This Is Not A
BLOG!
Date: 30/12/14
Going Large
In case regular readers think that their eyes have gone funny, or that they have inadvertently adjusted a monitor setting, I've tweaked the style sheets that the site runs off so that the text appears larger. I had become aware that I was finding it a bit of a strain reading the body text at the size it had been since the site's launch in 2003.
("I grow old...I grow old.../I shall view the writing on my pages bold" (C.S.S. Eliot))
Having increased the default main text size by 5 per cent, the item title and date had to be set 5 per cent larger as well, otherwise it would have looked daft.
Just a hint in case some of you don't know: you can increase the text size yourself to some degree. Here's the quick and easy way to do it, depending on your browser:
- Firefox: Hold down 'Ctrl' and press the '+' on your number pad to make the text larger. 'Ctrl' and '-' (again on the number pad) will reduce it again. 'Ctrl' and '0' (zero) (number pad again) will return it directly to the default setting.
- Internet Explorer: As for Firefox, except that there is no 'Ctrl' and '0' option to reset to default. You'll have to use the 'View' menu, select 'Zoom' and '100%'. Or just do 'Ctrl' and '-' for the same number of times as you did 'Ctrl' and '+'.
- Google Chrome: As per Firefox, including the 'Ctrl' and '0' option to return to default.
(Bear in mind, however, that these measures don't just change the text size; they change the size of everything on the page - images, the whole kaboodle - so be careful).
There are also ways of over-riding the JudgeCo™ colour scheme.
In Firefox, this is quite straightforward:
Click on 'Tools' > 'Options' > 'Content' > 'Colors'. Take the ticks out of the boxes which say 'Allow pages to choose...' and 'Use System Colors', then select your preferred text and background colours from the two boxes above this. Then click 'OK' and 'OK' again. You can restore the defaults by going back in and putting the tick back in the 'Allow pages to choose...' box, making sure that there's also a tick in the 'Use System Colors' box, and 'OK'-ing back out.
Internet Explorer is - as you would expect - a bit more complicated, not to say 'awkward'. In short, you have to do it in two stages:
- Stage 1: Click on 'Tools' > 'Internet Options' > 'Accessibility', put a tick in the box which says 'Ignore colors specified on webpages' and 'OK'.
- Stage 2: Click on 'Colors', take the tick out of the box which says 'Use Windows colors', choose your colours for 'Text' and 'Background', then click on 'OK', then on 'OK' again.
(You can change back to the site default by going back into 'Accessibility' and taking the tick back out of the 'Ignore colors...' box, then 'OK'-ing your way back out).
Chrome - being by Google - has no native way of performing this manoeuvre. The high priesthood at Mountain View apparently sees no need for this useful function, and so it is necessary to download an extension to do it.
I've being toying with the idea of creating a new set of style sheets to make the site more friendly to those blasted phones that the world and his marmoset seem to have nowadays. It's proving a bit of a puzzle, however, especially given that there is virtually no common standard which means that what works for one make will not necessarily work adequately with any other. More research needed...if I can be arsed, of course...
