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digitalmars.D.announce - Re: D forums now live!

reply bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:
Walter:


 http://forum.dlang.org/



Sorry for the late reply. They are indeed fast. A screen grab:
http://oi39.tinypic.com/2s7e1dy.jpg

At first sight there are three things I don't like about them:
- All those thick boxes inside boxes waste too much screen surface that's
better used for the actual messages text.
- The image of the person that is writing steals and wastes another vertical
chunk of space. This asks for a redesign that saves that space for the message.
- The menu on the left of the page steals a large amount of space. The threads
are often long, while the D menu on the left is short, so there's often a huge
amount of space wasted on the page. The result is a too much thin space left
for messages text. In my screen about 54% of the horizontal space is wasted for
things that are not messages text. I suggest to fix this, I'd like to something
more like 80% of it left to messages text.

Bye,
bearophile
Feb 16 2012
next sibling parent reply "Vladimir Panteleev" <vladimir thecybershadow.net> writes:
On Thursday, 16 February 2012 at 13:22:43 UTC, bearophile wrote:

 A screen grab:
 http://oi39.tinypic.com/2s7e1dy.jpg



I'm not quite sure what browser or configuration you're using, 
but the screenshot does not represent the intended look of the 
forums.


 At first sight there are three things I don't like about them:
 - All those thick boxes inside boxes waste too much screen 
 surface that's better used for the actual messages text.



Removing them would make the forum rather ugly in the normal view 
mode. Since it looks like you're customizing half of your web 
experience already, I'd suggest further tweaking the look to suit 
your needs yourself.


 - The image of the person that is writing steals and wastes 
 another vertical chunk of space. This asks for a redesign that 
 saves that space for the message.



I don't understand how you can claim that it takes up vertical 
space when it's alongside the post. The only case where it would 
waste vertical space is when the post is a few lines long.


 - The menu on the left of the page steals a large amount of 
 space. The threads are often long, while the D menu on the left 
 is short, so there's often a huge amount of space wasted on the 
 page. The result is a too much thin space left for messages 
 text. In my screen about 54% of the horizontal space is wasted 
 for things that are not messages text. I suggest to fix this, 
 I'd like to something more like 80% of it left to messages text.



Viewing the forum in a modern browser will cause the menu on the 
left to be hidden when there is insufficient space to show the 
full width of messages.
Feb 19 2012
next sibling parent reply bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:
Vladimir Panteleev:


 I'm not quite sure what browser or configuration you're using, 
 but the screenshot does not represent the intended look of the 
 forums.



That's the latest Firefox release, I have not used scripts to modify the page
rendering, I have used two Firefox options present in its regular graphical
menu. Other people where I work, and friends or mine, use similar settings.
Firefox designers have added those options, and have put them well visible in
that menu, because there are enough people that use or want to use them.

The purpose of PDF viewers is to show a formatted document, where the position,
color and shape of every glyph is decided by the person that has created the
page (or by her software). HTML documents, by their nature, specify mostly the
contents and the semantics of the page, and leave most of the presentation to
the browsers. There are browsers that even read the page aloud, so the "look"
of the page is an audio signal. A person that writes HTML pages has to keep in
account, as example, that up to 8% of male viewers are color blind, this is not
a Firefox option, unfortunately.



 Removing them would make the forum rather ugly in the normal view mode.



I think they are too much thick, they steal too much space.



 I don't understand how you can claim that it takes up vertical 
 space when it's alongside the post. The only case where it would 
 waste vertical space is when the post is a few lines long.



I meant there is a empty vertical rectangle, it steals a rectangular surface.
Doing so steals both vertical and horizontal space.



 Viewing the forum in a modern browser will cause the menu on the 
 left to be hidden when there is insufficient space to show the 
 full width of messages.



I have just seen you are right. But I think the text lines of the messages are
too much short. The end result is that less than half the page is used by
something that's not content. My HTML design sense tells me this is not good.

