Really like the new look. My one criticism is that the articles archive is no longer on one page and less easy to navigate as a result (I liked to simply use ctrl+f).
It’s so shiny and clean that you could eat off of it. Go team Josh!
My only (whiny) complaint: the user pictures in Notes and Comment. What I liked about the old format is that the comments were relatively compressed and icon-free which allowed for a quicker read. So I’m not a fan of any avatars. But I dislike those generic forum patterns especially. They look like quilts that are made by somebody from Tron.
Wow! Josh and Cam, what a fantastic job you’ve done. I know how much work goes into overhauling a site – know that this longtime reader really appreciates it. The layout and color scheme is attractive, the format is logical, etc. I love the fact that we can now comment on articles (such as Allen E.’s latest) in addition to O’s blog posts. There’s a lot of really great writing and thought-provoking discussion that can now bubble up and get the notice it deserves.
I would only make a few small suggestions:
1. I know this is a matter of personal preference, but I find fonts *with* serifs much easier to read, especially for long blocks of text. It looks like all the article/blog/comment text is a *sans* serif font.
2. Is it possible to add a simple text-formatting tool to the comment function? Something that would let us do blockquotes, italics, and bolding without having to type in html commands?
A shiny new site and “Does God Hate Women ?”, “50 Voices of Disbelief” and “Missionary Position” just arrived from Amazon. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Looks fabulous. A little suggestion–the table of contents in the right column is kinda redundant, since the tabs at the top do the same job. You might want to use that space for book images or even a picture (Ophelia? Her avatar? Her dog? Whatever…)
WHOA! I can’t read the “captcha!” Can it be ramped down for the nearly blind?
1. What is the role of Jeremy Stangroom in this new version of BaW? (The About page lists him under Alumni. Of course I have no problem with him. It’s just that my impression is you wanna have full control of BaW.)
2. What would you do with those potentially UK-libelous posts now? What about moderation in general?
McAfee warned me of “potential security risks” following the change. I realize that tells me more about McAfee’s maintenance of my security than about B & W, but I thought you might want to hear about that.
I’ve taken the captcha out for now. There are a few other layers of anti-spam protection, so until comment spam becomes a problem, it can stay gone. (And if that time comes, by then I hope I’ll have figured out a way to turn off the captcha for regular commenters.)
I’m working on a comment formatting interface. There are still a few kinks to work out (for example, I’d like the option to use html to be there for folks who want to do that), but it should basically work now.
I’ll see if I can put in a font style switcher for people who prefer serif to sans, or larger/smaller text. I know I’ve seen it done on other sites, so I’ll see if I can grab whatever they’re using.
And, yeah, I’m not quite sure what to do with that right-hand column. The table of contents doesn’t make much sense there. Maybe that’s where links to “friends/allies/compatriots of B&W” sites can go?
Thanks for the heads-up on the McAfee problem. It’s a little mysterious; Josh has been seeing what he can do about it. Getting that fixed may take a little while.
A comment preview function would be handy. That combined with the firefox spell checker would get rid of most of those errors you never see no matter how many times you proof read.
A quick note about the WYSIWIG editor for comments:
If you press enter or return in the editor, you will get a new paragraph (like this one). If, for some reason, you want a linebreak without a new paragraph, you can hit control-enter or control-return instead.
That will give you a linebreak, but not a new paragraph, like this sentence starts with.
I think the new look is simply great. I like the new text box, that isn’t so cramped, and the whole thing is crisp and neat, and, as I told Ophelia this morning (my morning, anyway!), pretty. So, really great work Josh, and much appreciated. This, I take it, is not hosted in England, so we can call people liars now – right?!
Ooooooh! That was my first reaction, and then ‘oh no! I was used to the old navigation!’ But I’m sure it will come quickly as it all looks very clear, and as someone who was part of a major and stressful website redesign in the latter stages of my previous job (from the business end, not the tech end) I know what bad design looks like!
Also nice to have edit tools instead of adding html manually (and not having the comments in a separate pop-up box), as I am really quite lazy and B&W’s subject matter often results in much impassioned emphasising in my comments.
