A viewing dilemma
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Until recently I’ve always worked with a laptop with an oldfashioned square screen (3/4, don’t know the inches) and set at the highest resolution: 1024 x 768. On that screen format I based my wordpress fontsize, and images. I mean, if you enlarge a font, or shrink it, the position and location of accompanying images will change, certainly if you use textwrap, and certainly if you use a small template instead of one that stretches from side to side.
Now I have this new laptop, with a 17″ screen. On it my blogpage (ALL blogs and websites, in fact) is reduced to a small strip floating in a template ocean. The fontletters appear to have grown a bit. Consequence: my lines are broken off at an earlier point than on my old monitor screen. So this compression changes my initial lay out form. I do understand that my blogpage cannot fill the extra width of the screen, but why aren’t both formats a bit more compatible?
Of course it is possible: by enlarging the page with the Zoom utility, at 150% the page does fill two-thirds of the screenspace. But the enlargement doesn’t change this textual cropping and dislocating of images. It does however enlarge letters. After Zooming In, my logtexts are at a deafening level, so to speak. And if I reduce the fontsize again, they will turn out microscopic on ‘old-fashioned’ monitors.
The problem is also that blogvisitors usually won’t take the trouble to use the Zoom. They see my emaciated strip of blogpage in the middle of a template void, and zoom right off to other internet pastures… In short, on my new state-of-the-art laptop the weblog looks far less appetizing than when viewed on an old rambler with a squarish screen, whether it’s reproduced basic, or magnified.
With an upgrade I could stretch the pageborders to the left and the right, but not every template has this feature. I’m quite sure ‘Dusk’ doesn’t.
So is there another method to make the blogspace literally broader, and FIX it at that?Here’s one of the weblogs.
http://weetjevandeursen.wordpress.com/ -
Actually, it is not your screen size but the resolution. I looked at your blog on my monitor, which is 21″ with the resolution set to 1680 X 1050, and your blog looks fine to me.
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Vivian, thanks for reacting.
I suppose you didn’t compare it with a 1024×768 resolution? It’s not OK in Vista widescreen, the letters are bigger, but the images are substantially SMALLER than the ones viewed in 1024 x 768. As the ‘Dusk’ template is not suited for JPGs wider than 480 pixels, So now one indeed needs the magnifyer to see details in for instance art paintings.On the new laptop I tried out various resolutions, the 1680 gives the sharpest screen image, but minimalizes. The other resolution choices are either fuzzy, or distorted (stretched horizontally).
H’m, could it be that I’m overlooking a specific configuration item?
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No, I didn’t compare it to 1024 X 768 because that’s not where I keep my monitor :) Mine is widescreen format as well.
I was talking about YOUR screen resolution. Perhaps you have it set too high. Your pics all look fine to me.
As for the pictures – the images can really be bigger than 480 but you can only display on your blog a maximum of 480. The linked picture can be larger.
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Well, extending 480 pxls sort of bullies the Dusk frame and elbows the widgets on the right side out of the way. But that’s not the problem.
Yes, I’ve set it at 1680×1050, and the first resolution on the way down is 1280×1024, but it causes a Botero effect… So obviously that maximum, 1680, is the prescribed resolution.
I just can’t imagine that I’m supposed to use the Zoom all of the time when I’m on internet. And I do need it. You can’t imagine how tiny the letters appear which I’m right now typing into this reaction field. So I need the magnifying glass to avoid a headache.
It doesn’t make sense. -
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The linked picture can be larger
Funny you say that. I cropped it down to 393 x 252, 37,8kb. I just copied it back into a Vista map, and there it shows the same measures. But on my widescreen it looks much, much smaller. Then why is the text so large?? In relation to the images, the letters are far too big. Trebuchet pt 12, it looks like 16 or 18!
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That is how a higher resolution works. If you don’t like it, change the settings on your computer. This is not really an issue to do with your blog.
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I tried that. It also reduces and increases the whole blogpage. It’s just the Zoom function.
But even if it worked, this isn’t how it should be. It’s simply not practical.
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My worry is actually how visitors see the blog. You say it’s all right. I say, every visitor with a widescreen monitor will have to use a magnifyer for the pictures, and wonder at the same time why I write fortissimo…
This is so frustrating. If I change Trebuchet or whatever font into the smallest points, anyone with a 3/4 screen won;t be able to read it anymore. I just saw my reduced copyright on the old computer; a microscopic blur.
