble AND it's such a good place to get friendly & to the point help . no faffing about, just the way i like it...

only recently did i notice that the Forum as been ''set up'' differently & has some new ''functions'' as the ''insert image'' - which i love, it's sooo easy !

now, i usually have a problem posting in forums w/ my 27'' iMac, the fonts being WAY TOO SMALL to make writing/reading comfortable + it's difficult to go back & correct something one wrote - placing correctly the mouse cursor becomes a hit or miss affair.. - luckily here there is a ''font size selector'' which TOTALLY solves this problem - BRILLIANT !!

however i've found that each time i come back here to post, i have to re-set it to my desired size !?

i tried looking around in my profile, my stuff, etc...to see if there was a way to set it permanently to a certain size & leave IT at that

the same applies when displaying the discussions page - i like to set it at displaying 30 items per page but if i leave & come back later i have to re-set this as well !

maybe i'm being finicky but would you guys know of ANY way to set these functions permanently ? kind of as in an ''app's preferences pane'' so that each time you launch it, it ALWAYS comes up set up the same way, you know what i mean ?

that would be SO useful to me ....

many thanks, any suggestions will be very appreciated

Posted on Aug 18, 2011 2:23 AM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Alancito

Level 7

27,382 points

Aug 18, 2011 2:55 AM in response to nuno1959

I don't know about setting these Support Communities' font size permanently, but in Safari > Preferences... Advanced tab, there's this Safari-wide setting:

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Answer 2

nuno1959 Author

Level 1

36 points

Aug 18, 2011 5:04 AM in response to Alancito

Hi Alancito

& thanks for your input - unfortunately that is something i already do but had to settle to ''size 14'' because beyond that many sites start going ''bonkers'' - check the screenshots below :

i guess it has to do with how the sites are ''written'' or something.....

after much trial & error, i found that 14 is a good compromise, only producing the occasional garbled site

now for you to have an idea of how writing here looks like compared to say a google search page look at this screenshot :

the letters of the text i write are 2mm tall, it's just crazy !

let's face it - i know my sight isn't THAT sharp anymore, i'm 51 years old but i do wear properly prescribed reading/computer glasses ( don't know how these are called in english.. ) but come on i only have 2.5 on my strongest lens, i sit at roughly 20 or 25'' away from the screen - it seems to me it SHOULDN'T be THIS difficult , you know what i'm saying ?

at the end of the day this isn't a BIG, BAD thing - it's just annoying, forces me to constantly reset things a certain way & it certainly slows me down A LOT

again many thanks, let's see if somebody else has another solution

cheers

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Answer 3

thomas_r.

Level 7

31,989 points

Aug 18, 2011 8:20 AM in response to nuno1959

The problem is that, if the post I'm replying to is an example of what you want to happen, it means your viewing preferences are now imposed on ME! I feel like I'm reading a strange children's book with no pictures! Please, please don't mess around with the font and font size settings in the editor on these forums... as much as you might like the look of a post, others may not.

Instead, use a more universal solution that will work for all sites, but won't affect what other people see. In Safari's View menu, there are choices for Zoom In and Zoom Out. If you don't have the Zoom Text Only option checked (in the same menu), it will zoom the entire page, graphics and all, and won't break sites that are designed to only work with a narrow range of font sizes.

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Answer 4

TildeBee

Level 7

31,917 points

Aug 18, 2011 8:30 AM in response to thomas_r.

Thomas --

The OP may have sight problems. I'm sure you didn't mean to lecture him on his reading needs.

Nuno --

Do you empty the Safari cache & History list regularly? If not, do that now. I think if you put the preference in that preference pane to 12, it should be OK (well, better anyway) for most sites.

EDIT: Do you have two Font Managers on there? Anything in addition to Font Book? Do you have a walcom tablet on there? Are you using two displays? I'm just trying to think of all the situations I've seen here when the type on this site is too small.

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Answer 5

thomas_r.

Level 7

31,989 points

Aug 18, 2011 9:12 AM in response to TildeBee

The OP may have sight problems. I'm sure you didn't mean to lecture him on his reading needs.

Yes, I understood that. I was trying to point out that a solution that affects the text that everyone sees is not a good solution. And I did point out what I thought was a pretty darn good solution. I certainly didn't mean to offend anyone. I'm honestly not sure how it did... ?

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Answer 6

nuno1959 Author

Level 1

36 points

Aug 18, 2011 12:48 PM in response to nuno1959

please guys

no offense taken whatsoever - i understand what you're talking about, if anything i thank you taking the time to try & sort me out !

but maybe i didn't explain myself clearly enough - sorry english is not my native language.....

you see even now as i write this, i HAVE to work around the small fonts by clicking a couple of times in my Safari's toolbar zoom feature, otherwise the fonts of the text i write are HALF the size of those on your posts/answers & those ARE fine for me to read, you know ?

now if you cut them in half well, let's just say there are things that are more fun than trying to read that, you know ?... ;-)

~Bee - i do have a Wacom Cintiq but as far as fonts/font managers as far as i know it's all as my iMac came standard from the shop !?

but you're right, i don't empty THAT often Safari's cache & history & i have Safari preferences ( universal access, font size thing.. ) set to 14 & MOST of the time sites show up fine...

how could the Wacom interefere with this ? is there a setting or preference i have to sort ?

