re font size in posts

[reener06]

So, I love this new fora. I so very much appreciate all the work everyone did.

But the font size of posts is really really small. And/or I'm really getting old. Some of you have larger ones, which I assume that means you are changing before you type each message? I guess my questions are:

1. how can I default to a larger font size (i.e., not change for each message I type)?
2. Can I set it so all the message default to a larger font size?

[Parasaurolophus]

On 1: there's a 'font size' dropdown menu at the far right end of the bold/italic/underline/etc. area when you hit 'reply'. I'm not sure whether it's available to regular members or just mods, however. I think it's available to everyone, but I may be wrong.

On 2: I don't think that's currently possible, although I believe you could change your browser settings to that effect.

(Sorry I wasn't of more use! Perhaps the others know something I don't.)

[Conjugate]

On a windows system, Ctrl-+ will zoom in on a page, and make it larger (up to, I think, about 300%). I think that's universal across all browsers, but have not tested it except on Firefox. The fora do override your default settings so a browser preference setting won't do anything.

[namazu]

The fora do override your default settings so a browser preference setting won't do anything.

I did not find this to be entirely true.  I changed my default minimum font size (in Firefox) to 12, and I have the "Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of your selections above" box unchecked, and that improved the situation somewhat.  The font is still pretty small -- I suspect 10-point rather than 12 [?!] -- but it's larger than it was before I did that.  EDIT: Changing it to 13 helped more.  The default forum display font is something pretty tiny.

On the posting end, I have not found a way to set a default posting font size.  I think it may have to be done post-by-post.

[fast_and_bulbous]

The fora do override your default settings so a browser preference setting won't do anything.

I did not find this to be entirely true.  I changed my default minimum font size (in Firefox) to 12, and I have the "Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of your selections above" box unchecked, and that improved the situation somewhat.  The font is still pretty small -- I suspect 10-point rather than 12 [?!] -- but it's larger than it was before I did that.  EDIT: Changing it to 13 helped more.  The default forum display font is something pretty tiny.

On the posting end, I have not found a way to set a default posting font size.  I think it may have to be done post-by-post.

Yeah... I would really encourage people not to mess with fonts and font sizes when they post, because then all of us have to see it and it can be a bit jarring. I really really encourage people to just control-+ or whatever to make their own fonts larger.

One of the quirks of the SMF software is that quoted text is, by default, smaller than unquoted text. I would be on board with making all quoted text on thefora.org to default to be the same size as regular text. I really find the default to be an odd choice. On the other forum I did some scripting magic to make the quoted material larger, but I do not expect people to do that.

[eigen]

Some of this also depends on what theme you're using- there are multiple possible themes that are enabled that effect the display parameters. I think we're also happy to work with adding/messing with customizing new themes to a limited degree- I did that with the mobile theme.

[Cheerful]

1. how can I default to a larger font size (i.e., not change for each message I type)?
2. Can I set it so all the message default to a larger font size?

If you're using Windows, you should be able to change the font size on your computer display.

In my version of Windows, the steps are Control Panel, Appearance and Personalization, Fonts, Change Font Size.  A sliding ruler and other options are available to enlarge the font display on my computer.  However, this applies to all websites, not just The Fora.

[polly_mer]

Yeah... I would really encourage people not to mess with fonts and font sizes when they post, because then all of us have to see it and it can be a bit jarring. I really really encourage people to just control-+ or whatever to make their own fonts larger.

Second for not messing with font sizes per post just to make individual posts read better on one's own device.  Since I read with my browser set to make tiny font large, encountering large font is unwieldy and very, very, very annoying for anything more than a word or two of emphasis.

Changing to the mobile theme on my desktop worked pretty well to get a good size default font.  command-+ is the typical way to get bigger font on all Mac browsers.

Zooming in on my Kindle Fire stays zoomed until I navigate away from the page.

[fast_and_bulbous]

I am wondering (paging eigen!) whether there are other themes available out there we could add on. There are only three right now. I have to believe there are more out there. I just switched over to the Dani theme - which does have that characteristic where quoted text is the same font size as unquoted text. Maybe I'm wrong but when I think of popular software like Wordpress (granted, it's not forum software) there are tons of themes to choose from.

OK a quick google search does verify that many themes are available. So perhaps that is something we could do.

[eigen]

I am wondering (paging eigen!) whether there are other themes available out there we could add on. There are only three right now. I have to believe there are more out there. I just switched over to the Dani theme - which does have that characteristic where quoted text is the same font size as unquoted text. Maybe I'm wrong but when I think of popular software like Wordpress (granted, it's not forum software) there are tons of themes to choose from.

OK a quick google search does verify that many themes are available. So perhaps that is something we could do.

There are a ton. I mentioned in the mobile theme thread that I'm perfectly happy to add any themes people find and want (assuming they work with the current software version), but I don't want to spread myself too thin in troubleshooting them.

That said, if you want to take on some of the coding details for a new theme (or two, or three) we can definitely do it!

Some of the issues (like the top login not working on the original theme) we're likely to encounter with new themes we add, so some may be a "available to use as-is" standpoint.

The browser for themes is here: https://custom.simplemachines.org/themes/

Any of the ones there are pretty easy to set up for us to use- might take half an hour if they work as promised.

On the original discussion on font size: It's not particularly easy. I did some reading in the Simple Machines support forums, and it looks like it would require overhaul of some of the basic code for the site, and might have unintended consequences. It also has the side effect of making it hard/impossible for anyone that currently has their browser zoomed (i.e., Polly), and I know I wouldn't want the default font any larger than it is.

You can definitely set browser based font sizes that carry over here- I have a computer at home that sits up on a mantle as a media server, and I used Firefox to dramatically increase the min font size in the browser, and that works with these forums as well as any other site.

[egilson]

I am wondering (paging eigen!) whether there are other themes available out there we could add on. There are only three right now. I have to believe there are more out there. I just switched over to the Dani theme - which does have that characteristic where quoted text is the same font size as unquoted text. Maybe I'm wrong but when I think of popular software like Wordpress (granted, it's not forum software) there are tons of themes to choose from.

OK a quick google search does verify that many themes are available. So perhaps that is something we could do.

There are a ton. I mentioned in the mobile theme thread that I'm perfectly happy to add any themes people find and want.

Oooh, can we have this one?

(I'm joking. Please don't install that theme.)

[eigen]

Too late. Now I'm going to install it and set it as your default and only theme!

[Conjugate]

I am wondering (paging eigen!) whether there are other themes available out there we could add on. There are only three right now. I have to believe there are more out there. I just switched over to the Dani theme - which does have that characteristic where quoted text is the same font size as unquoted text. Maybe I'm wrong but when I think of popular software like Wordpress (granted, it's not forum software) there are tons of themes to choose from.

OK a quick google search does verify that many themes are available. So perhaps that is something we could do.

There are a ton. I mentioned in the mobile theme thread that I'm perfectly happy to add any themes people find and want.

Oooh, can we have this one?

(I'm joking. Please don't install that theme.)

What mad sadist created that? Or is it designed for people with very specific vision conditions?