459510 - Normal text size is too small.

Status: RESOLVED INCOMPLETE

(Firefox :: General, defect)

Description

[Shekhar Khot]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008092417 Firefox/3.0.3
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.0.3) Gecko/2008092417 Firefox/3.0.3

This started happening in the last month or so.The default text size is too small, and there is too much white space. When you increase the text size, the window also expands, causing horizontal scrollbars to appear. This becomes annoying, as one has to scroll left or right to see things that one is accustomed to seeing on one screen without having to scroll.Please see msn.com or linkedin.com in Internet Explorer and Mozilla Firefox side by side to see what I mean.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1.Go to msn.com; the default text size is to small
2.Press ctrl+ to increase the text size until the size is comfortable to read
3.Now you have to use the scrollbar to go left and right to view the entire screen

Compare the experience in Internet Explorer 6 and notice that the default text size is good enough.

Comment 1

[Shekhar Khot]

Attachment: Actual screenshots to show you what I mean.

I have attached the actual screenshot from Firefox, taken with the text size to be normal for me. Please note the white space in the Firfox screen, which causes the text to expand beyond the screen width.

Comment 2

[Shekhar Khot]

Attachment: IE6 scrrenshot for comparison.

I have provided a screenshot from IE6 to show you the same screen for comparison. Please see that the text size is comparable in both, but notice the added whitespace in the Firefox screen.

Comment 3

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Can you please provide those screenshots in JPEG format please.

Comment 4

[Dave Garrett]

Or PNG, or GIF, or BMP, or _any_ image format. An MS-Word document is not a way to handle images. :/

If you go to tools->options->content there's also settings to adjust this.
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Options+window#Fonts_amp_Colors

Comment 5

[Dave Garrett]

Attachment: Firefox screenshot (taken out of doc)

Comment 6

[Dave Garrett]

Attachment: IE screenshot (taken out of doc)

Comment 7

[Dave Garrett]

Ok, OpenOffice could open those so I just yanked them out and saved as PNGs. Posting Word documents for other people is generally a bad idea. Besides, if you're attaching an image it should be in an image file, if only so that you can just click on it above and view it in the browser.

That aside, I don't see any real problems with the text size in your screenshots. There are layout problems, though. I can view msn.com and it looks fine. Please try to see if an add-on is causing this:
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Troubleshooting+extensions+and+themes
http://support.mozilla.com/en-US/kb/Troubleshooting+plugins

Comment 8

[Ocie Hudson]

Hi!  Just Passing Through:  I have made four screenshots with MS Paint and saved them as .JPG images, but I don't think that I can attach them to these comments. Send an e-mail to me if you want to see them and I'll attach them to the reply. :-) 

The initial display of text on the MSN Home Page as displayed by Internet Explorer 7.0 is about the same as pressing Ctrl++ three times to enlarge the initial display of text on the MSN Home Page as it is displayed by Firefox 3.0.4.  This is obvious when you compare the empty "margin" between the lefthand edge of the MSN page and the lefthand edge of the Firefox display area, after the third Ctrl++ press, to the same "margin" initially displayed by I.E.

Even enlarging text that much is not quite enough for some people who have vision handicaps.  But when Ctrl++ is used the fourth time, a horizontal scroll bar will appear across the bottom of the Firefox display of the MSN Home Page.  As far as I can perceive, there is no way to avoid that when the web page is zoomed as if it were an image.  (I am not acquainted with any "zoom" feature of I.E.) 

It might be better if Firefox were to reformat the page with a larger size for the various fonts that are used (before displaying the page, or as it displays the page), but even doing that might require a horizontal scroll bar for a relatively large font size.  However, in my observations, the Tools > Options > Content: Fonts & Colors - Advanced > Fonts dialog option "Minimum font size" does not function correctly.  It appears that the same content with the specified Minimum font size is simply substituted for the existing text, and the resulting output is a distorted web page -- although not for all pages -- irrespective of the website.  The larger the Minimum size specified, the more distorted the rendering becomes.  (I will report that separately from here if I don't find that it is already reported.)  Using View > Zoom > Zoom Text Only has a similar outcome.

Comment 9

[Ocie Hudson]

Attachment: MSN home page showing FF initial text size is very small

Comment 10

[Ocie Hudson]

Attachment: MSN home page after using FF Ctrl++ three times

Comment 11

[Ocie Hudson]

Attachment: MSN home page after using FF Ctrl++ six times

Comment 12

[Ocie Hudson]

Attachment: MSN home page as initially displayed by I.E. 7

Comment 13

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

Just fyi, IE has a zoom in the bottom right corner.

