Re: [gentoo-user] tuning desktop appearance for legibility
Ashley Dixon wrote: > On Sat, Sep 05, 2020 at 07:24:28AM -0500, Dale wrote: >> Some sites, not many tho, have a printable version. Gentoo for example >> has that. Another common type of site, recipes. I've seen a few that >> don't have printable versions but most do. Other than that, you are >> correct. This is why I often save a web page, then use copy and paste >> to put the content in LOo Writer. At that point, I edit the thing until >> it looks like I want. Most sites, once you know what to remove and >> where they are, you can edit a page in just a few minutes. > There's a great extension for Firefox (and I'm sure equivalents exist for > all > browsers supporting extensions) allowing you to cherry-pick and remove > all > "dirty" content (advertisements, multimedia, silly CSS, etc.) before > printing. I > have used [1] for quite a while now, and it's proving excellent. It > also > supports saving to a PDF or HTML file, which is a nice-to-have considering > I > prefer printing to a physical device via lpr. > > There are quite a few other extensions which perform very similar > functions, > although watch out for ones that send the site to an external service > for > cherry-picking, such as [2]. > > [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/zh-TW/firefox/addon/print-edit-we/ > [2] https://addons.mozilla.org/zh-TW/firefox/addon/print-friendly-pdf/ > Got tied up with planting fall crops. Just for curiosity, I did a search for "print" in Firefox add-ons. Good gracious. We not the only ones who want printable pages. There's quite a few add-ons that deal with this. Problem is, finding the one that works the best. o_O I bet the two you linked to would be a good start. Dale :-) :-) P. S. Planted my fall crops: Mustard, turnip and collard greens with kale, lettuce, basil, parsley and something else I forget as well. I also planted similar crops for two other people. Had a recent rain so my garden is turning green again. I like when crops are growing even if I don't eat the stuff growing. A lot of people come up and pick stuff out of my garden.
Re: [gentoo-user] tuning desktop appearance for legibility
On Thu, Sep 03, 2020 at 03:19:01PM -0400, John Blinka wrote: > > > 1) How do you cope with this problem? > > > > i cope by these: > > > > - use pixel-based fonts for everything as much > > > > as possible, specially for key apps like: > > > > terminal, window manager and browser. > > > > > > > > they become so much readable. i use > > > > "terminus-font" (and previously used "dina") > > > > in my urxvt as well as my other apps as much > > > > as i can. > > > > > > > > i notice one of the major problems with > > > > fonts is actually not our eyes, but in many > > > > cases how fancy fonts blur. i was > > > > personally amazed by how i could use much > > > > smaller fonts, while maintaining > > > > readability, by simply switching to > > > > pixel-based fonts, such as terminus. > > > I think I’m ok on fonts with my very hi-res monitor plus noto sans mono > font and white-on-black text wherever possible. Discovered that during my > “tuning” efforts and like the look. Used to use terminus but prefer my > current recipe. Admittedly the clarity is probably only infinitesimally > different from terminus. For vector fonts, you can try setting font hinting to maximum. This will give sharp edges even at smaller sizes (provided the font supports it, but for mainstream-fonts such as DejaVu, Noto et al. this shouldn’t be a problem. -- Gruß | Greetings | Qapla’ Please do not share anything from, with or about me on any social network. We are all in the same boat. Only some are fishing, others are rowing. signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] tuning desktop appearance for legibility
‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐ On Saturday, September 5, 2020 1:09 PM, Wols Lists wrote: > Isn't that how the web originally WAS designed? That the web-site sent > content and the browser determined how it was displayed? sort of. it was not very clear and they could've gone either direction. so they had to answer the question: where to go? they thought a bit and concluded: "let's go turing-complete with built-in drm and enough fluff to make viewing a 2D page (e.g. cnn.com) take almost twice as much RAM as that of a 3D game (e.g. quake-iii) [1]. but remove marquee!" even though i dislike how the web ended up being, there is one side effect that i like: - making the web turing-complete served as an experiment to explore what humans want. if web devs didn't have the power to freely do things, we wouldn't have known what do they want, and which idea is good/bad. of course, the web also morphed into other messy things that didn't have any good side