4 ms·

Though this article is quite well intentioned, it seems to be written under the assumption that the web would evolve differently than it did. This is rather unf

Though this article is quite well intentioned, it seems to be written under the assumption that the web would evolve differently than it did. This is rather unfortunate, since the described features and uses of browsers that allow these design ideas to work didn't all come to be. "...in the near future most web browsers will provide simple ways for readers to adjust the color of elements on a web page, via user style sheets, which can override your style sheets..." While I believe that designing in an adaptive way, as described in this article, is the best approach, I wonder how much it has been handicapped as a method by browsers adapting to the web design methods that were actually used instead of the ideal approaches.

niftich 7y ago
It's a bit of both. Early versions of Firefox shipped with a prominent stylesheet chooser in the status bar, that allowed alternate stylesheets on the page to be selected. Of course, hardly any website offered alternate stylesheets. So this later got moved to a menu and forgotten. According to this MDN page [1], IE8 has this feature too, which is wild to me, because that's right around the time most people accepted this feature as irrelevant. Several browsers offer a way for the user to set a custom stylesheet that will be applied to every page. These options are almost always buried in some forgotten corner of an accessibility menu, if a UI is provided at all. The utility of this feature is passable when used to, say, enlarge text, or apply basic formatting to well-identifiable elements like h1, a, or table, and very useful for pseudoclasses. But because page layouts (i.e. the specific nesting of container elements, and the styles that affect them) between any two random websites can differ so widely, it's only capable of crude attempts to alter layout. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Alternative_style_sheets https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Alternative...
- cxr 7y ago
  > Of course, hardly any website offered alternate stylesheets. So this later got moved to a menu and forgotten. It looks like it's even broken in the most recent versions—although I may be making a bad inference and support was actually deliberately removed recently, which is equally likely. One of the only sites I know of that ever offered alternate stylesheets is http://virtualplastic.net http://virtualplastic.net. With Firefox's style switcher, you should be able to use "Page Style" from the "View" menu to switch between all three, if things were working. By using View Source on that page, you can see that there are three stylesheets available called "red", "purple", and "default". Since the style switcher currently only allows switching between styled and unstyled views, you have to use the in-content links in top right corner of the page header instead. (Note that there are only two icons for switching, though—"purple" is missing.)
dublinben 7y ago
The reader view present in most contemporary browsers seems like the best expression of this. With the tap of a single button I can view most any page in a well-designed, highly legible style that completely overrides whatever nonsense the site tried to deliver.

niftich 7y ago

It's a bit of both. Early versions of Firefox shipped with a prominent stylesheet chooser in the status bar, that allowed alternate stylesheets on the page to be selected. Of course, hardly any website offered alternate stylesheets. So this later got moved to a menu and forgotten. According to this MDN page [1], IE8 has this feature too, which is wild to me, because that's right around the time most people accepted this feature as irrelevant. Several browsers offer a way for the user to set a custom stylesheet that will be applied to every page. These options are almost always buried in some forgotten corner of an accessibility menu, if a UI is provided at all. The utility of this feature is passable when used to, say, enlarge text, or apply basic formatting to well-identifiable elements like h1, a, or table, and very useful for pseudoclasses. But because page layouts (i.e. the specific nesting of container elements, and the styles that affect them) between any two random websites can differ so widely, it's only capable of crude attempts to alter layout. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Alternative_style_sheets https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/Alternative...

cxr 7y ago
> Of course, hardly any website offered alternate stylesheets. So this later got moved to a menu and forgotten. It looks like it's even broken in the most recent versions—although I may be making a bad inference and support was actually deliberately removed recently, which is equally likely. One of the only sites I know of that ever offered alternate stylesheets is http://virtualplastic.net http://virtualplastic.net. With Firefox's style switcher, you should be able to use "Page Style" from the "View" menu to switch between all three, if things were working. By using View Source on that page, you can see that there are three stylesheets available called "red", "purple", and "default". Since the style switcher currently only allows switching between styled and unstyled views, you have to use the in-content links in top right corner of the page header instead. (Note that there are only two icons for switching, though—"purple" is missing.)

dublinben 7y ago

The reader view present in most contemporary browsers seems like the best expression of this. With the tap of a single button I can view most any page in a well-designed, highly legible style that completely overrides whatever nonsense the site tried to deliver.