Could we change the default font?

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41

If you’re using the Firefox method, I can help with that. Click on the right-hand corner paintbrush thingy again, then right-click on the name of your SDMB style. You should get a popup box that allows you to edit the CSS rules.

Below the rest of the code, add:


.page, .alt1, .alt2, .panel {
background-color: #efefef;
}

And preview to see if you like the change. This should turn the post background into a light gray color. If it’s too dark, change the “#efefef” to “#fefefe” or “#f1f1f1” for a marginal difference. Then save.

(I tried playing with the IE7 version but couldn’t get it to work. Dead Badger, maybe you can lend a hand?)

42

Yay! Thanks for this. I also don’t know how to assign a site-specific style sheet, but just designating your bit of CSS as my default style sheet was enough to make the SDMB display with the same font I see on every other site.

I tried to do this myself a while back, since I am semi-fluent in CSS, but I couldn’t seem to figure out exactly which tags to apply the CSS to. So thanks again!

43

Whoops, my bad, I left out the important!. Please change the background color tweak in my above post to:


.page, .alt1, .alt2, .panel {
background-color: #efefef !important;
}
44

Sorry for posting again, but I just spotted a slight error in Dead Badger’s otherwise excellent instructions for Firefox.

Dead Badger wrote that you should ignore all the code that’s automatically placed in the style box. Actually, in order to make sure the style you’re creating is site-specific (i.e. just used when you visit the SDMB), you need to put the extra code we gave you above the final curly brace “}” character.

So when you first click the right-hand corner icon and choose “Write Style” > “for boards.straightdope.com…” you will get a box that reads as follows:


@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);

@-moz-document domain("boards.straightdope.com") {

}

You need to insert the new code before that final brace. Thus if you just change the font style, the code should look like:


@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);

@-moz-document domain("boards.straightdope.com") {

body,td,th,p,li
{
  font-family: Verdana, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, Tahoma !important;
}
}

Note the two curly braces at the end. This is correct!

Finally, if you use my code for the background color styling, the whole thing will look like this:


@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);

@-moz-document domain("boards.straightdope.com") {

body,td,th,p,li
{
  font-family: Verdana, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, Tahoma !important;
}
.page, .alt1, .alt2, .panel {
background-color: #efefef !important;
}
}

Whew. Hope this makes sense. :slight_smile:

45

Mine’s IE7, Choie. But thanks for being willing to help. :slight_smile:

46

Thanks for your help, all of you, this is great!

47

You’re welcome! All righty, I’ve figured out what I was doing wrong with IE7. So here’s what your stylesheet file should look like, including Dead Badger’s font changes as well as the changed background color, which is at the end:



/* Main post listing */
div#posts div.page div.tborder div.alt1,div.alt2 {
  font-family: Verdana, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, Tahoma !important;
}
div#posts div.page div.tborder pre.alt2 {
  font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace !important;
}

/* Preview box */
div.page table.tborder td.alt1,td.alt2 {
  font-family: Verdana, "Trebuchet MS", Arial, Tahoma !important;
}
div.page table.tborder pre.alt2 {
  font-family: Courier New, Courier, monospace !important;
}

/* Change background color */
.alt1, .alt2, .page, .panel, .alt1active {
background: #efefef !important;
}

Hope this helps! :slight_smile:

48

YES! Thank you, Choie. :slight_smile: (I made it just a bit darker — dfdfdf.) This is going to help my eyestrain problems so much!

49

Ah, cheers for that; I figured that like Opera, FF stored separate sheets for each site, so the nesting wouldn’t matter. Should’ve really assumed those extra tags were there for a reason. :slight_smile:

You’re welcome. I used an Opera extension which shows you the page’s html tag tree, and you can click on elements within the page and it’ll identify them within the tree, as well as showing you which CSS rules are being applied. Dead handy.

50

It is a scientific fact that 11pt dark blue garamond is the most readable font in the world. Your IQ goes up 10 points and your comprehension increases 4%.

51

I use Tahoma when emailing or writing. The ( I i L l ) letters are distinct.

52

Am I the only person left who likes courier?

53

I don’t mind Courier. It’s my preferred font when a fixed-width font is called for. As long as it’s “Courier” and not that Microsoft “Courier New”, which for some reason has considerably lighter strokes and looks like a light gray when it should be black.

54

No one likes Pica anymore. :frowning:

55

Trttr

56

Here’s the problem with courier. When typed out in capital letters the H and the M become indistinguishable. They have zero resemblance in every other font.

H M H M H M H M

Okay, I know it’s hard to see in the clarity of online message board typing, but in real life it’s a pain in the ass.

57

I like Courier, I preferentially use it for my fixed-width font over other choices, like Monaco. But like Phase42, I think that Courier New is garbage on the screen. It might look better in print, but I haven’t really tested that.

Since my earlier post, I realized that I was being a bit silly about font stuff. Just because they used a font doesn’t mean you have to see it. I just disabled fonts that I know I’m never going to want to see or use. Sure, by doing that I’m not showing the page as the creator intended, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing in some cases.

Arial is the retarded cousin of Helvetica, so that went. Comic Sans, ugh, that definitely got turned off. It doesn’t save me from other aspects of bad web design, but at least I can read whatever is on the page. Trebuchet, off. Courier New, off. I don’t like the way many letters tend to run together at smaller sizes in Tahoma (especially o, c, and e) so that’s off too. So right now I see Helvetica as the main font on the board and Georgia on the SD main page.

58

Courier is fine. It’s the required font for screenplays. But did you notice how hard the on-screen italicized courier is to read?

59

There’s a reason nobody is walking around touting the amazing features of the WinPhone, you know.

:smiley:

Aren’t fonts that are serifed easier to read? And is serifed a word? And don’t most people spell it " score " ??

Cartooniverse

60

Back in my days as a typesetter lots of graphic designers and art directors told me that serif fonts are more readable because they “flow” – the hooks of serif type lead the eye across the page.

That being said I know a lot of everyday people who tell me that sans serif type is easier for them to read because it’s clear and uncluttered by graphic elements. Some of these people also say they prefer all caps, that’s the clearest of all.

I dislike all caps from an aesthetic point of view – I think it’s blocky and unattractive. And internet usage makes that “YELLING” and no one likes that, so all caps has a bad rap.

So who are you gonna believe here? As in so much in life, I think you’re gonna believe what your own eyes tell you.