# The Big Font Problem, Now with Screenshots



## murgatroyd

I'm having a strange problem with the way TCF looks since the upgrade to the new software. 

The standard font which displays the text in the messages and the text for the thread titles in the main thread lists for the forum appears much larger, and bolder, than the font I remember.

The little-bitty text which reports when the last post was made, and the fine print under the user names in the posts inside the thread, seems the same size as it always has been.

I use Firefox 2.0.0.9 as my main browser but the appearance in IE 6.0 is the same.

I looked at my settings in Firefox and the box which says "Allow pages to choose their own fonts, instead of my selections above." is checked.

Clipboard01.jpg shows choccy's post with Firefox set to View/Text Size/Normal.

Clipboard02.jpg shows the list of threads in the Forums Operations Center with Firefox set to View/Text Size/Normal.

Clipboard03.jpg shows the list after I have asked Firefox to reduce the Text Size twice via the menu referenced above. In this view, the thread titles are closer to what I remember the forum looking like before the upgrade.

Clipboard04.jpg shows choccy's post similarly reduced.

Now, if you imagine what TCF looks like with the smaller text at the size it is in images 1 and 2 and the larger text at the size it is in images 3 and 4, that's what it used to look like before the upgrade.

Is that explanation clear enough?

Thanks for your help!

P.S. I can only do three attachments on this post -- see my next post for #4.

Jan


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## Sherminator

Where are the screenshots?


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## murgatroyd

Did I mention the forum is S L O W for those of us on dial-up? 

Yeah, if you accidentally hit 'save' before you attach the attachments, you kinda have to go back and do the attachments with your first post sitting there in the breeze naked.


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## Sherminator

You should try the playstation forums, even on broadband, the text entry box takes an age to load and you can submit a new thread without any text in it.

Meanwhile, back to the point....

Could you link to the thread that the screenshot represents?

However, I am inclined to think along the same lines as Choccy as I haven't experienced this issue in Firefox either in Windows or OS X.


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## murgatroyd

Problem #2:

I used IrfanView to do the screen captures. When I open the files with IrfanView, they appear as the same size as what I see on screen.

When I open them in a new tab with Firefox, the screens are shrunken. So they don't appear (to me, anyhow) the same as what I am seeing on screen. 

But maybe they'll get the point across anyway. 

Jan


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## murgatroyd

Sherminator said:


> Could you link to the thread that the screenshot represents?
> 
> However, I am inclined to think along the same lines as Choccy as I haven't experienced this issue in Firefox either in Windows or OS X.


Good idea!

A place to discuss the TCF upgrades -- post #811

This is my poor old WinBlows box -- I haven't tested with Firefox or Safari on OS X yet.

Jan


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## greg_burns

Do you have verdana fonts in your Fonts applet in Control Panel?

Anybody know why the CSS for this site is embedded in each page rather than using an external style sheet? I am no web developer, but I thought that was more efficient way of doing it? (read that linking allows the web browser to cache the style sheet for faster load times)

http://www.communitymx.com/content/article.cfm?cid=FAF76

/* vBulletin 3 CSS For Style 'TiVoCommunity.com' (styleid: 3) */

Made a new thread on this topic...
http://www.tivocommunity.com/tivo-vb/showthread.php?p=5710152#post5710152


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## murgatroyd

greg_burns said:


> Do you have verdana fonts in your Fonts applet in Control Panel?


I see Verdana, Verdana Bold, Verdana Italic, Verdana Bold Italic.

Jan


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## greg_burns

Have you tried clearing your cache? Doubt it will help if this is happening in both firefox and IE though.


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## Sherminator

murgatroyd said:


> Problem #2:
> 
> I used IrfanView to do the screen captures. When I open the files with IrfanView, they appear as the same size as what I see on screen.
> 
> When I open them in a new tab with Firefox, the screens are shrunken. So they don't appear (to me, anyhow) the same as what I am seeing on screen.
> 
> ...


Firefox autosizes images that are larger than the window, clicking on them will display them full size with scrollbars.


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## greg_burns

murgatroyd said:


> I used IrfanView to do the screen captures.


I find Alt-Print Scr key combo works good enough for me. 