effects. such as the drm, and the many information leakages that are so ridiculous they effectively render "authentication" sort of redundant; google may identify us by our browsers' fingerprints and call it a day. as if not enough, goog also graciously give us x-client-data for free [2]. that said, i think the decades old experiment is over, and i think we've seen enough to conclude a few things from this experiment. i suggest that we must deprecate http/js/css/etc, and split the web into two components: (1) page content definition format (PCDF): an efficient binary format that only defines content, with no presentation information. imo this is very doable because, while the content in the web varies drastically, their _type_ is pretty finite (e.g. nav bar, copyright notice, related topics, body, etc). i think if we survey websites, it is easy to see that there is only a small number of content types. the client obtains PCDF documents via https then presents them based on user's viewing preference which is purely defined locally in his computer (the server has no business in knowing any of it). this way navigation bars, copy right notices, etc are placed in a standardized manner for every user based on what he cares most about. this way, we won't need to mess up with user style sheet hacks per website. plus page size will become extremely small, and ridiculously efficient to render thanks to the binary format, and much ore responsive. it would be so fast you'd feel that the page has loaded even before you clicked on the link. (2) application containers: this is the part why the web has javascript support, and this is still a part where is not clear to me if we actually need it. i think this is also very redundant with many alternatives doing basically the same thing, such as docker. maybe this is just "package manager in a glorified chroot"? this side is still unclear to me, and i don't know where it is going. --- [1] https://www.networkworld.com/article/3175605 [2] https://www.theregister.com/2020/03/11/google_personally_identifiable_info/
Re: [gentoo-user] tuning desktop appearance for legibility
On Sat, Sep 05, 2020 at 07:24:28AM -0500, Dale wrote: > Some sites, not many tho, have a printable version. Gentoo for example > has that. Another common type of site, recipes. I've seen a few that > don't have printable versions but most do. Other than that, you are > correct. This is why I often save a web page, then use copy and paste > to put the content in LOo Writer. At that point, I edit the thing until > it looks like I want. Most sites, once you know what to remove and > where they are, you can edit a page in just a few minutes. There's a great extension for Firefox (and I'm sure equivalents exist for all browsers supporting extensions) allowing you to cherry-pick and remove all "dirty" content (advertisements, multimedia, silly CSS, etc.) before printing. I have used [1] for quite a while now, and it's proving excellent. It also supports saving to a PDF or HTML file, which is a nice-to-have considering I prefer printing to a physical device via lpr. There are quite a few other extensions which perform very similar functions, although watch out for ones that send the site to an external service for cherry-picking, such as [2]. [1] https://addons.mozilla.org/zh-TW/firefox/addon/print-edit-we/ [2] https://addons.mozilla.org/zh-TW/firefox/addon/print-friendly-pdf/ -- Ashley Dixon suugaku.co.uk 2A9A 4117 DA96 D18A 8A7B B0D2 A30E BF25 F290 A8AA signature.asc Description: PGP signature
Re: [gentoo-user] tuning desktop appearance for legibility
Wols Lists wrote: > On 03/09/20 18:44, Caveman Al Toraboran wrote: >> i think this problem that we have could've been >> avoided if the web was originally designed to only >> deliver content, without any power to dictate >> appearance, so that appearance is 100% a task that >> a local client should choose. > Isn't that how the web originally WAS designed? That the web-site sent > content and the browser determined how it was displayed? > > My big bugbear is when I hit "print" and what comes out on the printer > bears no resemblance WHATSOEVER to what is displayed on screen - ie > pretty much every big shop website there is ... > > Cheers, > Wol > > Some sites, not many tho, have a printable version. Gentoo for example has that. Another common type of site, recipes. I've seen a few that don't have printable versions but most do. Other than that, you are correct. This is why I often save a web page, then use copy and paste to put the content in LOo Writer. At that point, I edit the thing until it looks like I want. Most sites, once you know what to remove and where they are, you can edit a page in just a few minutes. Still, web sites seem to want to make using the internet hard or at least annoying. Of course, they know people will surf the internet since there is a ton of info out there. There's not much you can't find if you look hard enough. Dale :-) :-)