I love the strong; rich, passionate coloured painted/wheel/lady. The wheel too looks like it has been given a new makeover — as on closer scrutiny one can see the fusion. Just a thought though – don’t mean to be too over fastidious. But – could there not be room for two more smaller versions of wheel/butterfly to complement the plurality aspect of B&W’s heading. Well done Josh!
Oh, crud, the iPhone! I knew I was forgetting something. I’ve got it displaying differently for (some) mobile browsers than it does on a regular desktop browser. I haven’t given that part of it as much testing as I should have. I’ll work on that, sorry!
As for the user icons, you can set yours by going to http://www.gravatar.com/site/signup/ and signing in with the email address you use for commenting here. Once you’ve set a gravatar for that email address, it should show up on any site that uses gravatars (and there are a lot of them). The icons which look like quilts are also unique to each email address, so even if you don’t sign up with gravatar, your user icon should stay the same as long as you use the same email address. (There were a lot of comments without email addresses at the old site, so the uniqueness of user icons on comments before today’s date isn’t guaranteed.)
Doesn’t seem to matter if I’m in mobile or normal mode, I can’t enter text directly into the text box. Anyone else having difficulty using a mobile phone or is it because I’m logged in using Google?
Hmm. I don’t actually have an iPhone to test it with; I’ve just been using Safari’s User Agent switching to spoof being on an iPhone. I’ll see if I can grab the iPhone emulator for developers and test directly on that.
Ok, that was weird. The first time I tried to post my previous comment while in Safari’s iPhone spoofing mode, I got an error about my comment not posting, possibly because it was too short. The second time I hit “Publish”, it went through. I’ll definitely look into this.
Oh that’s what it means all right. Hence being able to post two articles in a fairly short time! It’s much easier. No reflection on the old one of course, it’s just that it dated from 1475 BCE.
Smith, it’s not about my wanting to have full control of B&W (which in a sense I always have had); JS wanted (and wants) to sever all connection with B&W. I’m not slighting him; he specifically told me he didn’t want his name mentioned on the new site at all.
As for libel – frankly, I’d rather not just open the floodgates to calling people liars. Keep Simon Singh in mind! Mind you people in certain kinds of public positions – like popes and politicians – sort of have to put up with it, so that’s permissible. But people not in that position? Let’s not. Mostly. I don’t know – use your judgement. Sometimes there are cases when that’s the whole point. But don’t just throw it around like confetti. Err on the side of caution. If you bankrupt me, I’ll have to move in with you!
And the rules remain exactly the same for G Tingey. He doesn’t get to use the word at all, ever, for any reason. No exceptions.
”Ok, that was weird. The first time I tried to post my previous comment while in Safari’s iPhone spoofing mode, I got an error about my comment not posting, possibly because it was too short. The second time I hit “Publish”, it went through. I’ll definitely look into this.” I got that too, but the real problem is that if I tap the text box my keypad doesn’t pop up to allow me to type. That didn’t happen this morning when the site first changed. The site *looks* great, by the way, and I’ve finally got an avatar.
Huh. I could have sworn I saw him spell “sniny” correctly earlier. It’s entirely possible I accidentally “fixed” it, although I don’t remember doing that. Let’s just say I did, and that now I’m un-fixing it back to the way it was before.
Well, it does look very nice and up-to-date and I’m already starting to get used to it, though I shall miss the old one terribly. It was like home and I think I really need a screen grab of it to hang on the wall as a security blanket. Everything that’s changed seems to have its advantages. I keep on hoping for the old pop-up when I click on Comments, because it loaded so fast and let me keep the Note to which they referred visible behind it. And now to submit and see if this Gravatar thing works…
The question about liars was mine. I asked it twice and now I have an answer. I don’t really want to tall anyone a liar, except when they are, but it’s handy to be able to do it when they are, instead of skimming cautiously over the surface of things. But I’m very conservative when it comes to calling people liars, so probably won’t do it except in extremis. Besides, in elegant surroundings like this it would look just a little out of place.
Oh I’m the one who “fixed” sniny…I thought it was a typo!
Sniny…I do not know this. I know notting, notting.
