3 ms·

I keep my browser zoomed in substantially to compensate for uncorrectable vision issues. I’d say perhaps once per day I’ll encounter a website that has never ha

by jnovek 5mo ago

I keep my browser zoomed in substantially to compensate for uncorrectable vision issues. I’d say perhaps once per day I’ll encounter a website that has never had zoom in/out (ctl +/-) tested because if you zoom up even one level from 100%, everything breaks. There are several equally useless failure modes I’ve seen with this, a few off the top of my head: - rendering fails, everything falls apart - some elements disappear - it drops into the feature-limited mobile view - the author or framework overrides zoom with some other behavior — this one makes me especially crazy because they had to do *extra work* to screw up accessibility Certain websites are impossible for me to use and I just avoid them.

pbalau 5mo ago
> I’d say perhaps once per day I’ll encounter a website that has never had zoom in/out (ctl +/-) tested because if you zoom up even one level from 100%, everything breaks Just tested, hn breaks if you zoom >110%.
- oneeyedpigeon 5mo ago
  How does it break for you? Seems OK to me on android — in fact, I already had it at 110%. Reminded me to check my desktop settings which have HN fixed at 125%. I cannot believe that, in 2026, the default font size is set at 12px — is anyone actually reading it at that size?!
  - ryandrake 5mo ago
    > I cannot believe that, in 2026, the default font size is set at 12px — is anyone actually reading it at that size?! The very first "quality of life" thing I do when I install a new computer / operating system nowadays is double (sometimes triple) the default font size. 12pt was probably fine when our monitors were 640x480, and when we were 18 years old.
  - voidUpdate 5mo ago
    I leave HN on default everything, but I have a 1080p monitor so it might look bigger for me than someone with a higher resolution monitor... I don't know how that works. But I often have to zoom out of websites linked here because the text is so big and it feels uncomfortable to read
  - pbalau 5mo ago
    For some reason I though the GP was talking about browsing on mobile, where I have the issue: https://imgbox.com/EiovsE5b https://imgbox.com/EiovsE5b https://imgbox.com/A4Fl9lE9 https://imgbox.com/A4Fl9lE9
    - whstl 5mo ago
      The same issue happens on desktop but it requires zooming a bit more than 110%, and is screen-size dependent.
  - chowells 5mo ago
    Yeah, 12px is fine (27" 1440p, no display scaling). It is on the small side. I'd go a bit larger for something I made. But it's not a small enough to slow down my reading.
- deleted 5mo ago
  [deleted]
- cestith 5mo ago
  Which platform is this on? I usually read hn on a desktop browser, and it works fine well above 110% there.
  - pbalau 5mo ago
    Android https://imgbox.com/EiovsE5b https://imgbox.com/EiovsE5b https://imgbox.com/A4Fl9lE9 https://imgbox.com/A4Fl9lE9
    - cestith 5mo ago
      I use DuckDuckGo Browser, Firefox, and Chrome on Android pretty much in that order of preference. In both mobile mode and desktop mode all of these browsers support pinch zoom and two-finger drag scrolling. I have no problems with this site using those. I think we might need a little more information than just the OS to differentiate.
- jabroni_salad 5mo ago
  I browse everything at 125% and HN is fine on my machine so I decided to check. It depends on your width. 1080px wide (aka on my vertical monitor) HN comments stop reflowing > 300% At 1920px wide it never stops reflowing.
  - pbalau 5mo ago
    For some reason I though the GP was talking about browsing on mobile, where I have the issue: https://imgbox.com/EiovsE5b https://imgbox.com/EiovsE5b https://imgbox.com/A4Fl9lE9 https://imgbox.com/A4Fl9lE9
Joker_vD 5mo ago
I remember seeing a website that had <html style="font-size: XXX%"> for the top-level element, and had JS that would dynamically recalculate that percentage on every resize event to keep the visual font size almost (exactly) constant. Made me think for a moment that my mouse wheel broke.
- masfuerte 5mo ago
  The modern version is to use @media to achieve the same annoying effect without js. Fortunately, there's a finite number of rules so I've found that if you zoom far enough the text does actually start getting larger. Though I expect that someone's already figured out how to use CSS Math to keep text tiny at all zoom levels.
  - bryanrasmussen 5mo ago
    >The modern version is to use @media to achieve the same annoying effect without js. I think that is the up until about 2020 way, the modern way is using clamp to do it https://css-tricks.com/linearly-scale-font-size-with-css-clamp-based-on-the-viewport/ https://css-tricks.com/linearly-scale-font-size-with-css-cla...
    - dotancohen 5mo ago
      Six years is getting long in the tooth. Isn't it about time to upend everything once again and invent another cascading wheel that trades old, familiar edge cases for new, unfamiliar edge cases?
      - bryanrasmussen 5mo ago
        clamp is superior to @media because it solves a common problem with @media, although I am more apt to consider that problem in relation to proportions of divs and margins given the needs of responsiveness. Indeed I'm not sure what edge case I might expect to find given the ability of using clamp in conjunction with @media.
- 5mo ago

by jnovek 5mo ago

pbalau 5mo ago

> I’d say perhaps once per day I’ll encounter a website that has never had zoom in/out (ctl +/-) tested because if you zoom up even one level from 100%, everything breaks Just tested, hn breaks if you zoom >110%.