Bye,
bearophile
Feb 19 2012
next sibling parent bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:
Vladimir Panteleev:


 This layout is used by nearly all web forum software. It was 
 chosen to be familiar to people used to those forums.



The old D web interface I am currently using doesn't have the simple problems I
have listed. That's what I am familiar with. In the web forums I use in other
sites most screen space is left to the text of the messages, so those problems
are not common.

Thank you for your answers,
bye,
bearophile
Feb 19 2012
prev sibling parent reply bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:
Vladimir Panteleev:


 This is a limitation of the format used to transmit mail and NNTP 
 messages over the Internet (not all clients create messages with 
 reflow information).



I have just done some tests, and I've seen that the lines I am seeing on the
screen in various moments are shorter than the lines I see in Thunderbird, so
this web interface is adding many extra newlines.



 However, text using shorter lines is known 
 to be more readable, as you're less likely to lose track of which 
 line you are reading.



Too many words in a line make text harder to read, too few words on a line ask
for too much scrolling and too many eye movements. I am seeing too much short
lines.

Bye,
bearophile
Feb 19 2012
parent reply bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:
Vladimir Panteleev:


 Please see RFC 2646. Not all UAs implement it.



I don't know what UAs means, acronyms don't help communication a lot.
And it's not a matter of browser. The problem is: the design of those HTML
pages doesn't leave enough horizontal space to the text area.

Bye,
bearophile
Feb 19 2012
next sibling parent bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:
Vladimir Panteleev:


 I assumed that someone who claims to have HTML design sense would 
 be familiar with the acronym for User-Agent ;)



That's named "acronym sense", I often fail at it on computer topics :-)



 The forum starts looking bad for me when I make the browser 
 window smaller than 730 pixels in width. Sorry, but I don't think 
 anyone designs web pages for resolutions lower than 800x600 today.



If you take a look at my screen grab, it's 1101 pixels wide. Probably my
non-proportional font size is larger than yours. People more than 50 years old
often desire to use a larger browser font (if they know how to do it).

Bye,
bearophile
Feb 19 2012
prev sibling parent Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998 yahoo.com> writes:
On 19/02/2012 20:46, Vladimir Panteleev wrote:
<snip>

 The forum starts looking bad for me when I make the browser window smaller
than 730 pixels
 in width. Sorry, but I don't think anyone designs web pages for resolutions
lower than
 800x600 today.



Mobile devices still have screens much smaller than this.

Moreover, have you tested the site on Lynx or anything like that?

Stewart.
Feb 20 2012
prev sibling parent reply Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998 yahoo.com> writes:
On 19/02/2012 14:22, Vladimir Panteleev wrote:

 On Thursday, 16 February 2012 at 13:22:43 UTC, bearophile wrote:

 A screen grab:
 http://oi39.tinypic.com/2s7e1dy.jpg



 I'm not quite sure what browser or configuration you're using, but the
screenshot does not
 represent the intended look of the forums.



An astute observation - it represents the actual look to the user who posted
the screenshot.

But it does seem that the user has disabled a handful of CSS features by some
means.  Of 
course, text zoom, font/colour overrides and disabling images are things that
any web page 
design needs to be able to cope with.  Switching off CSS completely is another 
circumstance in which a page should still come out readable and
well-structured, even if 
it doesn't look very good.  On the other hand, if someone wants to put crazy
stuff in a 
user stylesheet like

     h1, h2, h3 {
         font-size: 0.5em;
     }
     p {
         border: 10px solid grey !important;
         font-size: 2em;
     }

_then_ I suppose it's their problem when they find that no web page looks sane.

<snip>

 I don't understand how you can claim that it takes up vertical space when it's
alongside
 the post. The only case where it would waste vertical space is when the post
is a few
 lines long.



Under that user's settings, it makes the message bodies narrower, causing them
to take up 
more lines.