Eric, yes, the answer to the liar question was a general answer, separate from the answer to Smith’s question. I think Dave JL also asked about it. Conservatism is good. There are times that simply cry out for the word; I know this from experience; but I’ve been trained to be very leery of it by now; so conservatism is good.
Well, I’m a day late visiting the site but here I am and what a surprise! Really nice looking thanks to Josh and Cam. The old site must have been the last plain vanilla set of pages on the Web. I don’t know if this is a bug, but usually when I move my cursor next to buttons and icons I get a little pop up identifying it; but not here. Best wishes to OB on her new more feminine looking :) home.
Looks like the Subscription Manager isn’t working for me, either. I get the e-mail notification but the link goes to a blank page. BTW, I’m using the OmniWeb browser on Mac OS 10.6 if that makes a difference.
Yup, the fancy comment editor was being blocked by the iPhone and iPad. I think the html editor worked because it opened a new tab, but the inline form was doing something tricky with loading an iframe dynamically into the same page. In any case, it should be fixed now. iPhone/iPad users don’t get the fancy editor, but since it didn’t work for them, I figure that should be ok, right?
I’ve filed a dispute with McAfee about the SiteAdvisor rating. They say they’ll respond within three weeks:
McAfee will acknowledge your dispute within one business day of receipt. We will initiate an evaluation within five business days.
Once started, evaluations will typically be completed within the following time frames:
Claims that a site has changed: Five business days once the evaluation is begun.
Exception: E-mail practices. Evaluating changed e-mail practices takes 60 calendar days once the evaluation is begun because we must give our new test e-mail address significant time to see what kind of e-mail it receives, if any.
Claims that McAfee made a mistake: 10 business days once the evaluation is begun.
I haven’t commented on this new site before, and I haven’t tried any of the new features, which I am sure are as fantastic as people here seem to agree they are. However, I definitely prefer the old typography and format.
I am red-green colourblind. Have been since birth. It caused me great disappointment when those psychologists who tested me at primary school told me the results, because the horrible and unavoidable implication was that I could never be a train driver – which really mattered, as that was what I wanted to be. I couldn’t be an airline pilot either, but that was neither here nor there.
So where it was a breeze before, I now have to work a bit to make out what’s on this site, both in the threadstarters and the comments. I definitely prefer black-on-white.
So a question: is there a setting so that the user can choose the colour scheme inside this apartment? Or are we tenants stuck with it?
I’m working on a font size/style adjustment widget which will let you choose serif vs sans and increase and decrease the size. It shouldn’t be too much more work to have it also allow you to choose a high-contrast color scheme. I’ll see what I can do.
Ophelia: I did Control-A (select all) followed by Control-C (copy), opened Word and then did a Control-V (paste), and it took a bit of time, but it worked. High contrast. I do that all the time with stuff I read on the Web anyway.
A bit of flotsam and jetsam got carried along as well, but that doesn’t matter.
Then following my other common practice I pasted it into Notepad (quick as a flash, to get rid of the fol-de-rols) then did the above copy/paste routine from there into Word again. Much quicker that time. The moral: the longest way home is sometimes the quickest.
It reminded me of the problem faced by that Jewish couple in the apartment in Leeds (?) who could not turn on the light in the passageway on the Sabbath, and the various solutions I and others proposed.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way. And the will’s quite awesome where N&C is concerned.
Jolly good Ian. I thought of suggesting copying stuff into a notepad or similar but that seemed like a lot of trouble, and I thought highlight all might make it more readable in situ. I sometimes do that with sites that are black with white type.
Ian, without knowing your OS and browser I can’t suggest an easier solution than the one you’re using, but it’s possible your OS may offer one.
In Mac OS X which I use there is in System Preferences a program called Universal Access designed for the use of those with sight and/or hearing problems. One of its options is to change everything from black on white to white on black with a gray scale. I imagine you’re using Windows, but it’s possible Microsoft may have designed a similar program for its computers that would help you. Perhaps if you checked under the hood you might find one.
In Firefox Preferences under “Content” there’s a clickable block marked “Colors” which when opened allows some limited choices. If you’ve previously checked the box allowing pages to use their own colors try clicking instead “Use System Colors” and see if the result is an improvement. (Firefox for Windows may have different labels in different spots but should have the options mentioned. Nearly every modern browser does.)
