One of my readers wrote to ask about the readability of the blog on an iPad. I'll take a stab at answering but I probably need some additional info from other readers who have a successful time reading the fonts on their iPads.
As I understand it, Blogger, who hosts the blog and provides templates for content creation, makes several formats available. One is formatted for traditional desktop viewing and another is set up for iOS or phone operating systems. The iPad uses iOS as its operating system so the hope is that the iPad automatically gets the slimmed down version with font sizes optimized for viewing on the smaller screen.
When I open VLS on my phone it seems to automatically select the right format and it is readable even on my small phone screen (10XR).
There might be an icon up in the bar with the URL that one can click to switch between systems or formats.
Can someone who uses an iPad to read the blog respond and flesh this explanation out a bit?
Thanks, Kirk
18 comments:
No explanation but I only use iPad, albeit a larger one, and have no issues with anything, font, format, etc. Surely not as great a view of photos that are posted compared to a large high resolution monitor, but…..how would I know eh?
No problems reading the VSL blog and seeing the photographs on my iPad (the latest entry-level version) or my iMac (the 2017 version).
My iPad Pro is an 11-inch model and I have no trouble viewing VSL there or on my iPhone 13 Pro. As an aside, I view the mobile format only on my phone. For my iPad, I intentionally select the desktop site for VSL and most other sites.
I read it on an ipad mini. The font is fine but the text is quite small. Having said that I read it ok. If the text was bigger it would be nice but its not a deal breaker. Can always zoom in. Pictures look great.
I have only ever read VSL on “normal” sized iPads (10-11”) and Safari. It used to be problematic getting it to show in the various Blogger themes, but that seems to have gone away and I don’t see any choice of theme now.
Requesting “desktop’ view seems to make almost no difference except for a slight change of font size.
I usually switch to the “Reader” view (which hides the sidebar) because I prefer the coloured background and I have the font set to “San Francisco” (a sans serif font) which I find more readable than the original serif font. I leave the font size at the default but one can make it smaller or larger.
Reader also hides the comments so I have to switch back for those. Sometimes Reader doesn’t work on a post — something to do with the position/proportion of text & photos but that is never a problem.
I’ve just tried VSL on my iPhone 11 and the “mobile site” is fine and it uses a sans serif font, it’s rather like the Reader view except that Comments are shown
I have always found your font size too small to read on my iPad. I read everybody else's blogs just fine.
The font is quite small on the iPad mini, but if you hit the “AA” icon on the left of the location bar you can open it in the reader view.
There’s also an option to always open pages from visual science lab in reader view
Hope this helps :)
If one “requests the desktop site” from the address bar in iPad the font is slightly larger. All a bit academic since one can make it larger by zooming or in the address bar or via the Reader.
I read your blog on an iPad and have always found the text to be hard to read because it is so small. Other than that it looks and works fine. In Settings, I have the Safari setting “Request Desktop Website” set to “All Websites” so your site looks the same on the iPad as it does on my computer.
You can choose on all iOS and Mac devices in Safari the "Reader View"
It works nicely with my iPhone, iPad Mac.
Walter
Looks great on all my Android devices.
Eric
Hello,
Several have mentioned "small fonts" when using their devices. I'll include that I encounter this in regular desktop viewing.
http://rsjphoto.net/temp-files/VSL-firefox1.jpg
Normally, I can zoom to make the font larger, but in my regular browser Firefox, the text scrolls out of view.
http://rsjphoto.net/temp-files/VSL-firefox2.jpg
This does not occur on other sites.
So I use an old browser Opera, which has a "Fit to width" tool which sets line breaks at the margin.
http://rsjphoto.net/temp-files/VSL-opera.jpg
Regards,
- Richard
Regarding the comment by Richard Jones. Are you using an iPad as I see none of that? I downloaded Opera and tried it but it just gives the ‘usual’ view of this site, as does Firefox with none of the advantages of Safari.
Usually that “text disappears out of view” thing is caused by a too large zoom or font setting though I’ve never seen it on iPad. Opera used to great and I paid to use it ages ago but it’s a different beast now.
Unless things have changed, all the browsers in iOS are Safari under the skin as Apple allows no other:
https://tinyurl.com/5d793rzy
Works OK on my Samsung S21 Galaxy.
Safari on the iPad(and iPhone and Mac) has a Reader view that gives a bit more of a magazine like experience, nice font that is size adjustable. https://www.lifewire.com/use-reading-mode-on-iphone-or-ipad-5222038. I tried it on Kirks site and it works pretty well, the photos are small but you can either zoom in or touch them to load them larger.
I have no problems reading it on my iPhone. Seems to scale well and readability is good - I am 58 near sighted and require reading glasses.
Toggling the Safari app from “Request Mobile Website” to “Request Desktop Website” mode increased font size slightly by shortening a paragraph from 3 3/4 to 3 1/3 lines in length on a mini iPad.
If using iOS/iPadOS version 13 or above, you can tap on the “Aa” icon in the adresse bar to see a couple of menu options. From here, select the “Request Desktop Website” button to open the desktop version of the website.
Come back to the same menu to switch back to the mobile version.
This is différent from the reader mode mentioned in some comments which is yet another way of displaying the web page.
This « Aa » menu also allows one to change the font size,etc.
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