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Monospace font in message textarea for posting a topic.

Posted: Tue May 05, 2009 11:00 am
by JellyFish
I think it would be best if PHPDN used the "monospace" css font family for the message textarea in the post a new topic form. The reason why I suggest monospace font is because whenever I need to write a table design in the Database forum I usually write something like:

Code: Select all

 
table
+----+------+-----+
| id | name | age |
+----+------+-----+
| 1  |  23  |  23 |
+----+------+-----+
 
it would be be nice to have a monospaced font so that I can align the rows up. With a monospace font it would be easier to illustrate things with text.

Try it out your self. Bookmark this code and call it Monospace it:

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(function(){document.getElementById("message").style.fontFamily="monospace";})();
Add javascript: to the beginning of the code when you bookmark it. Then execute the bookmarklet when your on the posting form. This code changes the posting forms font to monospace.

How hard would it be to change the font in the posting form?

Re: Monospace font in message textarea for posting a topic.

Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 9:12 am
by McInfo
I too find the variable-width font annoying. I get around it by copy-and-pasting fixed-width text from my text editor.

For the subsilver2 theme, the fix would be to disable line 454 in styles/subsilver2/theme/stylesheet.css

Line 454

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font-family: "Lucida Grande",Verdana,Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;
This can be done in Firefox with the Firebug extension.

Edit: This post was recovered from search engine cache.

Re: Monospace font in message textarea for posting a topic.

Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 9:57 am
by pickle
Monospaced font is generally harder to read when text is in a longer sentence or paragraph format.

Re: Monospace font in message textarea for posting a topic.

Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 11:29 am
by JellyFish
pickle wrote:Monospaced font is generally harder to read when text is in a longer sentence or paragraph format.
Maybe so, but imagine how easy it would be to make text illustrations. Maybe PHPDN could have both as a preference in the user control panel.

Re: Monospace font in message textarea for posting a topic.

Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 11:49 am
by pickle
People try to communicate more than make text illustrations. If we have to choose one font, I'd think it better to error on the side of readability.

A user-by-user setting wouldn't be effective either. We'd then have some people with the default font, and others with a different font, which would make scanability worse.

What happens if you set your font to monospace, then decide to change it back? All your previous posts with your text illustrations would be broken.

I think most people here understand the how and why to put text illustrations in [code][/code] blocks. I understand why you would want something different, but I'm seeing more problems created than solved by adding a new user option.

Re: Monospace font in message textarea for posting a topic.

Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 12:31 pm
by McInfo
The request was to change the font for the textarea in the form on the post submission page (posting.php, not viewtopic.php). This would not affect how the post appears to other users.

Edit: This post was recovered from search engine cache.

Re: Monospace font in message textarea for posting a topic.

Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 12:34 pm
by pickle
McInfo wrote:The request was to change the font for the textarea in the form on the post submission page (posting.php, not viewtopic.php). This does not affect how the post appears to other users.
So it was. Guess I got a little off track there.

Re: Monospace font in message textarea for posting a topic.

Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 1:35 pm
by Benjamin
I'm ok with this. Anyone else?

Re: Monospace font in message textarea for posting a topic.

Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 5:11 pm
by JellyFish
Yea I'm only talking about the textarea in the post form. Sorry if it got confused.

I only recommend this cause when I go to write things within the

Code: Select all

 blocks I need to be able to line up characters and such. I don't see how changing it or allowing the ability to change it would hurt.

Btw, how'd you write [code ] without having to put a space at the end of "code"?

Re: Monospace font in message textarea for posting a topic.

Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 5:21 pm
by pickle
Ya, that makes sense. I'm for it. I can bring it up with the mods, but it'll be a simple change to make.

There is an option to disable BBCode, right under the posting textarea. That's not what I did though. If you embed BBCode tags within other tags, only the inner tags get interpreted. So basically I just did this:

[code[size=100]][[/size]/code]

Re: Monospace font in message textarea for posting a topic.

Posted: Wed May 06, 2009 6:08 pm
by JellyFish
Oh interesting. They should make an [escape][/escape] BBCode element.

Well let me know if this suggestion gets in.

Re: Monospace font in message textarea for posting a topic.

Posted: Sat May 16, 2009 2:49 pm
by JellyFish
I don't know about anyone else, but I'm pushing for this feature. Did you talk to the moderators yet, pickle?

Re: Monospace font in message textarea for posting a topic.

Posted: Sat May 16, 2009 2:52 pm
by Benjamin
This feature is in query to be added. We'll need to create a mockup and make sure a majority of the moderators approve it.

Re: Monospace font in message textarea for posting a topic.

Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 5:03 pm
by JellyFish
astions wrote:This feature is in query to be added. We'll need to create a mockup and make sure a majority of the moderators approve it.
I've already created a bookmarklet in my OP that can be used on the posting form. Isn't that considered a mockup? All I'm requesting is to change the css font-family property for the textarea element in the posting form. Doesn't need to be really need an elaborate mockup, or does it?

Re: Monospace font in message textarea for posting a topic.

Posted: Sun May 17, 2009 5:08 pm
by jayshields
I agree this is a good idea, but only if it's an optional toggle box on the posting area - not a permanent thing.

It wouldn't be a great misery if this wasn't implemented - that's what things like Stylish (FF extension) are for.