[kevincox]

Does it really need to override my font size? 13px is too small for my display. Of course removing the override breaks it because it has a max-width set in px. But why does it have a max-width? It is important not to have long lines of text but there are no long lines on this page, each box has it's own size. So by removing font-size and max-width rules this is far more readable for me. And while I'm at it don't force Courier, not a great font, just use monospace and get the user's default monospace font.

But I find this quite funny, while it is obviously going for a plain-text appearance it actually uses javascript and a lot of "complex" CSS like flexbox making it actually scale nicely to different size screens once the max-width is removed. But if the implementation is actually using these complex features why target a plain-text look? Maybe it is a personal preference but for me simple line borders are a lot less noisy and distracting than +------+.

[lelandfe]

> Does it really need to override my font size? 13px is too small for my display

The advent of good browser-based zooming has made non-default font-size users like yourself a small segment. The days of having to author everything in em/rem is mostly over – keeping everything scalable was tedious and prone to issues.

I'd bet you encounter issues regularly: explicit font sizes on a root element are a ubiquitous practice. Examples include HN itself, Google, MDN, Apple, etc.

That being said, 13px is quite small. I'd encourage at least a 16px minimum. But for now, simply zoom in with Cmd/Ctrl-+

[kevincox]

I'm sure I have "problems" quite often but the sites listed are quite readable. Sure, I would prefer them to use my default font size but something with their contrast, font or otherwise seems to make it not stand out.

> non-default font-size users like yourself

What does this even mean? The default font is being overridden and irreverent here. Are you suggesting that there is a default default font that is expected to be used across all browsers?

[lelandfe]

> Are you suggesting that there is a default default font

Yes, the `font-size` value when you freshly install the browser: 16px. This changeable value had a lot of historical importance, as it was the only way users could scale sites up.

Good Samaritan CSS authors had to write not only all font-sizes in percentages or em's to respect that value (rem came later) but also think about things like min/max-widths, padding/margin, breakpoints, etc. Folks would later use pixel-to-em converter functions in early tools like Bourbon and Compass. You can still find old polemics on authoring explicit pixel values from folks like Jakob Nielsen[0].

These days, Cmd-+ in browsers zooms instead of scales font-size, and things just work out nicely: padding and margins magically grow, breakpoints trigger as expected, etc. As a result, direct font-size adjustments have gone from living in the taskbar in IE4 to being buried in Google Chrome in Preferences > Appearance > Font Size.

In my opinion, it's for the best. Users aren't left out in the cold by nonconforming CSS, and CSS devs don't have to do battle with scalable values.

[0] https://www.nngroup.com/articles/let-users-control-font-size...

[jstanley]

I think the suggestion is that instead of using your computer with a font size that is comfortable to read, you should leave all the rest of the fonts on your system tiny, but zoom in your browser so that web pages are readable.

[systoll]

> Are you suggesting that there is a default default font that is expected to be used across all browsers?

Yes – 16px times new roman.

Almost everything overrides the default font size because almost every browser has a default of 16px, while almost every desktop OS uses a UI font of <13px.

[TAKEMYMONEY]

How do you persist zoom settings for every website across browsers and devices?

[lelandfe]

Every major browser has default zoom settings which will apply to all sites. For example:

Chrome: Settings > Appearance > Page zoom

Firefox: Settings > General > Zoom

iOS Safari: Settings > Safari > Page Zoom > Other Websites

[remram]

A default zoom setting that is global to the browser does not in any way fix the problem of different websites using different font sizes.

[lelandfe]

It does if you have a huge screen or feel that all sites' fonts are too small, right? Anyway, every browser I use also persists zoom settings chosen for each site.

[TAKEMYMONEY]

On mobile devices as well? Genuinely asking. I keep a battery of custom CSS files for every site I visit just to keep the text settings in sync across OSes, browsers and devices. HN's CSS for example is...quaint I guess but incredibly antiquated.

[remram]

This thread was about this specific site using a 13px font. You replied that browsers have zooming and you pointed out the global zooming controls.

Sure, it can be used to fix a completely different problem. Great.

[sigzero]

I believe it just describes the display of the data (i.e. plain text).