Yosemite font size is too small for vision impaired

MacPar wrote:

I found a very good Safari extension a number of years ago and now use it on Yosemite, its called "AllPagesZooming Safari"

You can run your monitor in its best resolution in my case 1920 x 1200 and keep all the definition setting

You can find it Here http://www.macupdate.com/app/mac/35756/allpageszoom-safari-extension

Or just Google it, also on the Safari Extensions link, theres an extension Called "ResizeMe" not tried it.

Could you please clarify - Does this program allow the user to enlarge the text on each webpage WITHOUT enlarging the background and graphics? It is not clear from you description that you are talking about the same objective as previous posts. If you are, that would be very helpful, although I assume that would still leave the user with the hard-wired Helvetica system fonts in Safari's menubar, dropdown menus and bookmarks toolbar, correct?

Nate

Sorry for any confusion, yes your correct this does not make any change to the core settings (wish it did). The extension works only in Safari and enlarges the whole page, it's like using zoom Cmd+, except you choose what the scale you want, and it still allows you to use the other zoom options, in Yosemite you get an icon in the tool bar for instant access. For me it's a good fudge because most things can have the text size altered like the finder the text size can be changed with View> Show View Options tho pop up allows all sort of changes that can be made defaults. AllPagesZoom is a flexible fudge.

MacPar wrote:

Sorry for any confusion, yes your correct this does not make any change to the core settings (wish it did). The extension works only in Safari and enlarges the whole page, it's like using zoom Cmd+, except you choose what the scale you want, and it still allows you to use the other zoom options, in Yosemite you get an icon in the tool bar for instant access. For me it's a good fudge because most things can have the text size altered like the finder the text size can be changed with View> Show View Options tho pop up allows all sort of changes that can be made defaults. AllPagesZoom is a flexible fudge.

Sorry, but I am still not clear on the part of your reply which I have underlined above. My impression is that View> Show View Options in the Finder only changes font sizes in the Finder, not globally and especially not in Safari, nor does Safari recognize the switch back to Lucida Grande in the menubar and dropdown menus otherwise provided universally by the Schreiberstein solution, nor does Safari accept the add-ons which allow font changes and text zooming independent of screen zooming, and manipulation of the booksmark bar fonts and font sizes, all of which is available presently in FireFox, which is what led me to abandon Safari in favor of FireFox.

I mention these distinctions not to be argumentative, but because I felt badly having to abandon Safari in favor of FireFox, but would never consider switching back unless and until Safari accepts, allows or makes these changes, because my eyesight and vision is more important than brand loyalty, yet I am always looking for news from fellow Mac users that would allow Safari to stop giving me headaches and eyestrain.

Respectfully, Nate 😀

You are perfectly correct, Show view options in Finder only applies to Finder, and AllPagesZoom only apply to Safari and it's not perfect, where there are floating adverts sometimes they fail to zoom the same as the page and float over text.

Keep with Firefox until such times a Apple decide to let us make changes as we feel opproprate to our requirements. I go back to the 70's where it all went to pot with system 7 my £2500 cad program was rendered useless.

Hi

There is a keyboard short cut you can use to increase the size of everything on the screen, on a temporary basis:

Press:

Command Option =

together to zoom in. Repeat until the text is large enough, then press:

Command Option -

together to zoom out. Although not the most elegant solution Its a real help, and easier than going into 'Displays' and altering the resolution scaling.

Also reading other threads on Mac Rumours (http://forums.macrumors.com/showthread.php?t=1768362&highlight=vista980622), there is a patch that Schreiberstein has developed to change the Finder text back to Lucida Grande

Download :https://drive.google.com/uc?export=d...VR5SzhTclRkZUE

I am usually wary of downloading third party software, but haven't had a problem with this patch.

I hope this helps. But it would be nice if Apple just sorted this out!!!!! I have been using Macs since the mid 90's (I remember OS9), and in some respects Yosemite seems the least intuitive ui that they have come up with. Changes to other software such as MS Word, and Photoshop, are less user friendly too.

:-(

There is a fix for this problem in Yosemite.

Go to "System Preferences" -> "Displays", then click on the "Scaled" radio button (deselecting "Default for display"). Then a range of windows will appear introducing 5 rescaled font suites, allowing you to choose larger or smaller fonts for all apps (I think). If you click on the left-most of these windows, all system fonts and GUI features like menubars will grow substantially larger thereafter.

I think this is the fix you all wanted. My new 5K iMac is much easier to use now. Fantastic.

randcraw wrote:

There is a fix for this problem in Yosemite.

Go to "System Preferences" -> "Displays", then click on the "Scaled" radio button (deselecting "Default for display"). Then a range of windows will appear introducing 5 rescaled font suites, allowing you to choose larger or smaller fonts for all apps (I think). If you click on the left-most of these windows, all system fonts and GUI features like menubars will grow substantially larger thereafter.