Thomas - i thought that fiddling with the font size while posting only changed them WHILE i was writing & for me, not as they presented themselves to everybody else - ooops, sorry for that ! :-b ....LOL....

after seeing my original post i can now see it does clook a bit too weird

now since we are talking about how this forum looks to all i find it's a pity that now that we have full screen apps w/ Lion that the column where the actual post/writing is remains exactly the same size - maybe this won't be so noticeable on smaller screensa but on my 27'' iMac it's borderline weird NOT to use all the available space - i can only guess that's the price to pay when you have to make it work for 13, 15, 17, 20, 21'' screens & who knows what other sizes....

anyway i'm going to try emptying the Safari cache & history & take it from there

many thanks guys !

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Answer 7

thomas_r.

Level 7

31,989 points

Aug 18, 2011 1:06 PM in response to nuno1959

now since we are talking about how this forum looks to all i find it's a pity that now that we have full screen apps w/ Lion that the column where the actual post/writing is remains exactly the same size

That's more of a general web issue, and not really one that can be easily worked around. The problem is this: really long lines are harder to read than shorter ones. The eye has too much trouble finding the start of the next line. So, a web site that expands to full screen on a large monitor practical becomes unreadable. Most web designers these days solve this problem by fixing the width of their design, which not only solves potential line length issues but makes the design easier on their end as well.

There's no decent way to universally scale just the fonts on all sites. Some use text rather than graphics in their navigation bars. Mine does, for example. I've deisgned it to gracefully accomodate a range of sizes, but if you blow up the font too far it won't look good anymore. Other sites may not be designed with any sizes in mind other than the one used on the designer's machine.

That's why I recommended Safari's zoom feature. It zooms the entire page gracefully, which also zooms the width. You could zoom a fullscreen app to make it not only more readable, but also use more of the width. For example, see the following screen shot:

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Answer 8

nuno1959 Author

Level 1

36 points

Aug 18, 2011 1:27 PM in response to thomas_r.

i hear you Thomas

& yes , what you say makes sense to me - i had never thought about it from that perspective !

Kudos to you & thanks

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Answer 9

TildeBee

Level 7

31,917 points

Aug 18, 2011 1:52 PM in response to nuno1959

Nice!

(Sorry,Thomas . . . I guess I overreacted. )

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Answer 10

thomas_r.

Level 7

31,989 points

Aug 18, 2011 1:58 PM in response to TildeBee

(Sorry,Thomas . . . I guess I overreacted. )

No problem, I've done it myself plenty of times! 🙂

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Answer 11

nuno1959 Author

Level 1

36 points

Aug 18, 2011 2:09 PM in response to TildeBee

~Bee

i did empty the Safari cache & history, what's the next step ? go into the Wacom's prefs ? or just try things out to see how they are ?

sorry i wanted to mark your last answer as helpful, but then i realized i ''ran out of helpfuls'' !?

man, i've got to learn my way around a bit better....

many thanks anyway for your input

cheers

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Answer 12

babowa

Level 9

78,103 points

Aug 18, 2011 2:12 PM in response to nuno1959

Have you by chance already tried to take down your native resolution a notch?

I've had to do that - it will make everything larger, from the Finder menu bar, to the browsers, windows, etc. You can still set browser and other fonts to be larger, but it is the best "system wide/general" way to make things larger without having to zoom in/out.

To do so, open your Displays Pane in System Preferences and change the default resolution down one (or two) - you can experiment or change it back if you don't like it. Note: it will result in a little less "crisp" display, but I've gotten used to it and barely notice it at all. Best of all, I no longer have to squint!

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Answer 13

TildeBee

Level 7

31,917 points

Aug 18, 2011 2:16 PM in response to nuno1959

Nuno

That's fine. Not to worry. That's not why I help here, LOL.

I was wondering one more thing -- In your Safari preferences > Appearance > do you have these settings:

Standard font: Times 16

Fixed-with font: Courier 13

If not try them, OK?

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Answer 14

nuno1959 Author

Level 1

36 points

Aug 18, 2011 3:03 PM in response to nuno1959

~Bee :

i have tried many different sizes & have come to the conclusion that

Standard Font : Times 24

Fixed-Width font : Courier 18 are the ones that work best for me, otherwise it does become a real pain in the a** - actually as much as i love EVERYTHING else about my iMac, had i realized i would have these issues with small fonts because of it's high resolution & i would have bought a 21'' instead, i swear.....

i understand why it happens but it just busts my b**** endlessly that it does - talk about frustration.....

babowa :

i have tried all those & the most decent ''work around'' ( it ISN'T A FIX... ) is to use the Safari's zoom feature. you see if i change the screen's res then all sort of weird stuff starts happening when viewing/editing photos, designing, you name it

as i said above - now that i bought it , i'll stick with it - it is a glorious machine to view photos, video for example but whenever i need to get another computer it CERTAINLY WON't be a 27'' iMAC , ever again

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Answer 15

thomas_r.

Level 7

31,989 points

Aug 18, 2011 3:31 PM in response to nuno1959

Does that iMac have a port for connecting an external monitor? Perhaps you ought to get a cheap, lower-resolution external monitor and then use the two screens for different purposes. Photo and video work on the main screen, e-mail, web surfing and the like on the second screen. You've spent a fair bit on your machine, I'd really like to see you find a way to be happier with it.

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