Gone East: Feature Request

December 22, 2003

Feature Request

You know how your browser lets you make the typeface larger and smaller on a website that you're viewing? Usually it's something like COMMAND-PLUS SIGN, and COMMAND-MINUS SIGN. I use this feature all the time.

I use it because my eyes seem to be older than the rest of me, and also the fact that type appears larger on Windows screens than Macs screens, as a result, many (Windows-based) website authors tend to set their sizes too small.

Well, there are many websites that I visit all the time that have too-small type. And I always have to change the type size so I can read it comfortably, then change it back when I leave.

I wish that my browser would let me set it so that every time I visited a particular site, it would automatically make the type larger or smaller, whatever I set. And when I left the site it would return it to the default.

iTunes has a feature like this. If there's a song in your collection that was recorded louder or softer than average, you can tell iTunes to always adjust the volume by a certain amount when listening to this song.

That's what I want for my web browser.

Posted by jghiii at December 22, 2003 12:30 PM

Comments

Posted by: Jack's mom on December 22, 2003 01:45 PM

Can't believe the Mac doesn't do that. I thought the Mac could do anything and everything.

Posted by: george on December 22, 2003 07:11 PM

I never could figure out why on my PC the sites text is always larger then on my Mac. Especially since both are set with the exact same fonts and sizes. Maybe PC user have worse vision then Mac Users so it automatically sets it larger.

Posted by: jgh on December 22, 2003 08:22 PM

PC screens have almost always had more dots-per-inch than Mac screens. Macs were traditionally 72 DPI, and PC around 92. But since PC systems still scale fonts so that 1 point = 1 pixel, the fonts end up looking larger on PCs. As a result they use 10 point to get a font that looks like 12 point. But it actually looks like 10 point on a Mac.

This is all changing in the past few years, as Macs start to use high DPI too. And now some applications, on both Mac and PC, are correctly sizing fonts to be the right point-size regardless of the DPI. But not all, so it's kind of a mess. Hopefully it will get better.

Posted by: sherman on December 23, 2003 01:05 PM

WHAT'S WRONG WITH YOU PEOPLE?

Here Jack is providing us with great set-up, how he has to now borrow books from the LARGE TYPE section of the library with the other geezers, and you are talking tech talk.

You are all horrible.

Posted by: Mark on December 24, 2003 07:36 AM

Hey Sherm. Lighten up a bit will you? My hearing aid can't take the shrill sounds anymore.