I know Windows has accessibility options, too, where you can have a keystroke turn the whole screen high-contrast and large-text. Look in the Control Panel; I think there’s an “Accessibility” section there.
Regarding the chat about readability, I thought I would point out the excellent firefox addon called “Readability” it’s a one or two click install and completely free.
It has really transformed how I read large amounts of text on the web. Try it for one article and I guarantee you won’t go back. It is especially good for those with less than perfect vision.
Rhys: Thanks for the link. I tried it with IE and sadly, it sank.
I have certain problems with Firefox and tend to gravitate back to the devil I know: Mephistopheles Satanicus if you take my meaning. But I’ll give FF a go with it anyway.
Sparkly!
Beautiful job. Happy new website!
Really like the new look. My one criticism is that the articles archive is no longer on one page and less easy to navigate as a result (I liked to simply use ctrl+f).
Otherwise, fantastic job!
Thanks also to Cam, who did a lot of brainstorming and testing during the redesign!
Very nice. I only needed a few minutes to master the navigation.
It’s so shiny and clean that you could eat off of it. Go team Josh!
My only (whiny) complaint: the user pictures in Notes and Comment. What I liked about the old format is that the comments were relatively compressed and icon-free which allowed for a quicker read. So I’m not a fan of any avatars. But I dislike those generic forum patterns especially. They look like quilts that are made by somebody from Tron.
Huge huge thanks to both Josh and Cam Larios.
Wow! Josh and Cam, what a fantastic job you’ve done. I know how much work goes into overhauling a site – know that this longtime reader really appreciates it. The layout and color scheme is attractive, the format is logical, etc. I love the fact that we can now comment on articles (such as Allen E.’s latest) in addition to O’s blog posts. There’s a lot of really great writing and thought-provoking discussion that can now bubble up and get the notice it deserves.
I would only make a few small suggestions:
1. I know this is a matter of personal preference, but I find fonts *with* serifs much easier to read, especially for long blocks of text. It looks like all the article/blog/comment text is a *sans* serif font.
2. Is it possible to add a simple text-formatting tool to the comment function? Something that would let us do blockquotes, italics, and bolding without having to type in html commands?
Thanks again!
A shiny new site and “Does God Hate Women ?”, “50 Voices of Disbelief” and “Missionary Position” just arrived from Amazon. It doesn’t get much better than that.
Looks fabulous. A little suggestion–the table of contents in the right column is kinda redundant, since the tabs at the top do the same job. You might want to use that space for book images or even a picture (Ophelia? Her avatar? Her dog? Whatever…)
WHOA! I can’t read the “captcha!” Can it be ramped down for the nearly blind?
Now all I have to do is stop absent-mindedly screwing up News updates and we’ll be copacetic. It’s really not that difficult.
It’s all very nice, but I liked the old one…. ;-))
I presume, OB, you don’t have to manually maintain the database on this one?
Two quick questions:
1. What is the role of Jeremy Stangroom in this new version of BaW? (The About page lists him under Alumni. Of course I have no problem with him. It’s just that my impression is you wanna have full control of BaW.)
2. What would you do with those potentially UK-libelous posts now? What about moderation in general?
Wonderful!!
McAfee warned me of “potential security risks” following the change. I realize that tells me more about McAfee’s maintenance of my security than about B & W, but I thought you might want to hear about that.
I’ve taken the captcha out for now. There are a few other layers of anti-spam protection, so until comment spam becomes a problem, it can stay gone. (And if that time comes, by then I hope I’ll have figured out a way to turn off the captcha for regular commenters.)
I’m working on a comment formatting interface. There are still a few kinks to work out (for example, I’d like the option to use html to be there for folks who want to do that), but it should basically work now.
I’ll see if I can put in a font style switcher for people who prefer serif to sans, or larger/smaller text. I know I’ve seen it done on other sites, so I’ll see if I can grab whatever they’re using.
And, yeah, I’m not quite sure what to do with that right-hand column. The table of contents doesn’t make much sense there. Maybe that’s where links to “friends/allies/compatriots of B&W” sites can go?
