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by aragonite 237 days ago

Fun fact: both HN and (no doubt not coincidentally) paulgraham.com ship no DOCTYPE and are rendered in Quirks Mode. You can see this in devtools by evaluating `document.compatMode`.

I ran into this because I have a little userscript I inject everywhere that helps me copy text in hovered elements (not just links). It does:

[...document.querySelectorAll(":hover")].at(-1)

to grab the innermost hovered element. It works fine on standards-mode pages, but it's flaky on quirks-mode pages.

Question: is there any straightforward & clean way as a user to force a quirks-mode page to render in standards mode? I know you can do something like:

document.write("<!DOCTYPE html>" + document.documentElement.innerHTML);

but that blows away the entire document & introduces a ton of problems. Is there a cleaner trick?

4 comments

rob 237 days ago

I wish `dang` would take some time to go through the website and make some usability updates. HN still uses a font-size value that usually renders to 12px by default as well, making it look insanely small on most modern devices, etc.

At quick glance, it looks like they're still using the same CSS that was made public ~13 years ago:

https://github.com/wting/hackernews/blob/5a3296417d23d1ecc90...

Someone1234 237 days ago

I trust dang a lot; but in general I am scared of websites making "usability updates."

Modern design trends are going backwards. Tons of spacing around everything, super low information density, designed for touch first (i.e. giant hit-targets), and tons of other things that were considered bad practice just ten years ago.

So HN has its quirks, but I'd take what it is over what most 20-something designers would turn it into. See old.reddit Vs. new.reddit or even their app.

dlisboa 237 days ago

There's nothing trendy about making sure HN renders like a page from 15 years ago should. Relative font sizes are just so basic they should count as a bug fix and not "usability update".

reactordev 237 days ago

Overall I would agree but I also agree with the above commenter. It’s ok for mobile but on a desktop view it’s very small when viewed at anything larger than 1080p. Zoom works but doesn’t stick. A simple change to the font size in css will make it legible for mobile, desktop, terminal, or space… font-size:2vw or something that scales.

cluckindan 237 days ago

It’s not ok for mobile. Misclicks all around if you don’t first pinch zoom to what you are trying to click.

hunter2_ 237 days ago

Indeed, the vast majority of things I've flagged or hidden have been the accidental result of skipping that extra step of zooming.

5- 237 days ago

> Zoom works but doesn’t stick.

perhaps try using a user agent that remembers your settings? e.g. firefox

reactordev 236 days ago

Perhaps not recommend workarounds to lack of utilizing standards.

angiolillo 237 days ago

Setting aside the relative merits of 12pt vs 16pt font, websites ought to respect the user's browser settings by using "rem", but HN (mostly[1]) ignores this.

To test, try setting your browser's font size larger or smaller and note which websites update and which do not. And besides helping to support different user preferences, it's very useful for accessibility.

[1] After testing, it looks like the "Reply" and "Help" links respect large browser font sizes.

panzi 236 days ago

Side note: pt != px. 16px == 12pt.

angiolillo 235 days ago

You are correct, it should have been "px".

ano-ther 237 days ago

Please don’t. HN has just the right information density with its small default font size. In most browsers it is adjustable. And you can pinch-zoom if you’re having trouble hitting the right link.

None of the ”content needs white space and large fonts to breathe“ stuff or having to click to see a reply like on other sites. That just complicates interactions.

And I am posting this on an iPhone SE while my sight has started to degrade from age.

rob 237 days ago

Yeah, I'm really asking for tons of whitespace and everything to breathe sooooo much by asking for the default font size to be a browser default (16px) and updated to match most modern display resolutions in 2025, not 2006 when it was created.

HN is the only site I have to increase the zoom level, and others below are doing the same thing as me. But it must be us with the issues. Obviously PG knew best in 2006 for decades to come.

Izkata 237 days ago

On the flipside, HN is the only site I don't have to zoom out of to keep it comfortable. Most sit at 90% with a rare few at 80%.

16px is just massive.

ryeights 237 days ago

Sounds like your display scaling is a little out of whack?

hunter2_ 237 days ago

Yeah, this is like keeping a sound system equalized for one album and asserting that modern mastering is always badly equalized. Tune the system to the standard, and adjust for the oddball until it's remastered.