I think this is the fix you all wanted. My new 5K iMac is much easier to use now. Fantastic.

Randcraw, that would be great if the result is as you describe, but are you sure?

When I tried that early on, my understanding of the result was that it merely blew up the screen image and did not give you larger size fonts, but merely an enlarged display of the existing fonts without the increased pixels needed to create larger font sizes. For that reason, things appeared bloated and the fonts more indistinct to me. It reminded me of the old days of trying to get a sharp "8x10 enlargement" printed at the drugstore of a pic taken with a non-35mm negative, like those little kodamatics.

Maybe some of the other users here online, more technically oriented than I am, can correct me if I am wrong about this.

Best wishes, Nate 😀

That's it! Their next product will be iGlasses!

I only lasted about a day with Yosemite or so. It was very stressful to decide to revert to Mavericks.

I've just sent this to http://www.apple.com/feedback/

(If you have a problem, don't forget this step so Apple actually hears about your issue.)

Dear Apple, I've never done this before but I downgraded after finding the Yosemite OS frustratingly difficult. The first thing I noticed was when “flat" window borders were invisible against the background colour of a webpage I opened.

I'm getting past 45 and my vision isn't great but suddenly, with this upgrade, I strained to see basic design elements. Without contrast and colour, it is hard to find buttons, hard to tell icons apart, and very hard to read text. I don’t have a problem with one aesthetic over another, but I couldn’t use the computer.

It's a new feeling to wonder if I won't be capable of using future Apple products. I hadn't really thought about that before. I hope something can be done to make the next version easier for those who have real problems with this one.

I really do hope some of these things can be addressed. I feel like somebody's design opinion is making my computer actually unusable. If I cannot read the text, the computer is broken, or I am, but I hope it's easier to fix the computer.

BRAVO!

Well said!

Apple feedback needs to be flooded with detailed expressions of concern like yours! Apple needs to be made to understand that, for many of us, this degradation of OS X is not primarily about aesthetic taste, but about degradation of function and usability!

It is unlikely that Jony Ive et al. is going to care about whether we agree with his artistic taste, but I certainly hope they will care about the fact that our usability of our Macs at work and home has been substantially degraded!

Regards, Nate 😀

I don't know what you are seeing, with multiple windows, five font suites, and a left-most window. I get just this on my MBPro and one on my external screen.

Tim Murray2 wrote:

I don't know what you are seeing, with multiple windows, five font suites, and a left-most window. I get just this on my MBPro and one on my external screen.

I agree. I don't see any options for new font suites in that window. I don't think scaling produces new font sizes. Here's what Wikipedia says on the subject:

"Scaling

Bitmap fonts look best at their native pixel size. Some systems using bitmap fonts can create some font variants algorithmically. For example, the original Apple Macintosh computer could produce bold by widening vertical strokes and oblique by shearing the image. At non-native sizes, many text rendering systems perform nearest-neighbor resampling, introducing rough jagged edges. More advanced systems perform anti-aliasing on bitmap fonts whose size does not match the size that the application requests. This technique works well for making the font smaller but not as well for increasing the size, as it tends to blur the edges.…" (empasis supplied)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_font

Respectfully, Nate

Apple no longer seems to care about the visually impaired. Many of us sent feedback about the illegible font back when ios 7 came out. Instead of changing to a more accessible font, they began using the same illegible font across the board!

I agree with you irishelf67. This old simplicity and "magic experience" using many of Apple's apps has all but disappeared because of this stubbornly illegible font they use across the board from Finder to iTunes to Aperture to the non-adjustable fonts in bowsers' menus and tabs. In the meanwhile I am constantly using the Vision Accessibility features in Yosemite. To be fair to Apple the high resolution in their Retina and 5k displays, combined with the Accessibility feature such as "Invert Colors" and the "Zoom with Keyboard Shortcuts or Scroll Gestures" has Apple still ahead of the pack. I am hoping they come up with a solution soon and get back to their old meticulous attention to detail.

Other examples of (bad) form over function: On a Contacts card many pixels are not black, even in a continuous stroke. For instance the number 1 is only two pixels wide and of the entire number, NONE of the pixels are a true black (most are 67% gray).

And here, in this particular Safari post as I type, the number 1 is also only 2 pixels wide and the darkest pixel is 69% gray.

Let me begin by saying I adore my slices of Apple but one thing has touched me to the core. I'm flabbergasted by the "oversight" demonstrated by Apple in regards to font sizing options. It is especially difficult for the many using TV's as their monitor for viewing because any more than a few feet away the visual becomes challenging to say the least. It must be severely difficult for those with significant visual impairment because those of us with mild but common visual impairments are feeling the frustration.