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I have a widescreen laptop (albeit, running Fedora 9) and your blog looks fine. The pictures are clear and the text is a tad big, but that’s fine with me.
LCDs have a native resolution and generally anything other than that will look pretty crappy (says the girl who’s first Linux distro didn’t support the monitor’s native resolution).
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What I understand, is that the widescreen monitor format simply cannot cope with the standard internet page.
The pictures are clear and the text is a tad big
…Thanks for the sunny words, katm. That’s what hugely bothering me: I don’t want ‘a tad big text’. I also don’t want to see perfect sized pictures on one pc, and shrunk ones with loss of details on the other pc.
This takes the fun out blogging once more. It looks a mess.
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I say, every visitor with a widescreen monitor will have to use a magnifyer for the pictures,
I said before – I have a widescreen monitor and the pictures look fine. I’m on my laptop now – a 15″ widescreen set at 1280 x 800. The blog looks the same to me as it did on my desktop.
I’m still saying the problem is on your computer, not the blog.
As for the fonts – are you pasting from Word or something? I see different sized fonts on different posts. Looking at your source, I’m seeing stuff like
<span style="font-size:12pt;line-height:130%;font-family:Trebuchet MS;"> -
Yes, the templates I use offer a standard font, Arial if I’m correct. I change this into Trebuchet for texts, and Arial Narrow for poems. I paste in straight from a notepad, and add all my lay-out extra’s online in the Code sector of the text editor.
It really makes a difference, whether your blog page is shown at 80% of the monitor screen space, or just at 50%. And that is what I am seeing. The monitor (?) tries to spread the incoming data all over the wide screen, and at the same time compresses the actual webpage. At 100% standard zoom view this page measures only 36 inches wide, including the template sidebar! But that’s not the worst thing: it’s seeing a ridiculous blown up font size and disastrous shrunk images that bother me.
So I think you are right Vivian, something must be wrong with my screen configuration. Someone else here also noticed these big texts.
Maybe this is a matter for a Toshiba forum? I’ll go and look for one.
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Incredible…
I just changed from IE browser to Firefox 3 and I couldn’t believe my eyes, it’s a world of difference. The blog pages spread out to all corners of the widescreen monitor, texts are in sensible size and the images are just as I meant them to be.
What I experienced was obviously an Internet Explorer problem!
I’m going to place a warning on my blog not to view contents with the IE browser… -
Which version of IE are you talking about? If IE6, yes, put up a warning. It looks fine in IE7.
Oh – and since you’re doing stuff – why not link your user name to your blog?
Go into your dashboard -> users -> your profile -> then scroll down to ‘contact info’. In the spot where it says ‘website’ fill in the address of your blog and save the changes.
Now… when you comment here and on other blogs, your name will link to your blog. If you do this before you post your request for help, it will allow forum volunteers to be able to help you quicker since they won’t have to ask you for a link and wait until you come back to post one. -
Vivian,
why not link your user name to your blog
I wondered about that, never thought of ‘Profile’…
I forgot to mention: I have Vista.
I found out that the visual effects also have to do with DPI settings, but my problems are not yet over. I had to increase all font values, but now it looks that I’ll have to reduce them once more…The problem of course is that computers are not standardized. I’m trying to find a way to appease everyone. You write, ‘it looks fine’, someone else may stare at a ridiculous tiny temnplate (at 69 DPI) and surf away again. Not so long ago I had XP IE 6 on my old-fashioned square screen, and the blog looked fine to me.
I’m in contact with Firefox and Windows Vista fora. I’ll post any progress and finds here, just for educative means.
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Vista isn’t the problem – IE6 is. That’s why I mentioned it specifically. It’s not an OS issue – it’s a browser issue.
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But what about the DPI settings? I have three options there:
DPI 69, which gives a high resolution image, but everything micronized so I have to use the Zoom uitiliy for every webpage I open.
DPI 120, etter ‘fill-out’ of pages, but still the Zoom is necessary (unless you have 50/50 vision)
DPI 144, this one over-extends, the Zoom has to be reduced various levels, and leaves all images; jpg’s, buttons, smilies, avatars fuzzy. I’ve reported this on the Mozilla Firefox forum.
Now this is in both IE 7 and Firefox 3. I guess the latest Safari en Opera fare hardly better.
In the meantime I found other internetters who complain about unsatisfactory resolutions and DPI settings and who are going crazy by the constant need to Zoom…I seem to have uncovered a silent suffering that spans the globe!
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