Simple question, really. Most of the time I’m viewing the SDMB in Internet Exploder on a PC. But at home we’re on a (Brand New! heehee) iMac and use Netscape (trying to free our new toy from the taint of Gates). But I like the large fonts and easily viewable formatting that are shown in IE.
So, how can I get the board to look more like it does on IE?
BTW, we’ve got Netscape Communicator 4.75.
Fonts always tend to display larger on a PC; the effect is somewhat intensified on the web. You can browse the available options and see if you can select a larger base standard point size, but I don’t think Netscape has as many options along these lines as iCab, which is well on its way to becoming a very nice non-Microsoft browser for the Mac. Opera is also worth looking into.
vBulletin is designed to work well with IE. We’ve had reports from Opera users that it doesn’t work well at all with that browser. Sorry, but the folks at vBulletin designed it this way, and there’s not much of anything we here at the Straight Dope can do about it. The Reader techs DO NOT want to do any hacks on the software, for various reasons.
I’m using Netscape on a PC, but I’m assuming this will also work the Mac version (let me know). To make the fonts larger in Netscape, go to Edit -> Preferences. Under the Appearance category, select fonts. From there, you can adjust font size.
Lynn, for informational purposes – the board looks fine and behaves fine under iCab, both under conventional MacOS (8.6, 9) and under the new MacOS X. I’ve also never had any problems with Netscape Navigator on the Mac (which I’m using right now) but I must say the smaller font size doesn’t bother me in the least so I’ve never tried to change it.
With the earlier versions people did report problems, but I’ve been using Opera 5.11 on a Windows 95 PC for about 6 months now with no problems. One very nice feature is that Opera lists the text download and image download statuses separately. So, when the board is running slowly, I can hit the stop download button after the text download hits 100% to read the messages, which saves a lot of time, no having to wait for all the little images.
Jet Jaguar, you are the coolest.
I’ve been changing the monitor’s grid from 800x600 to 640x480 pixels to read the board. Just to make it bigger.
The really sad thing is, I knew you could adjust the type fonts and sizes. I knew where to do that too. Untill I saw your post, it never occurred to me to do that.
Now the type is easier to read, the bolding shows up, and the whole Message Board thing is just nicer.
Of course, now The Little Woman is going to be cheesed 'cause I have a new toy, and I’ll probably be changing the font around for a while. A lot.
-Rue.
Who makes iCab? Where could I buy/download it?
Fiver, iCab makes iCab and it’s free while still in beta, and you can download it at http://www.icab.de/
They say they’ll eventually ask $29 for it or something like that.
Well, now a little ignorance has been stomped out. I’m relieved to know this, and tempted to get the latest Opera myself, as I experience slow response times just like everyone else. Thanks for the responses.
Thanks for the tip, AHunter3.