Re: [gentoo-user] tuning desktop appearance for legibility
On 03/09/20 18:44, Caveman Al Toraboran wrote: > i think this problem that we have could've been > avoided if the web was originally designed to only > deliver content, without any power to dictate > appearance, so that appearance is 100% a task that > a local client should choose. Isn't that how the web originally WAS designed? That the web-site sent content and the browser determined how it was displayed? My big bugbear is when I hit "print" and what comes out on the printer bears no resemblance WHATSOEVER to what is displayed on screen - ie pretty much every big shop website there is ... Cheers, Wol
Re: [gentoo-user] tuning desktop appearance for legibility
‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐ On Friday, September 4, 2020 12:06 AM, Caveman Al Toraboran wrote: > with qutebrowser, i added these in my config.py > file: > > c.aliases['style-none'] = 'config-unset -t content.user_stylesheets' > c.aliases['style-night'] = 'set -t content.user_stylesheets night.css' > c.aliases['style-wiki'] = 'set -t content.user_stylesheets wiki.css' just to add a note against my suggestion: - qutebrowser is based on qt libraries, such as qt-webengine, and hence requires a big compile time. so unless you really like the vim user interface of qutebrowser, you may not like experience of waiting for long compile time of big qt libraries. i'm sure there are people in this list who know good plugins for chrome/firefox that does the same thing (or better). but generally, the idea of using user style sheets for websites, is a neat idea that —imo— worth trying regardless of which browser you use.
Re: [gentoo-user] tuning desktop appearance for legibility
‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐ On Thursday, September 3, 2020 11:19 PM, John Blinka wrote: > Could you elaborate on this? Don’t know css, but could pick it up. I’m > assuming that web pages already contain css code to direct their > appearance. yes. > So you apparently have some alternate appearance you prefer, > with your own alternate coding, and you somehow tell the browser to use > yours instead. Am I anywhere close to getting the broad outlines of the > process correct? correct. we basically create a custom css file, with colors defined for various html tags/elements as per our preference. we then hand the browser that css file, and tell it "after you load the site, add our custom css, and overwrite whatever the site originally wanted". the way to do this, we add "!important" in our new css. "!important" will make the overwrite. here is an example of such css with "!important": https://github.com/alphapapa/solarized-everything-css/blob/master/css/solarized-dark/solarized-dark-all-sites.css this is how i look at it. maybe some gurus can further elaborate on this with better technical correctness. > If so, how does this intercept and substitute process > work? (I see you provide a link below, but it doesn’t work here...) with firefox/chrome there is "stylish" plugin/add-on. i don't know how it is today, of if there is any better ones. i used to use them several years in the past. you basically select the css you want to use to overwrite site's css. with qutebrowser, i added these in my config.py file: c.aliases['style-none'] = 'config-unset -t content.user_stylesheets' c.aliases['style-night'] = 'set -t content.user_stylesheets night.css' c.aliases['style-wiki'] = 'set -t content.user_stylesheets wiki.css' where "night.css" and "wiki.css" are names of user style sheets that i downloaded from the web here "style-none", "style-night", ..., are nothing but commands in qutebrowser, that you execute by typing ":COMMAND". so if i want to activate night mode, i type ":style-night" without double quotes, then the whole thing becomes dark bg with white fg. of course qutebrowser has tab completion, so i don't need to type full thing. e.g. usually i just type ":sty..." until i pick one i want. of course you can add as many as you want. since different ones work better for different sites. there, i added "style-wiki" that's specifically made for wikipedia. i got it from userstyles.org years ago before it was so slow. > Not promising. The page doesn’t load except for a rotating colorwheel in > the center followed by a 504 gateway timeout. Will try again later. yes. sadly https://userstyles.org/ is now too slow and doomed with excess javascript. it was not like this some years ago. either way, you can obtain those css files by other means (not limited to userstyles.org). e.g. google for them around, or even make your own.