 - The menu on the left of the page steals a large amount of space. The threads
are often
 long, while the D menu on the left is short, so there's often a huge amount of
space
 wasted on the page. The result is a too much thin space left for messages
text. In my
 screen about 54% of the horizontal space is wasted for things that are not
messages
 text. I suggest to fix this, I'd like to something more like 80% of it left to
messages
 text.



 Viewing the forum in a modern browser will cause the menu on the left to be
hidden when
 there is insufficient space to show the full width of messages.



Doesn't quite work for me as I try.  At 1280px width and with text zoomed more
than two or 
three notches, I get header text running into the border of the main body of
the page, and 
the navigation column remaining on the screen and causing lines to break.

Also, with CSS switched off, message lines are all run together.  If you want
preformatted 
text, use <pre>.  It's what it's there for.

Stewart.
Feb 20 2012
next sibling parent bearophile <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:
Stewart Gordon:


 But it does seem that the user has disabled a handful of CSS features by some
means.  Of 
 course, text zoom, font/colour overrides and disabling images are things that
any web page 
 design needs to be able to cope with.



In that screengrab there are images, images are not disabled. And I think I
have not disabled CSS features (on purpose).

Bye,
bearophile
Feb 20 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:
On 2012-02-21 01:53, James Miller wrote:

 As a web-dev-for-food, I can say that trying to design a site that
 works on all browsers, all the time, is an impossible task. You think
 that a few odd settings producing this: http://tinypic.com/r/2ch9ykj/5
 or this: http://oi39.tinypic.com/2s7e1dy.jpg is horrible. Try using a
 browser that doesn't properly support a certain CSS feature, or a
 small javascript bug with some sites and they are literally unusable.

 I get that "well other sites are worse" is not an excuse, but you've
 got to judge it accordingly. If, under normal browser settings, the
 site looks good, then that should be enough. If you then have
 suggestions, present them as such, do not try to present the site as
 broken and needing to be fixed. Web design is hard, trying to cover as
 many bases as possible is a nightmarish task.

 For example: "Long lines?" "They should be broken, otherwise it looks
 bad"/"They shouldn't be broken because it looks bad." - Some lines are
 broken by the software the person is using, other times the user has
 done it deliberately because of the interface they are using and the
 reflow has broken things.

 There are a potentially infinite number of possible configurations,
 and sites need to be aimed at the lowest-common denominator. Doesn't
 look right with an enlarged font size? Tough. Doesn't look good on
 Netscape 2.0? Tough.

 Of course you try to code to make it works as well as /possible/ in
 browsers outside the Webkit/Firefox/IE trifecta, and you try to make
 it flexible, but at some point, you need to sacrifice portability for
 aesthetics, otherwise we're still stuck in the early nineties...

 I'm pretty sure that making a website work in all browsers and all
 configurations is a punishment in hell for IE developers...

 --
 James Miller



I completely agree. And it's hell for you when you're forced to support 
IE because more than 50% of the customers use IE.

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg
Feb 20 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:rloaxnvvdpjetpgudrga forum.dlang.org...

 On Wednesday, 22 February 2012 at 02:12:54 UTC, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 Plus, it's a pain to have multiple versions of IE installed (if



 You don't need it! IE's compatibility mode is very good,
 including emulating old bugs.

 If you turn on compatibility mode you can tell pretty well
 if your site will work in the real thing.



Really? I didn't know there was such a thing. Is this a setting in one of 
the (*cough*increasingly hidden*cough*) options screens, or something you 
add to the HTML?
Feb 21 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998 yahoo.com> writes:
On 21/02/2012 00:53, James Miller wrote:
<snip>

 There are a potentially infinite number of possible configurations,
 and sites need to be aimed at the lowest-common denominator. Doesn't
 look right with an enlarged font size? Tough.




Try saying that in court when you're sued for disability discrimination.

