Re: Gosh, the ghostview interface sucks

On Sun, 15 Jun 2008 15:00:55 +0000, jpd wrote:

OK, we are now waaaaay off-topic, so apologies.

On 15 Jun 2008 16:08:16 +0200,
Mark Madsen <mark.s.madsen+news@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sun, 15 Jun 2008 13:03:09 +0000, jpd wrote:

Serifs are known to aid readability on the printed page. Whether they
help or hinder on a display is a more complicated question, depending
on things like colour combination, aliasing, and resolution. (Serifs
make fonts less legible on many displays.)

The VGA font isn't completely serif'ed. Courier is IME not
particularly legible on a computer screen, even though it is fixed
width. I

If you can't read Courier on your screen there is something badly
wrong. It may be ugly as hell but it can't be faulted on legibility.

As you say, on paper, yes, but on the screen, less so. Especially with
not entirely accurate CRT beams or just mere white-on-black projection
(or both) the little thin lines easily become an unreadable jumble.

I have mostly retired my CRTs, retaining only my 17" dual-input Iiyama
trinitron, which has clarity nearly as good as an LCD and way better
colour contrast than nearly anything.

Yes, Courier suffers from a bad display, but doesn't everything else?

``So ugly I can't bear to look at it.''

Even though I'm looking at a (cheap, refurbished) 15" TFT right now, I'm
lazily sitting about a meter away. Using courier, even at a suitably
large font, discerning what is what would be more effort than using a
nice regular sans serif font. With a nasty habit of using computers all
day long, that sort of optimisation is worth it.

One of the reasons why I hate the latest[1] in webdesign so much, where
it is in vogue to take whatever the user says he prefers for a font,
then cut it in half or less, and use that instead. Sheesh!

I am very quick to hit Ctl-+ in Firefox to increase web page font size,
and do it often. I hardly ever need to hit Ctl-- to decrease the font.

[1] Alright, the second latest. The very latest fad is to use flash
everywhere for no reason. But I skip those sites right away, and
probably would even if there was a viable flash player, which there
isn't for FreeBSD without also installing a linux distribution. Yes,
webmonkeys, fscked-up design *does* limit your willing audience.

Even on Linux boxes I install NoScript and FlashBlock by reflex. Enough
Flash on a page brings even a decent box to its knees.
.

Relevant Pages

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