oneeyedpigeon 5mo ago
How does it break for you? Seems OK to me on android — in fact, I already had it at 110%. Reminded me to check my desktop settings which have HN fixed at 125%. I cannot believe that, in 2026, the default font size is set at 12px — is anyone actually reading it at that size?!
- ryandrake 5mo ago
  > I cannot believe that, in 2026, the default font size is set at 12px — is anyone actually reading it at that size?! The very first "quality of life" thing I do when I install a new computer / operating system nowadays is double (sometimes triple) the default font size. 12pt was probably fine when our monitors were 640x480, and when we were 18 years old.
- voidUpdate 5mo ago
  I leave HN on default everything, but I have a 1080p monitor so it might look bigger for me than someone with a higher resolution monitor... I don't know how that works. But I often have to zoom out of websites linked here because the text is so big and it feels uncomfortable to read
- pbalau 5mo ago
  For some reason I though the GP was talking about browsing on mobile, where I have the issue: https://imgbox.com/EiovsE5b https://imgbox.com/EiovsE5b https://imgbox.com/A4Fl9lE9 https://imgbox.com/A4Fl9lE9
  - whstl 5mo ago
    The same issue happens on desktop but it requires zooming a bit more than 110%, and is screen-size dependent.
- chowells 5mo ago
  Yeah, 12px is fine (27" 1440p, no display scaling). It is on the small side. I'd go a bit larger for something I made. But it's not a small enough to slow down my reading.
deleted 5mo ago
[deleted]
cestith 5mo ago
Which platform is this on? I usually read hn on a desktop browser, and it works fine well above 110% there.
- pbalau 5mo ago
  Android https://imgbox.com/EiovsE5b https://imgbox.com/EiovsE5b https://imgbox.com/A4Fl9lE9 https://imgbox.com/A4Fl9lE9
  - cestith 5mo ago
    I use DuckDuckGo Browser, Firefox, and Chrome on Android pretty much in that order of preference. In both mobile mode and desktop mode all of these browsers support pinch zoom and two-finger drag scrolling. I have no problems with this site using those. I think we might need a little more information than just the OS to differentiate.
jabroni_salad 5mo ago
I browse everything at 125% and HN is fine on my machine so I decided to check. It depends on your width. 1080px wide (aka on my vertical monitor) HN comments stop reflowing > 300% At 1920px wide it never stops reflowing.
- pbalau 5mo ago
  For some reason I though the GP was talking about browsing on mobile, where I have the issue: https://imgbox.com/EiovsE5b https://imgbox.com/EiovsE5b https://imgbox.com/A4Fl9lE9 https://imgbox.com/A4Fl9lE9

Joker_vD 5mo ago

I remember seeing a website that had <html style="font-size: XXX%"> for the top-level element, and had JS that would dynamically recalculate that percentage on every resize event to keep the visual font size almost (exactly) constant. Made me think for a moment that my mouse wheel broke.

masfuerte 5mo ago
The modern version is to use @media to achieve the same annoying effect without js. Fortunately, there's a finite number of rules so I've found that if you zoom far enough the text does actually start getting larger. Though I expect that someone's already figured out how to use CSS Math to keep text tiny at all zoom levels.
- bryanrasmussen 5mo ago
  >The modern version is to use @media to achieve the same annoying effect without js. I think that is the up until about 2020 way, the modern way is using clamp to do it https://css-tricks.com/linearly-scale-font-size-with-css-clamp-based-on-the-viewport/ https://css-tricks.com/linearly-scale-font-size-with-css-cla...
  - dotancohen 5mo ago
    Six years is getting long in the tooth. Isn't it about time to upend everything once again and invent another cascading wheel that trades old, familiar edge cases for new, unfamiliar edge cases?
    - bryanrasmussen 5mo ago
      clamp is superior to @media because it solves a common problem with @media, although I am more apt to consider that problem in relation to proportions of divs and margins given the needs of responsiveness. Indeed I'm not sure what edge case I might expect to find given the ability of using clamp in conjunction with @media.
5mo ago