f13.net

f13.net General Forums => Serious Business => Topic started by: Viin on April 30, 2008, 05:20:45 PM



Title: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: Viin on April 30, 2008, 05:20:45 PM
Does anyone else notice how the default theme for the forum looks like ass on OS X?

Any chance we can get a Mac friendly version of the theme? I'm using the 'babylon' theme now, but all the whiteness hurts my eyes!

Fonts on Macs suck - why did they have to jack them all up and make them hurt you eyes? Gah. Everywhere I see bold text it looks blurry.

Edit: I think we talked about this some before, but I'd be happy to show some screenshots of the assiness.


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: stray on April 30, 2008, 05:35:00 PM
Looks fine to me. 1920x1200/times font at 20


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: Viin on April 30, 2008, 05:52:13 PM
Hmm. In Firefox or Safari?

I'll double check my default font selection for Firefox when I get to work tomorrow, see if Times helps.


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: Trippy on April 30, 2008, 06:08:49 PM
Post some screenshots. Which browser and version are you using?


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: Viin on April 30, 2008, 06:23:40 PM
Both the latest Safari and the latest Firefox.. if it's not bold it seems to look fine. I'll post some tomorrow when I get to work.. have Vista at home.


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: Righ on April 30, 2008, 08:54:46 PM
http://unsanity.com/haxies/silk


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: stray on April 30, 2008, 09:06:00 PM
Hmm. In Firefox or Safari?

I'll double check my default font selection for Firefox when I get to work tomorrow, see if Times helps.

I'm using Safari mostly. Firefox looks OK as well.


Here's a screenshot.

(http://img148.imageshack.us/img148/9230/ssmacf13ua0.jpg)



Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: Trippy on April 30, 2008, 10:12:39 PM
Both the latest Safari and the latest Firefox.. if it's not bold it seems to look fine. I'll post some tomorrow when I get to work.. have Vista at home.
Need to know your font smoothing settings, what your fonts are set and their sizes as well then.


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: naum on April 30, 2008, 10:24:12 PM
Make sure your font smoothing style is set properly for your monitor display:

(http://img.skitch.com/20080501-f1cpiw1qct2a1es8gk7tan1hs1.png)

Didn't know there were other themes available here, I don't think I'd recognize the site if it was black, gray and white…


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: Oban on May 01, 2008, 03:37:44 AM
Just to chime in, I use a few different machines (OSX 10.5, OSX10.4, Vista & XP) and have never noticed a difference between them on this site using Firefox or Safari.

Maybe you should return your Pystar and see if they can reload the OS?


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: Sky on May 01, 2008, 06:30:39 AM
I've also been using 10.4 and XP and it looks the same to me, not like the posted shot. Hope to install 10.5 next week for teh shiney newness.


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: Viin on May 01, 2008, 07:51:55 AM
Looks fine to me. 1920x1200/times font at 20

At 20 it's HUGE on my screen at 1440x900 (max for macbook pro's built in lcd), but it's not as fuzzy and hard to read. The default for Firefox was 16 with Times.

Here's a screenie of what it looks like to me, notice the bold yellow-ish text.

(http://lh4.ggpht.com/corey.crawford/SBnjACFWQiI/AAAAAAAACfQ/QMIdJX-ZGdU/Picture%201.png)

And a screenie of my appearance prefs (defaults).

(http://lh5.ggpht.com/corey.crawford/SBnjASFWQjI/AAAAAAAACfY/Q0-brAkrGhg/Picture%202.png?imgmax=576)

Silk sounds interesting but doesn't work on 10.5.

This is the first time I've used OS X as my main machine, so this is all new to me. Taking a screenshot? Only 15 keys involved! (I really gotta go buy a cheatsheet now).

Note that it doesn't look too bad with the Babylon white background/black text theme, the light color on black seems to be the culprit.


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: Viin on May 01, 2008, 07:56:27 AM
Anyone know how to get the font smoothing setting to take affect? I'm trying to try different ones and see if one looks better, but I can't seem to get it to adjust..


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: stray on May 01, 2008, 07:59:08 AM
Your screenshot doesn't look too bad on my end. But maybe adjusting brightness could help a little for you (F14/F15)?

15 keys for a screenshot? It's 3 -- Command+Shift+3, or Command+Shift+4 for just a selection of the screen.


I would agree in general about white on black though. Not the most pleasant scheme. I demand a gay version of f13 in pastels.


