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Reading Italic text


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Is there a simple and quick way to convert existing posts which have been written using italic typefaces?  I find that I cannot easily read such postings, and often skip them entirely, rather than struggle to interpret them.  It is obvously worse on my laptop, but even on a large screen I have problems. I don't really want to increase the magnification because that means having to scroll backwards and forwards. This is using IE 7.

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There's absolutely no need to use them for an entire post.

I can't imagine why anyone would...

As far as I'm aware, italics should be used for emphasis (as above) or single sentence quotations.

Posts formed entirely of BLOCK CAPS or bold type or in a coloured font are pet hates of mine...

Pete.

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Is there a simple and quick way to convert existing posts which have been written using italic typefaces? This is using IE 7.

 

In IE7, go to Tools > Internet Options menu item. Then:

 

post-1103-0-31967200-1357125692_thumb.png

 

IE being what it is, this may or may not work on all web sites.

 

Martin.

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Posts formed entirely of BLOCK CAPS or bold type or in a coloured font are pet hates of mine...

Pete.

Ahem! what's that you hate about your signature!

 

 

Personally, I don't care about such things one way or the other, you are are not compelled to read every post and I am more concerned about content than style/fashion/imposing rules on how others present themselves. There are only a couple of members who consistently use italics on here, and I don't like the implied suggestion that they should change the way they post. Especially as they contribute considerable worth to the forum.

 

First this, then what? Banning emoticons; banning the use of all scalable fonts; banning the use of images posted after 9:00pm; banning all posts with the mention of "OO"? All a little silly, but with as little foundation as the banning of italics or some impossible moderation on its use.

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Unfortunately that's not working on RMweb. You can ignore colours and font sizes, but not the italics.

 

That's because the [ i ] tags are actually being converted to <em> tags in the RMweb HTML (emphasized). Most browsers display emphasized text as italic, but it's not treated as a font style, so can't be ignored with the above settings.

 

I didn't realise italic text caused anyone problems. I'm now off to add a button to the pages on the Templot Club forum to suppress all italic text for those who don't like it.

 

Martin.

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First this, then what? Banning emoticons; banning the use of all scalable fonts; banning the use of images posted after 9:00pm; banning all posts with the mention of "OO"? All a little silly, but with as little foundation as the banning of italics or some impossible moderation on its use.

 

Steady on Kenton. No-one suggested banning italics. The request was for a browser method to turn off italics for those who don't like it.

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Steady on Kenton. No-one suggested banning italics. The request was for a browser method to turn off italics for those who don't like it.

Yes and my response was to the implication that it was wrong for members to use it (or colours) while hypocritically using it.
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Unfortunately that's not working on RMweb. You can ignore colours and font sizes, but not the italics.

 

That's because the [ i ] tags are actually being converted to <em> tags in the RMweb HTML (emphasized). Most browsers display emphasized text as italic, but it's not treated as a font style, so can't be ignored with the above settings.

Hmm. Since it's a css thing....

 

If you're using Chrome you can add your own user stylesheet.

 

Edit the file: (you'll need your own username in there and if you're using XP the actual path is I think a bit different)

C:\Users\yourname\AppData\Local\Google\Chrome\User Data\Default\User StyleSheets\Custom.css

 

add these lines:

em {
font-style: normal !important
}
Save the file and all your em's stop being italic. You don't even have to restart the browser or refresh the page.

 

Note that this changes all em's everywhere so if you want things to go back to normal just remove the lines again.

 

Other browsers may or may not have a similar mechanism.

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One simple way I've found is to highlight/select the entire post,

it seems to be easier to read in white text on a blue background,

this may not help everyone but it works for me.

I've written this post in short lines to get a block of text

so you can all try it, I'm also wittering on now a bit for the same reason

as larger blocks of text can be harder to read than small bits.

Anyway that should give enough text for you to try.

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Another simple solution is to highlight the offending text - copy it to the clipboard [Ctrl]+[C] - then paste it into notepad or similar flat editor [Ctrl]+[V] (or even into the "reply to box" as long as you don't click "Post") - then read it there.

 

[Ed] Note: this ever-so-simple solution also converts any offensive colours to black, and bold text to normal.

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Personally, I don't care about such things one way or the other, you are are not compelled to read every post and I am more concerned about content than style/fashion/imposing rules on how others present themselves.

 

I'm not sure that you have understood (or perhaps you just choose not to) the font people choose can make things harder to read for some users, fortunately italics dosn't seem to be a problem for me, but I do have some problems with other fonts (and colour combinations) so I can sympathse with the OP's interest in being able to convert to a font that isn't a problem.

 

If anyone can advise a way to make Kentons posts less awkward I'd also like to hear it, but I suspect that the problem isn't the font... perhaps I should take his advise and just ignore those posts.

Jon

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... banning all posts with the mention of "OO"?

An excellent suggestion!

 

I must begin a PM/email letter writing campaign to add an autocorrection of OO to 00 to the nanny filter. (The same filter that insists that "Hornby" can never appear without capitalization, unless you resort to ASCII values.)

 

//sarcasm-mode=off

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No criticism of anyone intended here but I must admit to having difficulty reading posts in the more flowery fonts some people use,but as I have stated before I have only 1.5 eyes am slightly colour blind and wear grey tinted spectacles.

 

Practicality rather than preference brings me out in favour of plain fonts.

 

Wally

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I'm not sure that you have understood (or perhaps you just choose not to) ....

If anyone can advise a way to make Kentons posts less awkward I'd also like to hear it, but I suspect that the problem isn't the font... perhaps I should take his advise and just ignore those posts.

Jon

Sometimes you can be just downright rude - but hey that's forum lo-life.

<br />

My first response above was not a response to the OP's question but a response to the singling out of the way other/some members choose to post in italics. (colours etc).

<br />

My post #15 above is a perfectly simple solution to the OP's problem. It is simple, does not require any additional programming or browser specific changes that will affect other sites. It does not require any member to change the way they interact with the forum yet allows those who find italics a genuine issue to work around the problem with a few key clicks.

<br />

RMWeb has used italics at least since version 2 and if this issue affected the vast majority of folk I'm sure Andy would have disabled the italic option long before now.

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RMWeb has used italics at least since version 2 and if this issue affected the vast majority of folk I'm sure Andy would have disabled the italic option long before now.

I'm one of those who find italics tiresome to read and given a block of italics I'll just skip it. If there's a vote somewhere I'd like a user-selectable theme in the control panel that drops italics, font sizes, colours and anything else that makes me grumpy and just show plain text :)

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I'm one of those who find italics tiresome to read and given a block of italics I'll just skip it. If there's a vote somewhere I'd like a user-selectable theme in the control panel that drops italics, font sizes, colours and anything else that makes me grumpy and just show plain text :)

As noted above it is possible for users to create their own theme (css) and change much of the way that they individually wish to tailor their browser. The great thing about this approach is that the user sees just how much effort is being demanded of Andy in generating these ad hoc (low use) requirements. Any wish that Invision would do this when they are too busy generating new bugs is redefining the word "optimism".

<br /><br />

I note Martin's comment above to generate this option for his site, perhaps when he has made the changes and fully tested it he might offer the solution to Andy for RMWeb. Though, I believe Andy is moving away from ad hoc changes (unsupported by Invision ie overwritten by them at the next upgrade).

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