Thanks for the suggestions!
Thanks for the heads-up on the McAfee problem. It’s a little mysterious; Josh has been seeing what he can do about it. Getting that fixed may take a little while.
A comment preview function would be handy. That combined with the firefox spell checker would get rid of most of those errors you never see no matter how many times you proof read.
A quick note about the WYSIWIG editor for comments:
If you press enter or return in the editor, you will get a new paragraph (like this one). If, for some reason, you want a linebreak without a new paragraph, you can hit control-enter or control-return instead.
That will give you a linebreak, but not a new paragraph, like this sentence starts with.
I think the new look is simply great. I like the new text box, that isn’t so cramped, and the whole thing is crisp and neat, and, as I told Ophelia this morning (my morning, anyway!), pretty. So, really great work Josh, and much appreciated. This, I take it, is not hosted in England, so we can call people liars now – right?!
Ooooooh! That was my first reaction, and then ‘oh no! I was used to the old navigation!’ But I’m sure it will come quickly as it all looks very clear, and as someone who was part of a major and stressful website redesign in the latter stages of my previous job (from the business end, not the tech end) I know what bad design looks like!
Also nice to have edit tools instead of adding html manually (and not having the comments in a separate pop-up box), as I am really quite lazy and B&W’s subject matter often results in much impassioned emphasising in my comments.
Josh Larios, you rock! Thank you so much for the WYSIWYG formatting editor. (I promise never to do that again).
Can we have more butter and less flies please?
Just kidding, obviously. Love it: looks good and just as easy to navigate.
Thanks! :)
Btw, how do I change my avatar?
gravatar.com
I obviously don’t know how to make it work, though :)
I love the strong; rich, passionate coloured painted/wheel/lady. The wheel too looks like it has been given a new makeover — as on closer scrutiny one can see the fusion. Just a thought though – don’t mean to be too over fastidious. But – could there not be room for two more smaller versions of wheel/butterfly to complement the plurality aspect of B&W’s heading. Well done Josh!
Very sniny.
Having difficulty posting on my iPhone. I’ve had to go into the HTML source editor.
Ophelia,
I hope this means the administration is significantly easier for you. More automated, more point and click.
Oh, crud, the iPhone! I knew I was forgetting something. I’ve got it displaying differently for (some) mobile browsers than it does on a regular desktop browser. I haven’t given that part of it as much testing as I should have. I’ll work on that, sorry!
As for the user icons, you can set yours by going to http://www.gravatar.com/site/signup/ and signing in with the email address you use for commenting here. Once you’ve set a gravatar for that email address, it should show up on any site that uses gravatars (and there are a lot of them). The icons which look like quilts are also unique to each email address, so even if you don’t sign up with gravatar, your user icon should stay the same as long as you use the same email address. (There were a lot of comments without email addresses at the old site, so the uniqueness of user icons on comments before today’s date isn’t guaranteed.)
Doesn’t seem to matter if I’m in mobile or normal mode, I can’t enter text directly into the text box. Anyone else having difficulty using a mobile phone or is it because I’m logged in using Google?
Hmm. I don’t actually have an iPhone to test it with; I’ve just been using Safari’s User Agent switching to spoof being on an iPhone. I’ll see if I can grab the iPhone emulator for developers and test directly on that.
Ok, that was weird. The first time I tried to post my previous comment while in Safari’s iPhone spoofing mode, I got an error about my comment not posting, possibly because it was too short. The second time I hit “Publish”, it went through. I’ll definitely look into this.
Josh S,
Oh that’s what it means all right. Hence being able to post two articles in a fairly short time! It’s much easier. No reflection on the old one of course, it’s just that it dated from 1475 BCE.
Smith, it’s not about my wanting to have full control of B&W (which in a sense I always have had); JS wanted (and wants) to sever all connection with B&W. I’m not slighting him; he specifically told me he didn’t want his name mentioned on the new site at all.
