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20th May 2022, 11:50 am | #1 |
Hexode
Join Date: Nov 2009
Location: Cambridge, Cambridgeshire, UK.
Posts: 494
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Weird forum display.
Every so often when I access the forum, the list of threads appear with titles etc in various sized fonts.
Anyone know how to fix this? I'm using chrome on android. Mark |
20th May 2022, 12:26 pm | #2 |
Moderator
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Ipswich, Suffolk, IP4, UK.
Posts: 21,289
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Re: Weird forum display.
Same thing happens to me. It's a quirk of Android phones.
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20th May 2022, 12:56 pm | #3 |
Moderator
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Oxford, UK
Posts: 27,957
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Re: Weird forum display.
It's called font boosting, and is an appalling misfeature of the Webkit Android library used by most Android browsers. Unbelievably, there's no way to turn it off. You do get used to it, but it always looks awful. See https://ux.stackexchange.com/questio...osting-good-ux
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20th May 2022, 1:48 pm | #4 |
Nonode
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Nuneaton, Warwickshire, UK.
Posts: 2,039
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Re: Weird forum display.
Happens on my phone too. In fact this thread appears in minutely small font and has to be expanded greatly by finger spread. Very annoying.
Aub
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20th May 2022, 2:02 pm | #5 |
Moderator
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Oxford, UK
Posts: 27,957
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Re: Weird forum display.
Older vBulletin forums like this are particularly badly affected by this well intentioned but very annoying behaviour. Google have never shown the slightest interest in making it optional, which would be trivially easy for them to do. There is a bodge which website designers can use to suppress it, but that would disable it for *all* devices, including those which might actually benefit from it.
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20th May 2022, 2:18 pm | #6 |
Administrator
Join Date: Dec 2002
Location: Cardiff
Posts: 9,072
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Re: Weird forum display.
It happens on my iPhone too. Often reloading the page makes it display differently on these devices, which can sometimes help.
As Paul says, any workaround is a fudge and adversely affects some devices while benefiting others. The old forum system here predates widespread use of mobile devices so doesn't have any sort of optimised mobile mode. There are other aspects of the forum that do not work so well on mobile devices or are awkward to use. However with the nature of the content it is likely that the majority of users will be using computers rather than phones. Eventually we will need to move to newer forum software, but I can't see any compelling reason yet. Migrating everything to a different system would be a massive job. If it ain't (badly) broke... |
20th May 2022, 2:22 pm | #7 |
Nonode
Join Date: Oct 2008
Location: Warsaw, Poland and Cambridge, UK
Posts: 2,678
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Re: Weird forum display.
This is interesting. I also use an Android phone (a OnePlus 6) with its default browser and haven't seen the forum text appearing in different sizes in different columns, but have encountered another effect which might be related. When i open a thread, the text is too small for comfortable reading on the phone screen. However, if I then press "back" and open the same thread a second time, the text appears in a larger size font which makes it much easier to read with minimal zooming in. I do it almost without thinking now on any new thread.
Can this be explained by the same things? Chris
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20th May 2022, 2:35 pm | #8 |
Moderator
Join Date: Jun 2003
Location: Oxford, UK
Posts: 27,957
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Re: Weird forum display.
It will depend on the size and resolution of the screen. The screenshot in #5 came from a cheap Alcatel 1C which has a fairly lo-res display. I don't see font boosting on the Amazon Fire 7 tablet in landscape I mostly use. The boosting code in Webkit will do all sorts of unpredictable things depending on the display, the orientation and the content of the web page (including effects from Javascript tasks running in the background.)
As I said, well intentioned but more often than not a PITA. |
20th May 2022, 2:53 pm | #9 |
Nonode
Join Date: Jun 2010
Location: Spalding, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire, UK.
Posts: 2,859
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Re: Weird forum display.
This is the question I kept meaning to ask, but never did!
Phone is only one affected, I think, as tablet ISTR is OK. Both Android. Rob
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20th May 2022, 3:19 pm | #10 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: Oxford, UK.
Posts: 17,853
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Re: Weird forum display.
I agree... the forum software is imperfect and sometimes gives funny results on mobile devices, but overall, this site is rock-solid and the one I go to when other things don't load, to determine whether it's a problem at my end or not. Please don't change it
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20th May 2022, 3:29 pm | #11 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Jun 2005
Location: Warnham, West Sussex. 10 miles south of DORKING.
Posts: 9,147
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Re: Weird forum display.
Agree! J.
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20th May 2022, 4:07 pm | #12 |
Dekatron
Join Date: Jan 2012
Location: Brentwood, Essex, UK.
Posts: 5,345
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Re: Weird forum display.
Chris, thanks for the tip to go back and then re-open. (#7). Just tried it on my Android phone and it worked!
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