# Fullscreen reader – More usability, less zooming

**URL:** https://meta.discourse.org/t/fullscreen-reader-more-usability-less-zooming/74039
**Category:** Feature
**Created:** [November 14, 2017, 9:05am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/fullscreen-reader-more-usability-less-zooming/74039 "2017-11-14T09:05:27Z")
**Posts on this page:** 13
**Page:** 1

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### Author: ![terraboss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/terraboss/32/381157_2.png) [@terraboss](https://meta.discourse.org/u/terraboss)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2017, 9:05am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/fullscreen-reader-more-usability-less-zooming/74039/1 "2017-11-14T09:05:28Z")

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Hello together!  
Following idea for a new usability feature:

In my workflow, I’m using Discourse to spend much time with reading. Most of these posts can become very long, due to the fact, they are about legal questions 😃 There are long cases and much longer “solutions” of them.

**What I’m really missing is an integrated reader mode.** Safari e.g. won’t allow me to enable the browser reader mode (Why?). The default text size is okay for short texts and quickly reading them. But for real focusing on content, there is soo much “wasted” (often empty) space.

In addition to that, maybe - just maybe -, it would be a veryyyyy sexy feature in addition to that, if the user will be able to add highlights on text passages. Maybe some one colour for private notes and one for publicly sharing.

What do you think guys?

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### Author: ![codinghorror](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/codinghorror/32/110067_2.png) [@codinghorror](https://meta.discourse.org/u/codinghorror)
#### Post date: [November 14, 2017, 9:14am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/fullscreen-reader-more-usability-less-zooming/74039/2 "2017-11-14T09:14:30Z")

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I can’t see any use for this feature. We do want to ship an integrated big and small fonts mode.

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### Author: ![schungx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/schungx/32/70989_2.png) [@schungx](https://meta.discourse.org/u/schungx)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2017, 12:59pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/fullscreen-reader-more-usability-less-zooming/74039/3 "2017-11-17T12:59:24Z")

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It’s good for just reading. Many browsers have reading mode and some html trickery to turn it on. Reading modes take up less resource on the browser and they can be in font sizes that is comfortable to individual.

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### Author: ![terraboss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/terraboss/32/381157_2.png) [@terraboss](https://meta.discourse.org/u/terraboss)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2017, 6:03pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/fullscreen-reader-more-usability-less-zooming/74039/4 "2017-11-17T18:03:44Z")

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Not the functionality definies a community portal!  
Content does.

Therefore the FOI shouldn’t be ignored beside all the great features Discourse offers. There is a lot of potential for improvements.

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### Author: ![Falco](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/falco/32/179432_2.png) [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2017, 7:21pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/fullscreen-reader-more-usability-less-zooming/74039/5 "2017-11-17T19:21:25Z")

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You can append `/print` in the topic address (or use CTRL + P in desktop) to export a topic to read later too. May help in your use case.

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### Author: ![terraboss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/terraboss/32/381157_2.png) [@terraboss](https://meta.discourse.org/u/terraboss)
#### Post date: [November 17, 2017, 7:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/fullscreen-reader-more-usability-less-zooming/74039/6 "2017-11-17T19:33:52Z")

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Not really. I just wish, this tiny button would work as expected and shows me the full text of each topic I’m currently reading. Not just randomly selected / pre-loaded ones.

![18](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/e/9/e9e951067a5928e683d692ca2f4aa250d7eba582.png)

 ![32](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/3X/7/0/7058093efc99f1ecc942a873db9f4a5dc1d5bcf3.png)

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### Author: ![schungx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/schungx/32/70989_2.png) [@schungx](https://meta.discourse.org/u/schungx)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2017, 3:44am UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/fullscreen-reader-more-usability-less-zooming/74039/7 "2017-11-18T03:44:05Z")

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New too. Quite a few times I was reading long topics on meta and by reflex presses the reading mode button, then realized that it didn’t work on this site.

Let’s say, I have five topics that I’m interested in reading. I don’t want to read them one by one or I’ll forget about them, or their order will shift. I don’t want to bookmark them because it is a hassle.

In this very common case, I’ll just load each topic in a separate tab. Clean and tidy. Except that it uses up a lot of resources on mobile. The perfect solution is to press reading mode in each and turn them into text, as after reading I won’t need it to go back. I’ll just close.

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### Author: ![Falco](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/falco/32/179432_2.png) [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2017, 3:01pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/fullscreen-reader-more-usability-less-zooming/74039/8 "2017-11-18T15:01:01Z")

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> [@terraboss](#):
>
> I just wish, this tiny button would work as expected and shows me the full text of each topic I’m currently reading. Not just randomly selected / pre-loaded ones.

> [@schungx](#):
>
> Quite a few times I was reading long topics on meta and by reflex presses the reading mode button, then realized that it didn’t work on this site.

Unless Apple provides a DOM event for reader mode, that we can cancel, redirect you to the `/print` version of the topic and then trigger again for you, this is impossible.

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### Author: ![schungx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/schungx/32/70989_2.png) [@schungx](https://meta.discourse.org/u/schungx)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2017, 3:54pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/fullscreen-reader-more-usability-less-zooming/74039/9 "2017-11-18T15:54:40Z")

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Isn’t there already certain markup/css stuff that can mark certain elements in a particular page as the context text? If a page is loaded and the browser finds those tags, it will enable reading mode, AFAIK…

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### Author: ![Falco](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/falco/32/179432_2.png) [@Falco](https://meta.discourse.org/u/Falco)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2017, 4:11pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/fullscreen-reader-more-usability-less-zooming/74039/10 "2017-11-18T16:11:03Z")

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Impossible when you the posts aren’t actually in the page. We load only 10 ~ 20 posts each time to keep payloads small and the page fast.

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<div class="post-metadata">

### Author: ![schungx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/schungx/32/70989_2.png) [@schungx](https://meta.discourse.org/u/schungx)
#### Post date: [November 18, 2017, 4:33pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/fullscreen-reader-more-usability-less-zooming/74039/11 "2017-11-18T16:33:34Z")

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Oh. That’s right. That would make it impossible.

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### Author: ![jordan.vidrine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/jordan.vidrine/32/515563_2.png) [@jordan.vidrine](https://meta.discourse.org/u/jordan.vidrine)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2024, 3:29pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/fullscreen-reader-more-usability-less-zooming/74039/12 "2024-04-23T15:29:24Z")

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![](https://media.tenor.com/wDTctG6T_usAAAAC/natania-daniel.gif)

> [@"Reader Mode" theme component feedback](https://meta.discourse.org/t/reader-mode-theme-component-feedback/304314):
>
> I recently installed a theme component here on Meta that introduces a “reader mode” when viewing a topic. The button to toggle this feature is located at the top of the topic timeline controls: Clicking it will put the topic into “reading mode”, covering most of the UI with a slightly opaque cover in order to minimize distraction. Some other things that happen are a filter applied to all avatars and images, turning them into a greyscale image. Here is a screen recording of it in us…

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### Author: ![terraboss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/meta/user_avatar/meta.discourse.org/terraboss/32/381157_2.png) [@terraboss](https://meta.discourse.org/u/terraboss)
#### Post date: [April 23, 2024, 3:38pm UTC](https://meta.discourse.org/t/fullscreen-reader-more-usability-less-zooming/74039/13 "2024-04-23T15:38:53Z")

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Just an important note …

[![](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/meta/original/4X/2/a/8/2a89c3f3ebf30b5c39a0bcf1a980b1d20049243f.jpeg "Jeopardy song 10 hours loop") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ur1XtSyjbxM)