Stewart.
Feb 22 2012
prev sibling parent reply Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998 yahoo.com> writes:
On 21/02/2012 11:43, James Miller wrote:
<snip>

 Its more, if you are using a font with a massive difference in size,
 then obviously things aren't going to look right. However, if a
 website require pixel-perfect rendering, then it isn't going to work
 anyway once it hits a platform that isn't the one the designer works
 on. I'm not advocating that websites should be rigid, more that
 complaining that the site doesn't work under /your/ specific settings
 is really not fair to the developer.



Exactly.  FWIW read this:
http://web.archive.org/web/20031231151206/http://allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?Fix_the_wrong_problem

<snip>

 I completely agree. And it's hell for you when you're forced to support IE
because
 more than 50% of the customers use IE.







Indeed, if only M$ would retire IE the web would be a much better place.

Stewart.
Feb 22 2012
parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"Stewart Gordon" <smjg_1998 yahoo.com> wrote in message 
news:ji31ut$172j$1 digitalmars.com...

 On 21/02/2012 11:43, James Miller wrote:
 <snip>

 Its more, if you are using a font with a massive difference in size,
 then obviously things aren't going to look right. However, if a
 website require pixel-perfect rendering, then it isn't going to work
 anyway once it hits a platform that isn't the one the designer works
 on. I'm not advocating that websites should be rigid, more that
 complaining that the site doesn't work under /your/ specific settings
 is really not fair to the developer.



 Exactly.  FWIW read this:
 http://web.archive.org/web/20031231151206/http://allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?Fix_the_wrong_problem



OMG, I *LOVE* that page!!!


 <snip>

 I completely agree. And it's hell for you when you're forced to support 
 IE because
 more than 50% of the customers use IE.







 Indeed, if only M$ would retire IE the web would be a much better place.



Meh, that would just mean all the millions of people who don't know what a 
"browser" is would just keep using the final version of IE. Actually, one 
could argue MS more or less tried retiring it at IE6, and that's exactly how 
it turned out.
Feb 22 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent "Vladimir Panteleev" <vladimir thecybershadow.net> writes:
On Sunday, 19 February 2012 at 16:16:29 UTC, bearophile wrote:

 That's the latest Firefox release, I have not used scripts to 
 modify the page rendering, I have used two Firefox options 
 present in its regular graphical menu. Other people where I 
 work, and friends or mine, use similar settings. Firefox 
 designers have added those options, and have put them well 
 visible in that menu, because there are enough people that use 
 or want to use them.



Using browser features that override page styles does not put you 
in a position for complaining about the resulting page style. 
Surely you'd at least agree that it is impossible to create a 
non-trivial web site that will look good with any combination of 
user style customization?


 The purpose of PDF viewers is to show a formatted document, 
 where the position, color and shape of every glyph is decided 
 by the person that has created the page (or by her software). 
 HTML documents, by their nature, specify mostly the contents 
 and the semantics of the page, and leave most of the 
 presentation to the browsers. There are browsers that even read 
 the page aloud, so the "look" of the page is an audio signal. A 
 person that writes HTML pages has to keep in account, as 
 example, that up to 8% of male viewers are color blind, this is 
 not a Firefox option, unfortunately.



I don't see how this applies. Text is visible and accessible to 
screen readers, and there are no issues with color. You are 
complaining about *style* but bringing *accessibility* into this 
discussion.


 I don't understand how you can claim that it takes up vertical 
 space when it's alongside the post. The only case where it 
 would waste vertical space is when the post is a few lines 
 long.



 I meant there is a empty vertical rectangle, it steals a 
 rectangular surface. Doing so steals both vertical and 
 horizontal space.



This layout is used by nearly all web forum software. It was 
chosen to be familiar to people used to those forums.

How would you design the layout?


 I have just seen you are right. But I think the text lines of 
 the messages are too much short. The end result is that less 
 than half the page is used by something that's not content. My 
 HTML design sense tells me this is not good.