Re: [gentoo-user] tuning desktop appearance for legibility
‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐ On Thursday, September 3, 2020 6:50 PM, John Blinka wrote: > Hi, Everyone, hello big dawg! quick point: imo the problem of gray texts on white backgrounds, or scrollbars or whatever, that you have, is not related to aging. imo it's rather related to stupid web developers. not even a mutant with infrared vision can use these websites. > 1) How do you cope with this problem? i cope by these: - use pixel-based fonts for everything as much as possible, specially for key apps like: terminal, window manager and browser. they become so much readable. i use "terminus-font" (and previously used "dina") in my urxvt as well as my other apps as much as i can. i notice one of the major problems with fonts is actually not our eyes, but in many cases how fancy fonts blur. i was personally amazed by how i could use much smaller fonts, while maintaining readability, by simply switching to pixel-based fonts, such as terminus. - for my browser, i use custom user css for different modes. i also configured shortcuts for my browser, so that i change these user css files based on which ones work best with the site. generally, i have "night.css" and "wiki.css" that i change by keyboard shortcuts. the "night.css" is very generic and changes background/foreground texts for pretty much 90% of sites properly. this way, i am no longer bound by bad colors chosen by web designers. - i use i3 as window manager, with lots of shortcuts. i also use qutebrowser (a browser with good vim shortcuts). this way, throughout the day, i rarely end up needing to use the mouse to do things. i only use the mouse for ultra quirky websites with fancy javascript links that are not clickable by qutebrowser's shortcuts. so thanks to using keyboard shortcuts, a website can have thin gray scrollbar on a gray background and i don't care. because i scroll by shortcuts, not by bars. in fact, my qutebrowser's interface has scrollbars disabled altogether to use pixels, which i paid dear money for, for real use. > 2) Is there an xfce theme and icon package you > recommend? Or maybe something other than xfce? > I like xfce, and have never been attracted to > integrated desktops like kde and gnome, but if > they’ve got a credible solution, I’m willing to > try. i would suggest try keyboard-based window managers. my 1st suggestion is i3. it's actually perfectly usable for all applications. it's tiling-based, but also has floating functionality, and does a fine job eliminating need of clicking around on tiny things. > 3) Are there lower level ways of tweaking my > current desktop? For example, changing colors > in the 2 examples I gave above from black on > dark gray to black on white? Could that be done > with a little judicious editing of color > settings somewhere, or adjusting colors on an > icon? I don’t know how desktop appearances are > programmed, so I don’t know where on the > spectrum of trivial->apocalyptic this lies. user style sheets. maybe have a look here (i also talked about it above): https://userstyles.org/styles/browse/css or, if you dislike fiddling with these, maybe some use some browser add-ons that offer things like "night mode", or "contrast mode", by which they apply their own custom styling to fix mistakes of web designers. - optional/offtopic: extra text if you have coffee - i think this problem that we have could've been avoided if the web was originally designed to only deliver content, without any power to dictate appearance, so that appearance is 100% a task that a local client should choose. imo this could've been done easily, because websites in the internet follow a finite number of "document classes" (if we call them so). the vast unique changes that web designers make are just pointless. if the web was designed this way, then today we would've had a much happier time of achieving 100% consistent look for all websites optimized for our readability. but too bad, that is not done, so we have to use custom user style sheets which works for most of the time. for people who really want js and fancy rendering, they could use a separate app for their "instant js games". there is absolutely no reason why the entirety of the web has to be so turing-complete just because someone wants to play games.
