Font of Forum!

#1

Hi all, I wondered if you might beef up the font you use on your forum!! It is VERY difficult to read!!

Thanks!

#2

When you say beef up do you mean larger? You can always hit Ctrl and the + sign to make the font bigger on your screen. (Probably Cmd and + on the mac). Ctrl and - (that’s minus) makes it smaller, Ctrl and 0 (zero) resets to default.

#3

Hmm, I don’t have any issue on my monitors though I also have pretty sizable screens. I’ll look into the font defaults and I’m curious to hear if anyone else is having this issue.

#4

image
image.png1680x1050 89.1 KB

This is what it looks like. I don’t want to mess with my monitor as all my CAD, graphics programs work just fine as they are…

#5

No DARKER. If find it almost impossible to read. My monitor is a 23" HD and still hard as the type is grey not black. Also small. Could be at least 10 or 12 pt. especially in the editor.

#6

@Frew The font is a tad light/thin and definitely not black. I would say it’s not the easiest font to read.

@Walter_Gillespie @wunwinglow If you are tech savvy you can always use an extension like Stylebot for Chrome to modify the CSS yourself.

#7

As you can see below with a 20 second install and a few clicks I have permenently modified the font on forum.formlabs.com to be bold (just for me of course)

image
image.png1702x1092 148 KB

#8

Based on the image you provided, there are a couple of things that you might want to check.

First check to make sure your monitor is set to the optimal (native) resolution. The image you provided has a resolution of 1680x1050. The only LCD panels that I know of whith that resolution are the 19.5" models. Almost all 21.5" and higher have a resolution of 1920x1080. If the LCD panel is not set to the native resolution, it will look blurry.

Second check to see if you have ClearType enabled. Once you have it enabled (for Windows 7 and newer, it should be on by default), should it require further adjustments you can do do so, to suit your monitor.

From the start menu or in the search menu type “cleartype”, and you should get the “Adjust ClearType” app.

#9

I’m not certain how changing a setting in Chrome (which only affects the page you apply it to BTW) would have any effect on CAD software. I’d just CTRL+scroll and be done with it. Kevin’s suggestion seems overkill but solid.

#10

My change effects the domain forum.formlabs.com so it changes text in every post on the forum. More in detail, it affects every instance of the following CSS selector:

div.cooked p { font-weight: bold; }

I admit, making the ClearType change or using CTRL + Scroll (or plus/minus) would be better fixes for non-developers.

EDIT: also note my fix only affects the formlabs forum in chrome. It would have zero effect on the operating system, graphics programs, CAD programs, etc.

#11

Cleartype is on, and monitor ( an HPL2208w ) set to native resolution.
Just off to check the Nvidea settings…

No, they are all OK. But mystified then, as all my other programs are perfectly clear! I’ll have a look at the Chrome plug in, as that seems to improve things for kevinduhe.

#12

For what it’s worth, I have the same problem with the forum on my PC LCD monitor (1920x1200 native): the font is extremely thin and light. On Android it’s fine.

#13

FWIW I also have cleartype on. NEC Multisync EA244WMi monitor, native resolution of 1920 x 1200 and it is somewhat difficult for me to read.

Worth noting just changing the font color from #323238 to #000000 significantly improves the readability for me.

#14

We adjusted a few of the CSS selectors to up the font-size and darken some of the colors. How’s this looking now?

#15

I hate to nit-pick, but…now it seems to big and crowded, especially on the forum home page.

Honestly, after looking at your site in the debugger a bit more I think the only problem was the font choice.

image

If I simply get rid of the “proxima-nova”, the font goes from the ultra fragile, thin font to a much more readable, slightly bolder font.

Here is the original look:

image

And then simply after removing the proxima-nova font

image

#16

Personally the font the previous text size was fine on a 100DPI monitor (1080p 24’’), the new one makes the forums look very crowded and there’s much less information on screen.

I understand the choice of font from a typography standpoint which is why I also find @kevinduhe’s alternative is kinda ugly.

My feeling is that with a reasonably calibrated monitor (at work I’m using an AOC with factory settings except for the brightness which is at abaout 20% of the maximum, so nothing fancy), you should be able to see the text fine. If the contract is so low that you have trouble reading the forums, the problem is probably on the receiving side not the source.

#17

Well, this is the only forum, and program, that looks less than optimal for me. Everything else is just fine. Removing the proxima-nova font works for me, Colour should be black though, not grey. Your mileage may etc etc etc!

#18

Proxima-nova is what we use across many of our channels and it might be important to keep that as a default font. This does look a bit crowded and I’ll tweak a few of the CSS parameters to try and better strike a balance between readability and overall size.

#19

I would love a darker background color, When you look at a white background for a longer period, it is very fatique-ing (or something like that) for your eyes

#20

The issue with this is that is tend to decrease contrast and might pose readability issues for other people. I agree that today’s monitors are way too bright. Since I started photography as a hobby almost a decade ago I took the habit of reducing the brightness to a more reasonable level… for photography I often end up tweaking the brightness down to about 120cd/m which often leads to a 20-30% value on the monitor’s brightness slider.