This is a limitation of the format used to transmit mail and NNTP 
messages over the Internet (not all clients create messages with 
reflow information). However, text using shorter lines is known 
to be more readable, as you're less likely to lose track of which 
line you are reading.
Feb 19 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent "Vladimir Panteleev" <vladimir thecybershadow.net> writes:
On Sunday, 19 February 2012 at 19:24:46 UTC, bearophile wrote:

 Vladimir Panteleev:


 This is a limitation of the format used to transmit mail and 
 NNTP messages over the Internet (not all clients create 
 messages with reflow information).



 I have just done some tests, and I've seen that the lines I am 
 seeing on the screen in various moments are shorter than the 
 lines I see in Thunderbird, so this web interface is adding 
 many extra newlines.



Please see RFC 2646. Not all UAs implement it.
Feb 19 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent "Vladimir Panteleev" <vladimir thecybershadow.net> writes:
On Thursday, 16 February 2012 at 13:22:43 UTC, bearophile wrote:

 - All those thick boxes inside boxes waste too much screen 
 surface that's better used for the actual messages text.



I just noticed that the dlang.org style was updated some time in 
the past few months to have less borders and margins. I'll update 
the forum tonight with the same style changes.
Feb 19 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent "Vladimir Panteleev" <vladimir thecybershadow.net> writes:
On Sunday, 19 February 2012 at 20:34:48 UTC, bearophile wrote:

 Vladimir Panteleev:


 Please see RFC 2646. Not all UAs implement it.



 I don't know what UAs means, acronyms don't help communication 
 a lot.



I assumed that someone who claims to have HTML design sense would 
be familiar with the acronym for User-Agent ;)


 And it's not a matter of browser. The problem is: the design of 
 those HTML pages doesn't leave enough horizontal space to the 
 text area.



The forum starts looking bad for me when I make the browser 
window smaller than 730 pixels in width. Sorry, but I don't think 
anyone designs web pages for resolutions lower than 800x600 today.
Feb 19 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent "Regan Heath" <regan netmail.co.nz> writes:
On Sun, 19 Feb 2012 18:53:55 -0000, Vladimir Panteleev  
<vladimir thecybershadow.net> wrote:


 On Sunday, 19 February 2012 at 16:16:29 UTC, bearophile wrote:

 I don't understand how you can claim that it takes up vertical space  
 when it's alongside the post. The only case where it would waste  
 vertical space is when the post is a few lines long.



 I meant there is a empty vertical rectangle, it steals a rectangular  
 surface. Doing so steals both vertical and horizontal space.



 This layout is used by nearly all web forum software. It was chosen to  
 be familiar to people used to those forums.

 How would you design the layout?



I've not see a web forum do this yet, but I guess ideally the message text  
would flow around the image as you often see in newspapers and magazines.   
That way lines of message text below the bottom of the image would be full  
width and not have a large image width margin on them, if you see what I  
mean.

Regan

-- 
Using Opera's revolutionary email client: http://www.opera.com/mail/
Feb 20 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent "Vladimir Panteleev" <vladimir thecybershadow.net> writes:
On Monday, 20 February 2012 at 12:50:19 UTC, Regan Heath wrote:

 I've not see a web forum do this yet, but I guess ideally the 
 message text would flow around the image as you often see in 
 newspapers and magazines.  That way lines of message text below 
 the bottom of the image would be full width and not have a 
 large image width margin on them, if you see what I mean.



I tried that. It was awful.
Feb 20 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent "Vladimir Panteleev" <vladimir thecybershadow.net> writes:
On Monday, 20 February 2012 at 13:19:30 UTC, Stewart Gordon wrote:

 But it does seem that the user has disabled a handful of CSS 
 features by some means.  Of course, text zoom, font/colour 
 overrides and disabling images are things that any web page 
 design needs to be able to cope with.  Switching off CSS 
 completely is another circumstance in which a page should still 
 come out readable and well-structured, even if it doesn't look 
 very good.



OK, you're right. However, testing for all such combinations is 
tedious and time-consuming, so I'll need to rely on your feedback.


 Also, with CSS switched off, message lines are all run 
 together.  If you want preformatted text, use <pre>.  It's what 
 it's there for.



