Hi there, since upgrading to 3.3.0.beta3 I noticed a slight increase in the font size of most UX and content elements in Discourse. I checked my settings and default text size is at “normal” and was never changed by me. Can somebody confirm if it was increased in the code for “normal”? I tried “smaller” but it’s a bit too small for me, and I thought it was just right before. Thanks!
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This seems to have been intentional.
Simply saying that 16px is “default”, after years of our forums being at 15px, isn’t (IMO) enough justification for this change, which was almost hidden in the release notes.
@awesomerobot Was this change in response to community requests? Feedback from accessibility experts? There’s no context or explanation in the pull request.
I’m of the opinion this should be rolled back. Let it be the default size for new installs, but it should be opt-in for old forums.
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Browser defaults, like Discourse defaults, are generally recommendations that are a good starting point for everyone.
In this case, there’s a large amount of advice that recommends 16px as the minimum:
Accessibility Tips: Let Users Control Font Size
Body text should be at least 12 points (pt), or around 16 pixels (px).
Minimum font size? | Accessible Web
While there is no official minimum font size for the web, it is generally agreed upon that 16px for body text is a good starting point. Of course, some text will be smaller and headings will often times be larger. But, the main body text (like what you’re reading right now) should usually be 16px or larger.
Accessibility at Penn State | Font Size on the Web
- For traditional computer monitors, a size of 12pt (=16px) for body is generally recommended for body text (depending on audience).
If we did this for every change we’d have an enormous number of separate “legacy” CSS branches to reason with every time we made an update, which would make maintenance and debugging fairly difficult. It could also mean certain “legacy” CSS would become incompatible with themes and plugins, etc.
It’s much easier to copy and paste a few lines of CSS into a theme for the (likely few) sites that want to revert.
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It looks like --base-font-size and --font-0 are currently set to 1em . Would that be the cleanest way of reverting with a local CSS mod by setting them to .9375em ?
Edit: Sorry, just found the proper solution here:
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Yes obviously you can’t make every CSS change an option, but changing the main font size is one of the most substantial changes made to a site.
So could you please at the very least edit the release notes to explain the change, give a small rationale, and explain what changes need to be made to revert it. This change should have been mentioned in the first post of the release notes, not the very bottom of the second post with nothing but a link to the pull request.
And the pull request doesn’t even have any description! The commit gives no rationale either. It’s not a pull request that would have passed review if I’d been involved…
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I made a userstyle that reverts the font sizes:
It’s made for another forum I use that recently updated, but adapting it to other Discourse forums should be as easy as modifying it to add the site’s URL in Stylus.
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