Add in Paint and www.tinypic.com for a winning combination.


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## JETarpon

This won't solve your problem, but it might be handy for you when you do need to change font size in Firefox. If you hold down "control" and move the scroll wheel on the mouse, it will change the text size. (scroll down for larger, up for smaller).


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## murgatroyd

greg_burns said:


> Have you tried clearing your cache? Doubt it will help if this is happening in both firefox and IE though.


Thanks for the reminder.

I just cleared the cache, shut Firefox down and opened it up again. No change.

Jan


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## greg_burns

You can force Firefox/IE to use another font instead of Verdana to see if is just a font problem...

Open that Font control panel app again and drag those Verdana ones to your desktop. When done testing, you can drag them back.

When I do that with mine, it defaults to Arial. Does that happen to you and if so, is the font size still too large?


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## murgatroyd

greg_burns said:


> You can force Firefox/IE to use another font instead of Verdana to see if is just a font problem...
> 
> Open that Font control panel app again and drag those Verdana ones to your desktop. When done testing, you can drag them back.
> 
> When I do that with mine, it defaults to Arial. Does that happen to you and if so, is the font size still too large?


Well, if I uncheck the box which tells Firefox to use the site-supplied font and tell it to use Arial instead, let's see...

I no longer get the very black 'bolded' type that I get when using the Verdana font.

Let me check the forum thread titles list....

It's still big, but since it isn't as dark, it's not so much 'in your face'. Still, I don't know if I'd really want to use Arial as my fault on the forum -- it's *too* lightly leaded to look right against the creamsicle background.

Argh.

Jan


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## SoBelle0

Nice work with the screenshots, Jan! That is exactly what I'm seeing on this PC at work... no problems at home. Both using the same 2.0.0.9 version of Firefox.

I tried the switch to Ariel and unchecking the _Allow pages to choose their own fonts_ option and saw no change on TCF... every other item in my tabs looked horrible though, so even if it did fix TC, I couldn't stand it. I think I'm getting used to the large letters - sure is easy to read.


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## murgatroyd

After clearing the cache, I visited one of the other sites I go to and the type was tiny! 

But after tweaking it to view a size bigger with the Firefox menu, it was back to normal again. 

In that case all the fonts adjusted their size across the board -- no weirdness.

Jan


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## murgatroyd

After dumping my cache, now a lot of the other sites I visit are all teeny-tiny.

Argh.

Jan


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## greg_burns

murgatroyd said:


> After dumping my cache, now a lot of the other sites I visit are all teeny-tiny.
> 
> Argh.
> 
> Jan


Sorry  At least you know it is not just TCF.


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## rhuntington3

murgatroyd said:


> After dumping my cache, now a lot of the other sites I visit are all teeny-tiny.
> 
> Argh.
> 
> Jan


Jan, have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox with a reboot after uninstalling and another after installing?


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## murgatroyd

greg_burns said:


> Sorry  At least you know it is not just TCF.


The other sites looked fine until I started messing around trying to fix this one. 



rhuntington3 said:


> Jan, have you tried uninstalling and reinstalling Firefox with a reboot after uninstalling and another after installing?


No, I haven't tried that. While the mondo big fonts look is annoying, I don't know if it is that annoying.

Thanks for the suggestions, though. Really.

Jan


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## greg_burns

I thought IE was messed up too? Can't see how reinstalling Firefox is going to help.


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## rhuntington3

greg_burns said:


> I thought IE was messed up too? Can't see how reinstalling Firefox is going to help.


If IE is doing it then right, reinstalling Firefox won't help. Sigh. Sorry.


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## jradosh

This isn't a browswer issue folks. This is an issue with the TCF site.

I'm having the same problem and I haven't changed a thing with my fonts on my PC. All other sites render fine. The overlords need to address this one. 

PS. IE 7 <- browser


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## greg_burns

jradosh said:


> This isn't a browswer issue folks. This is an issue with the TCF site.
> 
> I'm having the same problem and I haven't changed a thing with my fonts on my PC. All other sites render fine. The overlords need to address this one.
> 
> PS. IE 7 <- browser


What happens with the other sites when you clear _your_ cache?