Good point, thanks.
Feb 20 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent James Miller <james aatch.net> writes:
As a web-dev-for-food, I can say that trying to design a site that
works on all browsers, all the time, is an impossible task. You think
that a few odd settings producing this: http://tinypic.com/r/2ch9ykj/5
or this: http://oi39.tinypic.com/2s7e1dy.jpg is horrible. Try using a
browser that doesn't properly support a certain CSS feature, or a
small javascript bug with some sites and they are literally unusable.

I get that "well other sites are worse" is not an excuse, but you've
got to judge it accordingly. If, under normal browser settings, the
site looks good, then that should be enough. If you then have
suggestions, present them as such, do not try to present the site as
broken and needing to be fixed. Web design is hard, trying to cover as
many bases as possible is a nightmarish task.

For example: "Long lines?" "They should be broken, otherwise it looks
bad"/"They shouldn't be broken because it looks bad." - Some lines are
broken by the software the person is using, other times the user has
done it deliberately because of the interface they are using and the
reflow has broken things.

There are a potentially infinite number of possible configurations,
and sites need to be aimed at the lowest-common denominator. Doesn't
look right with an enlarged font size? Tough. Doesn't look good on
Netscape 2.0? Tough.

Of course you try to code to make it works as well as /possible/ in
browsers outside the Webkit/Firefox/IE trifecta, and you try to make
it flexible, but at some point, you need to sacrifice portability for
aesthetics, otherwise we're still stuck in the early nineties...

I'm pretty sure that making a website work in all browsers and all
configurations is a punishment in hell for IE developers...

--
James Miller
Feb 20 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent "Kagamin" <spam here.lot> writes:
On Tuesday, 21 February 2012 at 00:53:51 UTC, James Miller wrote:

 There are a potentially infinite number of possible 
 configurations,
 and sites need to be aimed at the lowest-common denominator. 
 Doesn't
 look right with an enlarged font size? Tough.



So the joke about "standard font size" isn't a joke?
Feb 21 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent reply James Miller <james aatch.net> writes:
On 21 February 2012 23:29, Kagamin <spam here.lot> wrote:

 On Tuesday, 21 February 2012 at 00:53:51 UTC, James Miller wrote:

 There are a potentially infinite number of possible configurations,
 and sites need to be aimed at the lowest-common denominator. Doesn't
 look right with an enlarged font size? Tough.




 So the joke about "standard font size" isn't a joke?



Its more, if you are using a font with a massive difference in size,
then obviously things aren't going to look right. However, if a
website require pixel-perfect rendering, then it isn't going to work
anyway once it hits a platform that isn't the one the designer works
on. I'm not advocating that websites should be rigid, more that
complaining that the site doesn't work under /your/ specific settings
is really not fair to the developer.


 I'm pretty sure that making a website work in all browsers and all
 configurations is a punishment in hell for IE developers...







 --
 James Miller







 I completely agree. And it's hell for you when you're forced to support IE
because more than 50% of the customers use IE.



if I have to type <!--[if IE 6]> ever again it will be too soon (we
kinda support IE7, and actually support IE8+9)
--
James Miller
Feb 21 2012
parent reply "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"James Miller" <james aatch.net> wrote in message 
news:mailman.775.1329824618.20196.digitalmars-d-announce puremagic.com...

 I completely agree. And it's hell for you when you're forced to support 
 IE because more than 50% of the customers use IE.



 if I have to type <!--[if IE 6]> ever again it will be too soon (we
 kinda support IE7, and actually support IE8+9)



Heh, I support IE7 largely because I can't stand IE8 and I can't even run 
IE9 on my (XP) machine. ;)

Plus, it's a pain to have multiple versions of IE installed (if even 
possible), so may as well use the oldest one that I'd conceivably want to 
support (Although VirtualBox mitigates this a bit).