Comment 14

[Ocie Hudson]

Thanks, Tyler, for letting me know about that.  I.E. seems to be loaded with various obscure "buttons" for this or for that all over the UI.

In my initial remarks, I wrote:  ".... However, in my observations, the Tools > Options > Content: Fonts & Colors - Advanced > Fonts dialog option 'Minimum font size' does not function correctly. .... "  When I finally posted a bug report about this (Bug 467235), a forum member named Mardeg used the Firefox Accessibility Extension to examine the AVG.com pages that I submitted.  The flawed display is probably not a bug(s) in the Firefox feature, but it is caused by errors in the way that the AVG website pages are coded, so that applying the Firefox "Minimum font size" feature will output distorted rendering of the page.

Comment 15

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

I(f you could read http://new.quality.mozilla.org/bug-writing-guidelines. Also, this could end up being moved to tech evangelism, if it turn out being an MSN thing. Wouldn't be surprised, being Microsoft,...

Comment 16

[Ocie Hudson]

If Firefox were designed to "reformat" a web page with the user-configured "Minimum font size" substituted for characters that are smaller than that size, as I have suggested, then there would be much less need for "Tech Evangelism". 

Of course, designing and coding such a rendering feature that would produce acceptable output could be quite a challenge, if only because doing that implies that Firefox would detect and correct "errors" in the received pages.  Then again, both detecting and correcting such errors when "Minimum font size" is configured (not set to "None") could suffice to eliminate distortions. :-)

Something that I've been noticing since I began experimenting with "Minimum font size" is that sometimes the resulting output is not "the same size" for the same size-number, comparing one page to another.  Sometimes I must set it to "16" for the text to be displayed "about the same size" as Firefox outputs for "14" on another page, and vice-versa.  I'm still investigating why that apparently occurs, but the variation seems more common from website-to-website than from page-to-page on the same website.  Accordingly, the variation becomes more common when a website often reference substantial content, even entire pages, from one or more other websites.

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

Critique of http://new.quality.mozilla.org/bug-writing-guidelines from a retired "technical writer" (me): 

First, when you write "follow these steps:" it is standard practice, because it makes good sense, to number each step, beginning either with "(1) " or "#1 ", or, if there will be more than nine steps, with "( 1) ", "# 1 " or "(01) ".  An alternative is to use letters, beginning with "(A) ", "A. " or "A: " or even to use Roman numerals, letters and decimal integers to create a standard "outline" form.  (Don't use the quote marks in the preceding examples, just use what is between them.)

Second, after the text that describes a step, use at least one blank line to separate it from the next step, or from a continuation of the text after the last step.  That will make the text much more readable.

Third, beware of using a font size for paragraph headings, topic titles,  chapter titles, etc. that is substantially larger than the text that follows it.  More than a couple of "points" bigger begins to obscure the text instead of leading the reader into it.  Using a bold-face of the same font and same size instead of a larger size, or a different font, is usually preferable for paragraph or "section" headings (i.e., those at the lowest level of labeling).

As to content, you remind me of why I so seldom report any apparent bug(s) in Firefox and Thunderbird.  Not that they are common nowadays, but the problem-solving procedures that we are expected to follow before we end-up here are rather laborious, time-consuming and usually unfruitful.  In my experience, Mozilla needs better search engines for its various "knowledge" databases.

Comment 17

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

This is a mass search for Firefox General bugs filed against version 3.0 that are UNCO and have not been changed for 200 days.

Reporter, please update to Firefox 3.6.10 or alter. Firefox 3.0 is no longer supported and is no longer receiving updates. After you update, please create a fresh profile, http://support.mozilla.com/kb/managing+profiles, and test to see if your bug still exists. If you still the bug, then please post a comment with the version you tested against, and the problem. If the issue is no longer there, please set the RESOLUTION to  RESOLVED, WORKSFORME.

Comment 18

[Tyler Downer [He/Him]]

No reply from reporter, INCOMPLETE. Please retest with Firefox 3.6.12 or later and a new profile (http://support.mozilla.com/kb/Managing+profiles). If you continue to see this issue with the newest firefox and a new profile, then please comment on this bug.