As for libel – frankly, I’d rather not just open the floodgates to calling people liars. Keep Simon Singh in mind! Mind you people in certain kinds of public positions – like popes and politicians – sort of have to put up with it, so that’s permissible. But people not in that position? Let’s not. Mostly. I don’t know – use your judgement. Sometimes there are cases when that’s the whole point. But don’t just throw it around like confetti. Err on the side of caution. If you bankrupt me, I’ll have to move in with you!
And the rules remain exactly the same for G Tingey. He doesn’t get to use the word at all, ever, for any reason. No exceptions.
The site looks great. Nicely done!
Oh, woops, I didn’t realize Jeremy wanted his name completely removed. I’ve taken him out of the “About” page.
”Ok, that was weird. The first time I tried to post my previous comment while in Safari’s iPhone spoofing mode, I got an error about my comment not posting, possibly because it was too short. The second time I hit “Publish”, it went through. I’ll definitely look into this.” I got that too, but the real problem is that if I tap the text box my keypad doesn’t pop up to allow me to type. That didn’t happen this morning when the site first changed. The site *looks* great, by the way, and I’ve finally got an avatar.
No worries, Josh, I forgot to mention it.
Terrific!
Oh the new site set up is so cheery and welcoming! Well done! I want to read and comment and read some more.
Thanks to the hardworking Josh and Cam. And the hard working Ophelia.
Nice – more modern and alive. Will take a while to get used to it tho.
PZ mis-spelled “Sniny”.
Huh. I could have sworn I saw him spell “sniny” correctly earlier. It’s entirely possible I accidentally “fixed” it, although I don’t remember doing that. Let’s just say I did, and that now I’m un-fixing it back to the way it was before.
Well, it does look very nice and up-to-date and I’m already starting to get used to it, though I shall miss the old one terribly. It was like home and I think I really need a screen grab of it to hang on the wall as a security blanket. Everything that’s changed seems to have its advantages. I keep on hoping for the old pop-up when I click on Comments, because it loaded so fast and let me keep the Note to which they referred visible behind it. And now to submit and see if this Gravatar thing works…
The question about liars was mine. I asked it twice and now I have an answer. I don’t really want to tall anyone a liar, except when they are, but it’s handy to be able to do it when they are, instead of skimming cautiously over the surface of things. But I’m very conservative when it comes to calling people liars, so probably won’t do it except in extremis. Besides, in elegant surroundings like this it would look just a little out of place.
There, I still can’t proofread: ‘tall’ should be ‘call’.
Oh I’m the one who “fixed” sniny…I thought it was a typo!
Sniny…I do not know this. I know notting, notting.
Eric, yes, the answer to the liar question was a general answer, separate from the answer to Smith’s question. I think Dave JL also asked about it. Conservatism is good. There are times that simply cry out for the word; I know this from experience; but I’ve been trained to be very leery of it by now; so conservatism is good.
Lovely redesign. I do like the facebook connect feature. Very handy. And comment editing tools!
Lovely new site – I need to look in all the rooms. Watch it, I may move in ;)
It looks very pretty, and so far I have found it much easier to navigate than the other site. Thank you very much.
It looks really nice, the only complaint I have is, where is the amusement section?
Well, I’m a day late visiting the site but here I am and what a surprise! Really nice looking thanks to Josh and Cam. The old site must have been the last plain vanilla set of pages on the Web. I don’t know if this is a bug, but usually when I move my cursor next to buttons and icons I get a little pop up identifying it; but not here. Best wishes to OB on her new more feminine looking :) home.
The amusements are on the way, never fear.
This comment is being submitted from the iPhone simulator. I have high hopes that it will be successful.
Looks like the Subscription Manager isn’t working for me, either. I get the e-mail notification but the link goes to a blank page. BTW, I’m using the OmniWeb browser on Mac OS 10.6 if that makes a difference.
Yup, the fancy comment editor was being blocked by the iPhone and iPad. I think the html editor worked because it opened a new tab, but the inline form was doing something tricky with loading an iframe dynamically into the same page. In any case, it should be fixed now. iPhone/iPad users don’t get the fancy editor, but since it didn’t work for them, I figure that should be ok, right?
Hrm. I’ll look into that, thanks.
Working fine from my iPhone now. Excellent jobs all round!