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## jradosh

greg_burns said:


> What happens with the other sites when you clear _your_ cache?


By "clear your cache" do you mean refresh (shift-refresh) or do you mean deleting all my cookies, temporary files, etc.?


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## greg_burns

jradosh said:


> By "clear your cache" do you mean refresh (shift-refresh) or do you mean deleting all my cookies, temporary files, etc.?


Just temporary files, not cookies.

Tools->Internet Options->General Tab->Delete...->(Temporary Internet Files)Delete files...


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## jradosh

Nothing different after deleting temporary internet files. Why did you think that was the problem?


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## greg_burns

jradosh said:


> Nothing different after deleting temporary internet files. Why did you think that was the problem?


Because of what Jan said of course.



murgatroyd said:


> After dumping my cache, now a lot of the other sites I visit are all teeny-tiny.


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## jradosh

greg_burns said:


> Because of what Jan said of course.


1. Jan was working in Firefox, not in IE
2. Jan manually reduced her browser font size to make TCF 'normal' which made all her other sites too small. That proved it wasn't a browser issue.

However, after clearing out my temporary files and _closing my browser and restarting it_ the TCF site seems to be back to normal.


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## choccy

jradosh said:


> 1. Jan was working in Firefox, not in IE
> 2. Jan manually reduced her browser font size to make TCF 'normal' which made all her other sites too small. That proved it wasn't a browser issue.
> 
> However, after clearing out my temporary files and _closing my browser and restarting it_ the TCF site seems to be back to normal.


It's not a "browser issue" - it's something about *your* configuration that's broken compared to everyone else in the world who isn't seeing these issues.


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## greg_burns

jradosh said:


> 1. Jan was working in Firefox, not in IE
> 2. Jan manually reduced her browser font size to make TCF 'normal' which made all her other sites too small. That proved it wasn't a browser issue.


Not to be argumentitive, but that is not how I interpreted what I read...


murgatroyd said:


> I use Firefox 2.0.0.9 as my main browser but the appearance in IE 6.0 is the same.





murgatroyd said:


> After dumping my cache, now a lot of the other sites I visit are all teeny-tiny.


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## greg_burns

jradosh said:


> However, after clearing out my temporary files and _closing my browser and restarting it_ the TCF site seems to be back to normal.


Glad to hear you got it fixed. :up:


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## jradosh

choccy said:


> It's not a "browser issue" - it's something about *your* configuration that's broken compared to everyone else in the world who isn't seeing these issues.


Eh... if I didn't change anything and suddenly the appearance is different, then it's not _my_ issue in that I didn't create it. Even if it's unique to a handful of people (I wasn't the only one) that shows that it's not something that _we_ did to create it. It's something that happened because of what _they_ (i.e. Microsoft or TCF) did which didn't take into account a certain percentage of the population.

[/nit pic]


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## murgatroyd

jradosh said:


> 1. Jan was working in Firefox, not in IE
> 2. Jan manually reduced her browser font size to make TCF 'normal' which made all her other sites too small. That proved it wasn't a browser issue.
> 
> However, after clearing out my temporary files and _closing my browser and restarting it_ the TCF site seems to be back to normal.


Clarification:

1) Aside from one experiment with IE 6.0, I have been mostly working in Firefox.

2) The other sites going teeny-tiny was a result of my messing around with the default fonts in Firefox, and the setting which tells Firefox to use my locally-defined faults vs. the fonts the site uses.

Once I realized that I had gummed up my original settings while trying to 'fix' TCF, and re-checked the box which says "Allow pages to use their own fonts, instead of my default settings above", all the other sites except TCF (Google, etc.) went back to normal.

3) the problem with TCF is not that it is all too big. The problem is that the small type as in the greeting text which reads



> Welcome, murgatroyd.
> You last visited: Yesterday at 08:42 AM
> Private Messages: Unread 0, Total 144.


is the same size it has always been, while the text within posts and the thread titles in the lists of threads in each forum is bigger than it used to be. If the text everywhere was bigger, I would simply be able to reduce the text.

And unlike jradosh, clearing out my temp files and closing Firefox and re-starting it has made no change to TCF.

Jan


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