JadeNB 237 days ago

You're obviously being sarcastic, but I don't think that it's a given that "those are old font-size defaults" means "those are bad font-size defaults." I like the default HN size. There's no reason that my preference should override yours, but neither is there any reason that yours should override mine, and I think "that's how the other sites are" intentionally doesn't describe the HN culture, so it need not describe the HN HTML.

8note 237 days ago

on mobile at least, i find thati can frequently zoom in, but can almost never zoom out, so smaller text allows for more accessibility than bigger text

hunter2_ 237 days ago

Browser (and OS) zoom settings are for accessibility; use that to zoom out if you've got the eyes for it. Pinching is more about exploring something not expected to be readily seen (and undersized touch targets).

torstenvl 237 days ago

Don't do this.

rob 237 days ago

I agree, don't set the default font size to ~12px equiv in 2025.

ErroneousBosh 237 days ago

Content does need white space.

HN has a good amount of white space. Much more would be too much, much less would be not enough.

marcosdumay 237 days ago

No kidding. I've set the zoom level so long ago that I never noticed, but if I reset it on HN the text letters use about 2mm of width in my standard HD, 21" display.

ErroneousBosh 237 days ago

> but if I reset it on HN the text letters use about 2mm of width in my standard HD, 21" display.

1920x1080 24" screen here, .274mm pitch which is just about 100dpi. Standard text size in HN is also about 2mm across, measured by the simple method of holding a ruler up to the screen and guessing.

If you can't read this, you maybe need to get your eyes checked. It's likely you need reading glasses. The need for reading glasses kind of crept up on me because I either work on kind of Landrover-engine-scale components, or grain-of-sugar-scale components, the latter viewed down a binocular microscope on my SMD rework bench and the former big enough to see quite easily ;-)

nine_k 237 days ago

Shameless plug: I made this userstyle to make HN comfortable to handle both on desktop and mobile. Minimal changes (font size, triangles, tiny bits of color), makes a huge difference, especially on a mobile screen.

https://userstyles.world/style/9931/

thelibrarian 237 days ago

Thanks for that, it works well, and I like the font choice! Though personally I found the font-weight a bit light and changed it to 400.

oskarkk 237 days ago

> HN still uses a font-size value that usually renders to 12px by default as well, making it look insanely small on most modern devices, etc.

On what devices (or browsers?) it renders "insanely small" for you? CSS pixels are not physical pixels, they're scaled to 1/96th of an inch on desktop computers, for smartphones etc. scaling takes into account the shorter typical distance between your eyes and the screen (to make the angular size roughly the same), so one CSS pixel can span multiple physical pixels on a high-PPI display. Font size specified in px should look the same on various devices. HN font size feels the same for me on my 32" 4k display (137 PPI), my 24" display with 94 PPI, and on my smartphone (416 PPI).

gs17 237 days ago

On my MacBook it's not "insanely small", but I zoom to 120% for a much better experience. I can read it just fine at the default.

dormento 237 days ago

On my standard 1080p screen I gotta set it to 200% zoom to be comfortable. Still LOTS of content on the screen and no space wasted.

embedding-shape 237 days ago

> At quick glance, it looks like they're still using the same CSS that was made public ~13 years ago:

It has been changed since then for sure though. A couple of years ago the mobile experience was way worse than what it is today, so something has clearly changed. I think also some infamous "non-wrapping inline code" bug in the CSS was fixed, but can't remember if that was months, years or decades ago.

On another note, they're very receptive to emails, and if you have specific things you want fixed, and maybe even ideas on how to do in a good and proper way, you can email them (hn@ycombinator.com) and they'll respond relatively fast, either with a "thanks, good idea" or "probably not, here's why". That has been my experience at least.

sgarland 236 days ago

I hesitate to want any changes, but I could maybe get behind dynamic font sizing. Maybe.

On mobile it’s fine, on Mac with a Retina display it’s fine; the only one where it isn’t is a 4K display rendering at native resolution - for that, I have my browser set to 110% zoom, which is perfect for me.

So I have a workaround that’s trivial, but I can see the benefit of not needing to do that.

nojs 237 days ago

The font size is perfect for me, and I hope it doesn’t get a “usability update”.

afavour 237 days ago

“I don’t see any reason to accommodate the needs of others because I’m just fine”

cluckindan 237 days ago

I bet 99.9% of mobile users' hidden posts are accidentally hidden

zamadatix 237 days ago

12 px (13.333 px when in the adapted layout) is a little small - and that's a perfectly valid argument without trying to argue we should abandon absolute sized fonts in favor of feels.