I’ve filed a dispute with McAfee about the SiteAdvisor rating. They say they’ll respond within three weeks:
So… yay?
Long-time lurker, occasional commenter, just checking this gravy-tar thing.
Oh yeah, and loving the new site also.
I haven’t commented on this new site before, and I haven’t tried any of the new features, which I am sure are as fantastic as people here seem to agree they are. However, I definitely prefer the old typography and format.
I am red-green colourblind. Have been since birth. It caused me great disappointment when those psychologists who tested me at primary school told me the results, because the horrible and unavoidable implication was that I could never be a train driver – which really mattered, as that was what I wanted to be. I couldn’t be an airline pilot either, but that was neither here nor there.
So where it was a breeze before, I now have to work a bit to make out what’s on this site, both in the threadstarters and the comments. I definitely prefer black-on-white.
So a question: is there a setting so that the user can choose the colour scheme inside this apartment? Or are we tenants stuck with it?
Oh dear – sorry, Ian.
Have you tried ctrl + A? That might work.
Well really! I just got a very rude message:
I beg your pardon?! Too quickly for what? And who the hell are you?
Hahahaha.
I’m working on a font size/style adjustment widget which will let you choose serif vs sans and increase and decrease the size. It shouldn’t be too much more work to have it also allow you to choose a high-contrast color scheme. I’ll see what I can do.
Ophelia: I did Control-A (select all) followed by Control-C (copy), opened Word and then did a Control-V (paste), and it took a bit of time, but it worked. High contrast. I do that all the time with stuff I read on the Web anyway.
A bit of flotsam and jetsam got carried along as well, but that doesn’t matter.
Then following my other common practice I pasted it into Notepad (quick as a flash, to get rid of the fol-de-rols) then did the above copy/paste routine from there into Word again. Much quicker that time. The moral: the longest way home is sometimes the quickest.
It reminded me of the problem faced by that Jewish couple in the apartment in Leeds (?) who could not turn on the light in the passageway on the Sabbath, and the various solutions I and others proposed.
Where there’s a will, there’s a way. And the will’s quite awesome where N&C is concerned.
Thanks Josh.
Jolly good Ian. I thought of suggesting copying stuff into a notepad or similar but that seemed like a lot of trouble, and I thought highlight all might make it more readable in situ. I sometimes do that with sites that are black with white type.
Ian, without knowing your OS and browser I can’t suggest an easier solution than the one you’re using, but it’s possible your OS may offer one.
In Mac OS X which I use there is in System Preferences a program called Universal Access designed for the use of those with sight and/or hearing problems. One of its options is to change everything from black on white to white on black with a gray scale. I imagine you’re using Windows, but it’s possible Microsoft may have designed a similar program for its computers that would help you. Perhaps if you checked under the hood you might find one.
JWT: Thanks also.
I use Windows XP in my desktop and Linux in my palmtop. I’ll look for what both offer along the lines you suggest.
Also, I normally use IE as my browser in my desktop, but maybe Firefox has something IE doesn’t.
Thanks again all for the tips.
In Firefox Preferences under “Content” there’s a clickable block marked “Colors” which when opened allows some limited choices. If you’ve previously checked the box allowing pages to use their own colors try clicking instead “Use System Colors” and see if the result is an improvement. (Firefox for Windows may have different labels in different spots but should have the options mentioned. Nearly every modern browser does.)
I know Windows has accessibility options, too, where you can have a keystroke turn the whole screen high-contrast and large-text. Look in the Control Panel; I think there’s an “Accessibility” section there.
Josh: thanks again.
John: thanks as well.
Wow! What a transformation. Excellent work all who were involved.
Regarding the chat about readability, I thought I would point out the excellent firefox addon called “Readability” it’s a one or two click install and completely free.
It has really transformed how I read large amounts of text on the web. Try it for one article and I guarantee you won’t go back. It is especially good for those with less than perfect vision.
http://lab.arc90.com/experiments/readability/
Rhys: Thanks for the link. I tried it with IE and sadly, it sank.
I have certain problems with Firefox and tend to gravitate back to the devil I know: Mephistopheles Satanicus if you take my meaning. But I’ll give FF a go with it anyway.