Re: [gentoo-user] tuning desktop appearance for legibility
On Thu, Sep 3, 2020 at 1:45 PM Caveman Al Toraboran < toraboracave...@protonmail.com> wrote: > ‐‐‐ Original Message ‐‐‐ > > On Thursday, September 3, 2020 6:50 PM, John Blinka > wrote: > > > > > Hi, Everyone, > > > > hello big dawg! > > > > quick point: imo the problem of gray texts on > > white backgrounds, or scrollbars or whatever, that > > you have, is not related to aging. imo it's > > rather related to stupid web developers. not even > > a mutant with infrared vision can use these > > websites. > > > > > > > 1) How do you cope with this problem? > > > > i cope by these: > > > > - use pixel-based fonts for everything as much > > as possible, specially for key apps like: > > terminal, window manager and browser. > > > > they become so much readable. i use > > "terminus-font" (and previously used "dina") > > in my urxvt as well as my other apps as much > > as i can. > > > > i notice one of the major problems with > > fonts is actually not our eyes, but in many > > cases how fancy fonts blur. i was > > personally amazed by how i could use much > > smaller fonts, while maintaining > > readability, by simply switching to > > pixel-based fonts, such as terminus. I think I’m ok on fonts with my very hi-res monitor plus noto sans mono font and white-on-black text wherever possible. Discovered that during my “tuning” efforts and like the look. Used to use terminus but prefer my current recipe. Admittedly the clarity is probably only infinitesimally different from terminus. > > > > - for my browser, i use custom user css for > > different modes. i also configured > > shortcuts for my browser, so that i change > > these user css files based on which ones > > work best with the site. generally, i have > > "night.css" and "wiki.css" that i change by > > keyboard shortcuts. the "night.css" is very > > generic and changes background/foreground > > texts for pretty much 90% of sites properly. Could you elaborate on this? Don’t know css, but could pick it up. I’m assuming that web pages already contain css code to direct their appearance. So you apparently have some alternate appearance you prefer, with your own alternate coding, and you somehow tell the browser to use yours instead. Am I anywhere close to getting the broad outlines of the process correct? If so, how does this intercept and substitute process work? (I see you provide a link below, but it doesn’t work here...) > > > > > this way, i am no longer bound by bad colors > > chosen by web designers. > > > > - i use i3 as window manager, with lots of > > shortcuts. i also use qutebrowser (a > > browser with good vim shortcuts). > > > > this way, throughout the day, i rarely end > > up needing to use the mouse to do things. i > > only use the mouse for ultra quirky websites > > with fancy javascript links that are not > > clickable by qutebrowser's shortcuts. I cut my teeth on vi on 4.2 bsd on a vax. That actually sounds appealing. > > > so thanks to using keyboard shortcuts, a > > website can have thin gray scrollbar on a > > gray background and i don't care. because i > > scroll by shortcuts, not by bars. in fact, > > my qutebrowser's interface has scrollbars > > disabled altogether to use pixels, which i > > paid dear money for, for real use. > > > > > > > 2) Is there an xfce theme and icon package you > > > recommend? Or maybe something other than xfce? > > > I like xfce, and have never been attracted to > > > integrated desktops like kde and gnome, but if > > > they’ve got a credible solution, I’m willing to > > > try. > > > > i would suggest try keyboard-based window > > managers. my 1st suggestion is i3. it's actually > > perfectly usable for all applications. it's > > tiling-based, but also has floating functionality, > > and does a fine job eliminating need of clicking > > around on tiny things. > > > > > 3) Are there lower level ways of tweaking my > > > current desktop? For example, changing colors > > > in the 2 examples I gave above from black on > > > dark gray to black on white? Could that be done > > > with a little judicious editing of color > > > settings somewhere, or adjusting colors on an > > > icon? I don’t know how desktop appearances are > > > programmed, so I don’t know where on the > > > spectrum of trivial->apocalyptic this lies. > > > > user style sheets. maybe have a look here > > (i also talked about it above): > > https://userstyles.org/styles/browse/css Not promising. The page doesn’t load except for a rotating colorwheel in the center followed by a 504 gateway timeout. Will try again later. Thanks - lots of stuff to try. John