Of course, that said, I'm not likely to bend over backwards for minor IE7 
rendering issues, particularly on sites that aren't directed at the 
average-Joe masses (ie, the most likely ones to be using IE).

I don't support IE6 though, and I also don't support versions of IE that 
have that short-lived "Click to activate this control" thing (I tried to, 
but it just wasn't worth it).
Feb 21 2012
parent Jacob Carlborg <doob me.com> writes:
On 2012-02-22 03:11, Nick Sabalausky wrote:

 "James Miller"<james aatch.net>  wrote in message
 news:mailman.775.1329824618.20196.digitalmars-d-announce puremagic.com...

 I completely agree. And it's hell for you when you're forced to support
 IE because more than 50% of the customers use IE.



 if I have to type<!--[if IE 6]>  ever again it will be too soon (we
 kinda support IE7, and actually support IE8+9)



 Heh, I support IE7 largely because I can't stand IE8 and I can't even run
 IE9 on my (XP) machine. ;)

 Plus, it's a pain to have multiple versions of IE installed (if even
 possible), so may as well use the oldest one that I'd conceivably want to
 support (Although VirtualBox mitigates this a bit).

 Of course, that said, I'm not likely to bend over backwards for minor IE7
 rendering issues, particularly on sites that aren't directed at the
 average-Joe masses (ie, the most likely ones to be using IE).

 I don't support IE6 though, and I also don't support versions of IE that
 have that short-lived "Click to activate this control" thing (I tried to,
 but it just wasn't worth it).



Microsoft provides free downloads of VirtualPC machines for testing 
websites with IE. One virtual machine for each version of IE, but you 
can't save anything on them for more than 90 days, or something like that:

http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=11575

-- 
/Jacob Carlborg
Feb 21 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent "Vladimir Panteleev" <vladimir thecybershadow.net> writes:
On Tuesday, 21 February 2012 at 00:53:51 UTC, James Miller wrote:

 Doesn't look right with an enlarged font size? Tough.



It's a question of gain per effort. Issues due to non-standard 
font sizes seem to come up often enough to warrant investigating, 
and I admit I've completely disregarded this during development 
(zooming in on my browser changes the size of px as well as em).
Feb 21 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent reply "dbulletin" <dbulletin gmail.com> writes:
I can't Private Message you so I'm just going to say it out loud.

If you guys are planning a forum software solution. And your
emphasis is on "d" I would buy dBulletin.com It's for sale to the
highest bidder.

I originally found this domain from this site:
http://www.webmarketingtalk.com/


So get in there and negotiate!
Feb 21 2012
parent "Nick Sabalausky" <a a.a> writes:
"dbulletin" <dbulletin gmail.com> wrote in message 
news:nvmhanxzfuqgnrrjiibd forum.dlang.org...

I can't Private Message you so I'm just going to say it out loud.

 If you guys are planning a forum software solution. And your
 emphasis is on "d" I would buy dBulletin.com It's for sale to the
 highest bidder.

 I originally found this domain from this site:
 http://www.webmarketingtalk.com/


 So get in there and negotiate!



If money's going to be spent on D, I'm sure there are far better places it 
can go than paying a domain ransom.
Feb 21 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 22 February 2012 at 02:12:54 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
wrote:

 Plus, it's a pain to have multiple versions of IE installed (if



You don't need it! IE's compatibility mode is very good,
including emulating old bugs.

If you turn on compatibility mode you can tell pretty well
if your site will work in the real thing.
Feb 21 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent "Adam D. Ruppe" <destructionator gmail.com> writes:
On Wednesday, 22 February 2012 at 02:21:22 UTC, Nick Sabalausky 
wrote:

 Really? I didn't know there was such a thing. Is this a setting 
 in one of
 the (*cough*increasingly hidden*cough*) options screens, or 
 something you
 add to the HTML?



You can get it both ways. X-UA-Compatible in html (or something
like that, bing it!) or hit the F12 key in the ui.