There is no such thing as a reasonable default size if we stop calibrating to physical dimensions. If you choose to use your phone at a scaling where what is supposed to be 1" is 0.75" then that's on you, not on the website to up the font size for everyone.

martin-t 237 days ago

I find it exactly the right size on both PC and phone.

There's a trend to make fonts bigger but I never understood why. Do people really have trouble reading it?

I prefer seeing more information at the same time, when I used Discord (on PC), I even switched to IRC mode and made the font smaller so that more text would fit.

askonomm 237 days ago

I'm assuming you have a rather small resolution display? On a 27" 4k display, scaled to 150%, the font is quite tiny, to the point where the textarea I currently type this in (which uses the browsers default font size) is about 3 times the perceivable size in comparison to the HN comments themselves.

rob 237 days ago

Agreed. I'm on an Apple Thunderbolt Display (2560x1440) and I'm also scaled up to 150%.

I'm not asking for some major, crazy redesign. 16px is the browser default and most websites aren't using tiny, small font sizes like 12px any longer.

The only reason HN is using it is because `pg` made it that in 2006, at a time when it was normal and made sense.

askonomm 237 days ago

Yup, and these days we have relative units in CSS such that we no longer need to hardcode pixels, so everyone wins (em, rem). That way people can get usability according to the browsers defaults, which make the whole thing user configurable.

martin-t 237 days ago

1920x1080 and 24 inches

Maybe the issue is not scaling according to DPI?

OTOH, people with 30+ inch screens probably sit a bit further away to be able to see everything without moving their head so it makes sense that even sites which take DPI into account use larger fonts because it's not really about how large something is physically on the screen but about the angular size relative to the eye.

Izkata 237 days ago

Yeah, one of the other cousin comments mentions 36 inches away. I don't think they realize just how far outliers they are. Of course you have to make everything huge when your screen is so much further away than normal.

jermaustin1 237 days ago

I have HN zoomed to 150% on my screens that are between 32 and 36 inches from my eyeballs when sitting upright at my desk.

I don't really have to do the same elsewhere, so I think the 12px font might be just a bit too small for modern 4k devices.

zachrip 237 days ago

I'm low vision and I have to zoom to 175% on HN to read comfortably, this is basically the only site I do to this extreme.

trenchpilgrim 237 days ago

I have mild vision issues and have to blow up the default font size quite a bit to read comfortably. Everyone has different eyes, and vision can change a lot with age.

pletnes 237 days ago

Even better: it scales nicely with the browser’s zoom setting.

onion2k 237 days ago

Text size is easily fixed in your browser with the zoom setting. Chrome will remember the level you use on a per site basis if you let it.

robertlagrant 237 days ago

I'm sure they accept PRs, although it can be tricky to evaluate the effect a CSS change will have on a broad range of devices.

umanwizard 237 days ago

The text looks perfectly normal-sized on my laptop.

super256 237 days ago

Really? I find the font very nice on my Pixel XL. It doesn't take too much space unlike all other modern websites.

neRok 237 days ago

A uBlock filter can do it: `||news.ycombinator.com/*$replace=/<html/<!DOCTYPE html><html/`

razster 237 days ago

Could also use tampermonkey to do that, also perform the same function as OP.

cxr 237 days ago

There is a better option, but generally the answer is "no"; the best solution would be for WHATWG to define document.compatMode to be writable property instead of readonly.

The better option is to create and hold a reference to the old nodes (as easy as `var old = document.documentElement`) and then after blowing everything away with document.write (with an empty* html element; don't serialize the whole tree), re-insert them under the new document.documentElement.

* Note that your approach doesn't preserve the attributes on the html element; you can fix this by either pro-actively removing the child nodes before the document.write call and rely on document.documentElement.outerHTML to serialize the attributes just as in the original, or you can iterate through the old element's attributes and re-set them one-by-one.

somat 237 days ago

On that subject I would be fine if the browser always rendered in standard mode. or offered a user configuration option to do so.

No need to have the default be compatible with a dead browser.

further thoughts: I just read the mdn quirks page and perhaps I will start shipping Content-Type: application/xhtml+xml as I don't really like putting the doctype in. It is the one screwball tag and requires special casing in my otherwise elegant html output engine.