Important Information for Miva Users over the Age of 40

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

If you are not young programmer/store owner, you might be feeling a little neglected by the latest changes to the Miva 9.7 Admin. The super-thin GREY text that now appears in templates is virtually impossible to read without zooming in. Well, if you are like me and can't seem to keep a hand on your magnifying computer glass, or get tired of zooming in and out with the browser, here's what you can do.

Get the Chrome plug in called "Stylebot" and just add textarea {font-size:120%; color:black} and your back to happiness. (note, change font size percentage as needed.)

[Kent Multer]

Better yet, how' bout if MMCorp realizes that functionality is more important than being stylish, and goes back to using fonts and colors that are chosen for high readability, instead of following design trends? I get the feeling that everyone at San Diego is using gigantic screens; they don't realize what the rest of us are going through.

[alphabet]

Package control for styling like Sublime would be really cool!

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

I get the feeling that everyone at San Diego is using gigantic screens; they don't realize what the rest of us are going through.

LOL...already using THREE 27 inch landscape monitors...(ok two now...lost two of the four ports on the video card don't have time to replace it)

[TFo]

Thanks for the idea Bruce! I never consider looking at addons, but I guess there are some good tools out there. There's a comparable extension in Firefox called Custom Style Script. I had to add !important to override the font-size.

textarea {font-size:120% !important; color:black; }

[rguisewite]

I get the feeling that everyone at San Diego is using gigantic screens;

Whoa whoa whoa... you mean... not everyone has a full wall screen like us? :p Kidding, I wish! I've been making some changes I think you'll appreciate (ones that will give you much more control over the displayed editor). Also, in the meantime, I figured out what the big difference was between old and new (in terms of font). Using that extension you're using, inject "font-family: monospace;" for the textarea. That will overwrite the Courier New (which seems to be the culprit for the thinner text -- which also makes the text look lighter, even though it IS black). You may need to add the !important flag like TFo suggested.

Also, alphabet I agree! I've got some notes on that subject that I'm very interested to look into.

[Kent Multer]

Hi Ryan, thanks for the suggestion. Actually, I'm OK with the textareas. My complaint is with the standard font that's used throughout the admin pages; it's quite thin, and I'm pretty sure that it is some kind of gray rather than black. Also, while we're on the subject, I don't like the fact that batch-list pages only show six records on my screen. It's a 16 x 9 screen, so I do keep my browser windows kind of short and wide. But still, there's a lot of white space between records in the list. Also, the control area has huge amounts of white space. You could easily reduce the height of that by half, and have that much more useful area for the list. These are issues that users with large screens might never notice; hence my comment. Sorry for all the complaints; UIs are a specialty of mine, so maybe I'm over-sensitive about minor flaws.

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

It's a 16 x 9 screen, .

Size doesn't matter Kent! :)

I'm on 27" and only get about 10. I'm constantly zooming in and out. Density controls would be great (i.e, something that closes up white space without shrinking the labels).

[Bruce - PhosphorMedia]

Either that, or maybe miva can hand out Computer Reading Glasses at the next conference instead of sunglasses :)

[razertip]

Mount your monitor so the long side is vertical and select portrait mode (Windows) I'm sure Mac has something similar. Lots of real estate for Miva and great for writing code as you have lots of lines on the screen.

[lesliekirk]

Mount your monitor so the long side is vertical and select portrait mode (Windows) I'm sure Mac has something similar. Lots of real estate for Miva and great for writing code as you have lots of lines on the screen.

When I was still using a MacPro, I had looked at monitors that would enable the Portrait mode. Now that I'm using a 27 inch iMac, that it a not quite the option now.

[rguisewite]

Bruce, you have 27" monitors and are still only seeing 10 records in batch lists...? Mine are the same size and I get 22 records on screen (with normal zoom level - batch list text, btw, is currently set at 14px).

Leslie, it's always an option! Add more monitors and have them portrait on either side of your iMac. You could even put some above and below. Maybe even behind. Just... make a sphere of monitors! :p (I always wanted one of those crazy chairs that had the half dome of monitors arrayed in front. Sigh* One day...)

Kent, the font used throughout the majority of the admin is black size 12px Arial font (Except for the titles of pages and a few other things, which are generally considerably larger font -- 16px+ -- and also black, save a few locations and the breadcrumbs, which are #444).

Regarding white space... I am of the opinion that things can almost always be improved upon. Adding a "compressed" mode for batch lists is a good idea. The original reason behind the current row height is that we wanted to make the batch lists touch friendly (or... at least touch-usable), given the ever-increasing amount of touch screen devices (not just tablets and phones, but computers as well... think of all the Chromebooks out there with touch screens). The incredibly short row-height of PR8 and below is definitely not something that would fly on a touch screen (at least, not without zooming in a couple hundred percent). And holy smokes, I've forgotten that the default font size pre-MM9 was 11px. But, as with all things, there is a happy balance. I've made a note about the compressed mode, and to look into reducing the amount of white space in the header. That one has been on my radar for a while, but while the majority of screens don't utilize all the vertical space, some do. It is therefore a kind of juggling act to maintain consistency and convention with maximized efficiency (meaning not wasting what doesn't need to be wasted -- ie, whitespace).

Kent, since it seems like you are on a much smaller screen (either that or your browser's zoom level is set higher than 100% / default), you can get rid of a large amount of vertical space waste by dropping down into LRNS mode (that's the low resolution mode). If you're not familiar with how to set that up... Edit your user in the admin and go to the Setting tab. At the bottom there should exist a setting "Use Low Resolution Navigation Mode below [ input ] px". If you change that to some high number (more than the vertical resolution of your displays), instead of the larger header, you'll get a single bar across the top. Not as pleasing to the eye, but much more space saving. It won't do anything for the batch list row height, but...

Anyway, as always, I appreciate suggestions and feedback on such things from people who use our software in a way outside of... how I use it ;)

[lesliekirk]

Leslie, it's always an option! Add more monitors and have them portrait on either side of your iMac. You could even put some above and below. Maybe even behind. Just... make a sphere of monitors! :p (I always wanted one of those crazy chairs that had the half dome of monitors arrayed in front. Sigh* One day...)

I have a second monitor. It's only 23" but I use it for my notes / instructions screen. I drag emails or docs that I need to use over to it. Also use it as the monitor to view what I'm working on browser side. If I put another monitor on my desk, my office assistant won't have any place to lay down.

[rguisewite]

If I put another monitor on my desk, my office assistant won't have any place to lay down.

Hahah

[lesliekirk]

Hahah