This was added in IE8, though, you can get it as a separate 
download
I think in 6 and 7.

F12 in IE8 and 9 opens up the developer tools window, which has
script errors, debugging, network stats, html and css browsers,
and, compatibility mode as a button right there.

Its awesome. IE9 is my fav browser ever as a web developer.
Feb 21 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent "Kagamin" <spam here.lot> writes:
On Wednesday, 22 February 2012 at 15:26:45 UTC, Stewart Gordon 
wrote:

 Try saying that in court when you're sued for disability 
 discrimination.



Tch... God damn America.

On Wednesday, 22 February 2012 at 15:34:54 UTC, Stewart Gordon 
wrote:

 http://web.archive.org/web/20031231151206/http://allmyfaqs.com/faq.pl?Fix_the_wrong_problem



BTW, with recent browser technologies it's easier to keep 
frameset in sync and linkable, though MSDN shows that the huge 
navigation tree problem is solvable in a nice way, but it's so 
nice it's worth patenting, and another site with the same problem 
(DevExpress docs) doesn't adopt it, soooooo...
Feb 22 2012
prev sibling next sibling parent James Miller <james aatch.net> writes:
On 23 February 2012 04:26, Stewart Gordon <smjg_1998 yahoo.com> wrote:

 On 21/02/2012 00:53, James Miller wrote:
 <snip>

 There are a potentially infinite number of possible configurations,
 and sites need to be aimed at the lowest-common denominator. Doesn't

 look right with an enlarged font size? Tough.



 <snip>

 Try saying that in court when you're sued for disability discrimination.

 Stewart.



Unless you prevent the user from using the site because of the font
size, then it isn't discrimination. At any rate, most modern browsers
have zoom functionality, that preserves the layout as best it can,
while presenting a bigger view (even if chrome has removed that
configuration setting, chromium still has it).
Feb 23 2012
prev sibling parent "bearophile" <bearophileHUGS lycos.com> writes:
Now I like the forums. I am posting this message with the new 
interface.

I have three more suggestions:

1) When I read posts in the basic View mode, I often want to see 
the last posts of the thread. So I suggest to add the "Last >>" 
link at the top of the page too.

So maybe replacing this line:
View mode: basic / threaded / horizontal-split · Log in · Help

With:
View mode: basic / threaded / horizontal-split · Log in · Help 
· Last>>

-----------------------

2) I sometimes copy & paste messages from the site to text 
documents for various purposes, to send them in emails, etc.

With the older system the copy was something like:

Subject 	Re: dereferencing null
 From 	Adam D. Ruppe <destructionator gmail.com>
Date 	Mon, 05 Mar 2012 05:39:57 +0100
Newsgroups 	digitalmars.D

On Monday, 5 March 2012 at 03:24:32 UTC, Chad J wrote:

 News to me.  I've had bad runs with that back in the day, but
 maybe things have improved a bit.



Strangely, I've never had a problem with gdb and D,
.....


With the new system the copy is:


Re: dereferencing null
Adam D. Ruppe
Gravatar
Posted in reply to Chad J

Reply
	

On Monday, 5 March 2012 at 03:24:32 UTC, Chad J wrote:

 News to me.  I've had bad runs with that back in the day, but 
 maybe things have improved a bit.



Strangely, I've never had a problem with gdb and D,
.....


So is it possible to improve this in some way, to give a better 
copy of the important information about the post?

-----------------------

3) This is less important, but it's a simple thing. Regarding the 
page number links at the bottom of the page:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 …
- - - - -   - - -

Or:

… 7 8 9 10 11
   - -   -- --

There is plenty of space there, so I suggest something like this, 
that shows the last page number too:

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 … 11
- - - - -   - - -   --

That becomes like this when you are in the middle of a sequence 
of many pages (and here I have added one more space between page 
numbers, to click better on them):

1  …  12  13  14  15  16  17  18  …  22
-     --  --  --      --  --  --     --

Bye and thank you,
bearophile
Mar 06 2012