Anyone used Vista or IE7?

[John Smith]

As far as Windows XP is concerned, I'd totally agree.

I do feel though that MS have tried hard to catch up and overtake with Vista, despite the shortcomings.

I'd have to say that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and call it a draw at the moment, though Apple wins on points (it's available NOW)!

[Barney]

Anyway, on to the big bugbear for me, and I wanted to know what people think before I whinge to Microsoft.

I assume the problem they're trying to address is rendering the page as the web-designer intended regardless of the text size. Designers try to lock everthing in place with things like 'tables' but can be difficult with text and lots of pics mixed on a page. Designing a page so that it still looks ok when viewed with very large text sizes can be very restrictive on a complex page.

Don't think I'd want to be the first in the street with Vista unless I was starting from scratch with all new h/w and s/w. I still dual-boot XP and ME on this system because lots of geriatric apps hate XP.

[James Colclough]

On a similar note.

Forum looks awful in opera.

Still think firefox is the best

[James Colclough]

Ignore that just been thick, had images cached.

Now it looks cool.

[John Smith]

Barney,

Yes, you're right. But that's a very Microsoft thing. After all, in IE6 and previously, if the designer specifies 8pt text, that's what the user will see. Regardless of whether the user themselves asks for larger text.

There are of course two schools of web design. There is the designer who is classically trained with print design, and insists that the design must look exactly the way it does on his or her piece of paper on every single screen worldwide; regardless of screen size or user disability,

The other school of thought encompasses those designers who are brought up designing for a fluid medium, and make efforts to ensure that the site works well on different technology and at different text sizes and resolutions. After all, if the user ASKS for 30pt text, then that user will probably accept a slightly different experience, just so long as the site is legible.

Without blowing my own trumpet here, that's one reason why 99% of web-based fora like this one are not dynamic, and I put a lot of effort to make it work at various screen and text sizes before launching it.

Unfortunately, my modifications do make the software harder to upgrade, but that's the price I pay.

[Andrew MacLean]

John

Your efforts are well appreciated. I have Safari set to show nothing less that 18pt text (negative image; white on black)

The forum looks fine. Yet when I go to pay my Credit Card bills on line, I have to reset Safari to show text at 12 pt, because otherwise the site does not work!

The odd thing is that the bank has a commercial interest in my being able to operate their web site whereas the KC forum has none!

Thank you, John.

Andrew

[Barney]

The problem for web-designers is that they feel obliged to give the customer what they want. If the customer has seen something he likes, a web-designer who tells him about all the problems it could have tends to sound like just a lousy designer.

That's why so many commercial sites work so badly. Boo.com went bust depite the $120 million that went into it largely because although their site looked impressive it relied very heavily on JavaScript and Flash and was a lousy experience for their customers.

To be fair it's nigh impossible for anything but the simplest page to work perfectly on every browser and in all circumstances. I've worked for days on pages and tested in every known Windows browser only to have someone mail me a screen-grab of the total mess it looks in some obscure Linux browser.

They seem to have kept the CSS of phpBB that you use here fairly bombproof, unlike the now very popular IBF forum software that's horribly complicated, there's reams of it, and falls apart in almost anything but the latest Windows browsers.

[Amarpal]

I downloaded IE7 again today, as it is no longer a beta version... Not too bad I suppose. One thing impressed me though, and I found that it would be great for people with KC and other visio disorders. It's called ClearType Tuner (http://www.microsoft.com/typography/cleartype/tuner/Step1.aspx)
It 'tunes' the fonts that you see on websites to make them clearer and sharper to YOUR eyes. Try it out, I found it worked quite well.

[John Smith]

Yes, that is rather useful. It's nothing to do with IE7 though - I've had it on my IE6/WinXP setup since I got an LCD monitor in January.

It does seem to have more benefit for LCD monitors, but I had to get a better-sighted friend to do the tuning for me - some of the questions I just couldn't tell!

[Amarpal]

Ah I see, I wish I found out about it sooner!