HTML font size

[nikos]

hands up who thinks the font size in xplorer2 website and in the new on-board help panel (How do I?) is too small to read?

[ckit]

Increasing the "How Do I?" pane by 2 points wouldn't hurt, website looks ok though.

[Tuxman]

Depends on the used resolution and display size, I presume. On a smart phone it could get messy, but with common displays (SXGA here) everything is fine. Matches the small font size in xplorer²'s toolbar.

[Gandolf]

I'm happy with the font size for both the website and the "How do I?"
If you increase the "How do I?" font then I think you have to widen the panel as well, otherwise there's only going to be a couple of words per line.

[nikos]

i personally like the smaller fonts aesthetically but i'm sure many of the older users will get upset! Now i put a link at the end of the How Do I? guide that sends eysight-challenged people to the website for a larger display

[Kilmatead]

Now i put a link at the end... that sends eyesight-challenged people to the website for a larger display.

The Website font is more or less irrelevant as most browsers allow for Ctrl-Mouse-Scroll to adjust on-the-fly, as it were.

(As for the blind leading the blind, as ckit says, an extra couple of points on the font probably wouldn't hurt.)

The greater sin is that IE (as opposed to the default browser) is invoked to carry you to Valhalla.  "So what?" I hear you say.  On the x64 Win 7 the default IE is the x64 version, for which x86 Adobe Flash does not work properly, so new users (on x64) will be left with a useless "How do I?" hanging from their parched, bleeding, and cracked lips.  And new users with lips like those tend not to know how to wrangle misbehaving browsers.

Never mind the indignity of having to sully their eyes with IE in the first place, which, technically (thank you European Law), is no longer a prerequisite to have installed on Windows machines - so it's a bad idea to "assume" it's presence.

[Dhamu]

I don't mind the "How Do I?" panel on my 24-inch screen, but if possible I could use a different font on the html preview panel, since the draft preview of most files shows an engraved text that's a bit hard to read, though native mode uses a larger, non-engraved font.

[Kilmatead]

That's sort of the very definition of "draft preview", isn't it?  The trade-off of quality for faster/simpler rendering.

Any .html files (as that one is) are best viewed via a browser anyway - same reason some people find PDF files difficult to read when using plug-ins of various sources - the right tool for the job is usually best, as it were.

Draft Preview is pretty good, for what it's intended for.

[Dhamu]

I'd interpret "draft" as fast and not as fancy.  Using a basic font would do that.  But instead it seems to be using specified fonts, then shrinking the output, which has to be slower, with poorer readability.  Instead of doing a 14pt font at 70%, why not simply handle draft html the same way as draft rtf and pdf: readable fonts not degraded by forced reduction?  That shows content quickly and legibly, which is the point of draft views, I'd think.  If one wants fanciness in presentation, one can use native mode or a real browser.

[longfellow]

I like the "How do I?" feature, it makes a nice resource out of all the blogs you've done, but I've got to add my voice to Kilmatead's regarding the mandatory use of IE to view the articles. I know a lot of apps do this, but, really, not respecting whatever system defaults the user has set up is kind of rude. How hard is it to just use the system's default browser?

[nikos]

if you have no IE installed, the How Do I? pane won't work. Embedding other browsers like firefox could be possible but it's not something i would want to do

i don't intentionally open links in IE, but the quickviewer etc in x2 are IE and all links open in an external window using the standard html <a target="_blank"> token, which seems to be using whatever browser the page is listed on, not the default browser. If anyone knows a way around this please let me know

finally Kilmatead isn't there a 64 bit adobe flash player?

[Kilmatead]

...isn't there a 64 bit adobe flash player?

Adobe and x64 famously do not play well together on the real world playground; it appears they really want users to use Silverlight, as they ignore their own platform.  Who can know the corporate mind?  

Ironically, this is only an issue with x64 browsers, of which IE is the only "official" one in normal use (which still doesn't improve it's existence).

I was surprised that Win 7 defaults to this, as even the default Windows Media Player is the x86 version probably for codec compatibility (despite both types, like IE, being installed on regular x64 installations).

It's up to the user to intentionally switch the version invoked, and anyone new to x64 (which seems to be quite a few store-bought brands these days) probably wouldn't know how to do this.  (The x86 x2 calls x86 IE, the x64 x2 calls x64 IE, so ironically only installing the x86 version of x2 will provide seamless help, though providing a limited functionality.  There's a conundrum for ye. )

I don't intentionally open links in IE, but the quickviewer etc in x2 are IE and all links open in an external window using the standard html <a target="_blank"> token

Ah, that would explain it - IE calls itself, being the chief renderer.  How rude.  It's just a strange inconsistency as all the other links ("Check for Updates", "Online Support", etc) use the default browser instead.  Pity.

[nikos]

another thing that uses IE is the "dialog help", if you click on the ? in dialog boxes that support it you get the quickstart guide scrolled (hopefully) in the correct location

[RickyF]

Using IE exclusively is a BIG mistake. IE's market share is rapidly dwindling. Can't you launch the user's default browser? Other applications do that.

Frisch's law of website design: Design your websites for the future, not the past.