5 ms·

Your browser has awful defaults. There's no CSS, so your browser is responsible for presenting it in a readable form.

by zerohp 14y ago

nawitus 14y ago
Firefox doesn't present it in a readable form (the page width is so large that reading the text is annoying). Which browsers handle this well?
- 1337p337 14y ago
 Firefox and Webkit both allow a user-specified stylesheet, although it is buried a bit in Firefox.
 - jamesgeck0 14y ago
 That's not by default. User-specified CSS is even less usable by most end users than a 3rd party "make readable" bookmarklet.
 - ihateloggingin 14y ago
 What about resizing the browser window? Is that usable by most end users?
 - onli 14y ago
 A website forcing the user to resize the browser window (or use a readable-bookmarklet/plugin) is broken.
 - waterhouse 14y ago
 Hey, you're right. As it says at this URL, resource:///defaults/profile/chrome/userContent-example.css the file goes in <profile directory>/chrome/userContent.css. On a conventionally installed Firefox on OS X, the profile directory is: ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/<random characters>.default/ You may have to create your own "chrome" subfolder in there. (I did.) Some poking around reveals that the essays on Paul Graham's website achieve their indentation by sticking all the text in a <td width=455>. 455 pixels, then. So I tried this CSS file, having spent all of three or so minutes looking at a CSS reference: ~ $ cat heh.css p {max-width:455px} And installed that as <profile-dir>/chrome/userContent.css. ... This seems to have far-reaching implications. It does make all the paragraphs on this website, except for the first one, fit in what is presumably a 455px box. This also goes for Hacker News comments, and it also constricts the paragraphs on a website that pretty certainly has its own CSS. I suspect the only thing that would override this is a CSS that specifically changed the max-width property of objects. (I expect a CSS expert would have been able to predict all of the above, except possibly the fact that it seems common for the first paragraph to not be in a tag.) Oh, and I had to restart Firefox for the effects to be visible; and, editing that CSS file, it seems I'll have to restart Firefox again to see changes. For those who don't want to go to the above effort to see the results: http://imgur.com/F1MHng3 http://imgur.com/F1MHng3 http://imgur.com/jYly4fX http://imgur.com/jYly4fX
derefr 14y ago
I wonder if a popular web browser could get away with changing all its default CSS rules to resemble modern readability guidelines, without breaking a large majority of the web? People who use CSS resets would be fine; people who use things like normalize.css might have to go get a new version; but the rest of the internet (which is implicitly relying on things like the line-height of s and the padding of <body>) might just spontaneously combust. Then again, it might be fine to apply an alternate "default theme" if and only if there are literally no non-user-agent CSS styles defined on the page (either by stylesheets or DOM-manipulating Javascript).
- aaronblohowiak 14y ago
 >Then again, it might be fine to apply an alternate "default theme" if and only if there are literally no non-user-agent CSS styles defined on the page (either by stylesheets or DOM-manipulating Javascript). That might be the way to go.

Your browser has awful defaults. There's no CSS, so your browser is responsible for presenting it in a readable form.

by zerohp 14y ago

Your browser has awful defaults. There's no CSS, so your browser is responsible for presenting it in a readable form.

Firefox doesn't present it in a readable form (the page width is so large that reading the text is annoying). Which browsers handle this well?

1337p337 14y ago
Firefox and Webkit both allow a user-specified stylesheet, although it is buried a bit in Firefox.
- jamesgeck0 14y ago
 That's not by default. User-specified CSS is even less usable by most end users than a 3rd party "make readable" bookmarklet.
 - ihateloggingin 14y ago
 What about resizing the browser window? Is that usable by most end users?
 - onli 14y ago
 A website forcing the user to resize the browser window (or use a readable-bookmarklet/plugin) is broken.
- waterhouse 14y ago
 Hey, you're right. As it says at this URL, resource:///defaults/profile/chrome/userContent-example.css the file goes in <profile directory>/chrome/userContent.css. On a conventionally installed Firefox on OS X, the profile directory is: ~/Library/Application Support/Firefox/Profiles/<random characters>.default/ You may have to create your own "chrome" subfolder in there. (I did.) Some poking around reveals that the essays on Paul Graham's website achieve their indentation by sticking all the text in a <td width=455>. 455 pixels, then. So I tried this CSS file, having spent all of three or so minutes looking at a CSS reference: ~ $ cat heh.css p {max-width:455px} And installed that as <profile-dir>/chrome/userContent.css. ... This seems to have far-reaching implications. It does make all the paragraphs on this website, except for the first one, fit in what is presumably a 455px box. This also goes for Hacker News comments, and it also constricts the paragraphs on a website that pretty certainly has its own CSS. I suspect the only thing that would override this is a CSS that specifically changed the max-width property of objects. (I expect a CSS expert would have been able to predict all of the above, except possibly the fact that it seems common for the first paragraph to not be in a tag.) Oh, and I had to restart Firefox for the effects to be visible; and, editing that CSS file, it seems I'll have to restart Firefox again to see changes. For those who don't want to go to the above effort to see the results: http://imgur.com/F1MHng3 http://imgur.com/F1MHng3 http://imgur.com/jYly4fX http://imgur.com/jYly4fX

derefr 14y ago

I wonder if a popular web browser could get away with changing all its default CSS rules to resemble modern readability guidelines, without breaking a large majority of the web? People who use CSS resets would be fine; people who use things like normalize.css might have to go get a new version; but the rest of the internet (which is implicitly relying on things like the line-height of s and the padding of <body>) might just spontaneously combust. Then again, it might be fine to apply an alternate "default theme" if and only if there are literally no non-user-agent CSS styles defined on the page (either by stylesheets or DOM-manipulating Javascript).

aaronblohowiak 14y ago
>Then again, it might be fine to apply an alternate "default theme" if and only if there are literally no non-user-agent CSS styles defined on the page (either by stylesheets or DOM-manipulating Javascript). That might be the way to go.