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: Viin on May 01, 2008, 08:05:10 AM
Your screenshot doesn't look too bad on my end. But maybe adjusting brightness could help a little for you (F14/F15)?

15 keys for a screenshot? It's 3 -- Command+Shift+3, or Command+Shift+4 for just a selection of the screen.

Heh, well, command-shift-4 then space, then click. PrntScrn is easier. :P

I think you are just use to it - unless you see it on windows you don't know what it's *suppose* to look like. Someone wanna post a screenie from their nice, crisp display on Windows?


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: Oban on May 01, 2008, 09:41:24 AM
(http://www.clisham.com-a.googlepages.com/Picture1.png)

MacBook Pro running 10.5


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: WayAbvPar on May 01, 2008, 10:15:44 AM
It looks pretty fuzzy. You should probably go to the optometrist and get your eyes checked.  :oh_i_see:


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: Lantyssa on May 01, 2008, 10:27:09 AM
Fuzzy.  Here's mine with a comparison of the blurry Mac text and a PC included.

(http://iria.chem.uh.edu/f13/normaltext.jpg)


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: Viin on May 01, 2008, 10:42:53 AM
Those of you running OS X seem to be having the same trouble as me (you just don't realize it - silly mac heads) .. All of your screenshots show the fuzzy text at least some - making the font really big is an option to reduce that some, but who reads 20pt font besides Stray (who must be wearing bifocals).

I switched my font smoothing to 'Standard - Best for CRTs' (had to reboot to get it to take) and it's better .. doesn't give me a headache now but still not great. Here's a comparison:

With 'Medium - Best for Flat Panels':

(http://lh4.ggpht.com/corey.crawford/SBnjACFWQiI/AAAAAAAACfQ/QMIdJX-ZGdU/Picture%201.png)

With 'Standard - Best for CRTs':

(http://lh3.ggpht.com/corey.crawford/SBoLSiFWQkI/AAAAAAAACfg/1go07lNppYk/Picture%203.png)


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: Sky on May 01, 2008, 10:53:49 AM
(http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3009/2456795491_d2b76803f7_o.gif)

Safari 3 on 10.4.


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: stray on May 01, 2008, 10:58:44 AM
but who reads 20pt font besides Stray (who must be wearing bifocals).

Well, my screen is 24". 20 point is perfect.

(http://img232.imageshack.us/img232/2099/dsc00257wk9.jpg)


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: Viin on May 01, 2008, 11:11:06 AM
Well, my screen is 24". 20 point is perfect.

Just rub it in why don't yah?


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: Viin on May 01, 2008, 11:11:55 AM
Safari 3 on 10.4.

What's your font smoothing setting at? That looks like mine with the Standard CRT font smoothing setting.


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: naum on May 01, 2008, 11:51:26 AM
18 pt font size + smoothing set to flat panel

Though I go back and forth between 24" widescreen & MBP (15")

One at home is 1680x1050 (extremely outdated ACD) but got the 1920x1200 Dell 24 (http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/productdetail.aspx?c=us&cs=19&l=en&s=dhs&sku=320-6095&redirect=1) at work


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: Sky on May 01, 2008, 12:01:17 PM
What's your font smoothing setting at? That looks like mine with the Standard CRT font smoothing setting.
All defaults. So font smoothing is "automagic". I'm using a 20" Dell widescreen.

Stray is using desktops from the same place I grab mine :)


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: Trippy on May 01, 2008, 04:15:14 PM
It looks pretty fuzzy. You should probably go to the optometrist and get your eyes checked.  :oh_i_see:
Those of you running OS X seem to be having the same trouble as me (you just don't realize it - silly mac heads) .. All of your screenshots show the fuzzy text at least some - making the font really big is an option to reduce that some, but who reads 20pt font besides Stray (who must be wearing bifocals).
Fuzzy anti-aliasing is the Macintosh-way (or has been since OS X).


Title: Re: OS X and You - Well, the forums anyways
Post by: Righ on May 01, 2008, 07:43:12 PM
See the haxie I linked above. Substitute your own fonts. Or, if you don't have other apps that will cry foul, go ahead and kill the anti-aliasing (on any reasonably sized text):

defaults write .GlobalPreferences AppleAntiAliasingThreshold 128

Its possible that this might work, and be more friendly to your other apps (Photoshop and Illustrator will have problems with the above), but I haven't tried:

defaults write com.apple.Safari AppleAntiAliasingThreshold 128