Pony Request: Setting for LoFi to be default?

November 5, 2001 9:25 AM

Re: LoFi MeFi, I really like it, but also keep forgetting to use it. I've got a huge bookmarks list, and still manually type most of my addresses, for some reason. Could this be added to the prefs screen, so those of us who want to use it just get redirected?
posted by Su to Feature Requests at 9:25 AM (18 comments total)

The lofi page was just a test design to make a text only version of metafilter. When I finish it, it'll be an option in your preferences, not a separate page or anything.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 9:35 AM on November 5, 2001

i don't know if it's possible to ask for a slightly gray background for lofi, also (maybe #cccccc or something); the white is very hard on my eyes.
posted by moz at 9:35 AM on November 5, 2001

I think the idea of lowmefisatodadedum is that it has no hardcoded apperance and you theme it with CSS (?). If so...

Howsabout allowing people to contribute CSS files through a web interface. On the user end it would be a drop-down menu of all user contributed CSS files.

posted by holloway at 12:09 PM on November 5, 2001

holloway: CSS is a great way to theme sites (provided your browser supports it). if you want to see such a thing in action, check out fyuze, the skins for the site are entirely CSS based, and allow for everything from the face of the font, to the position of elements.
posted by ikarus at 2:42 PM on November 5, 2001

CSS eh? Cor!
posted by holloway at 3:09 PM on November 5, 2001

How about this:

There's a field in your options stating "Insert URL to personal style sheet" And you can link to an offsite style sheet of your very own.

It might save on bandwidth.
posted by Neale at 4:26 PM on November 5, 2001

Or you could just tell people how to set a user style sheet. :)
posted by gleemax at 6:32 PM on November 5, 2001

Can any browser set a stylesheet on a per site basis?
posted by holloway at 6:35 PM on November 5, 2001

For those not in the know, could someone explain how one creates a stylesheet? I hae IE 5.0 for mac.
posted by ParisParamus at 8:04 PM on November 5, 2001

PP: In IE (Windows, probably same for Mac) you can choose a stylesheet from Tools|Internet Options|Accessibility|Format documents using my style sheet|Browse...

To create a stylesheet is kinda easy. There are Stylesheet GUI tools (for the Mac) but it's just plain text and the format looks like this:

tag {
property: value;
property: value}

anothertag {
property: value}


Semi-colons seperate each property and value. Here's a list of valid CSS properties and values. You can style any tag this way.

Have fun now!
posted by holloway at 8:40 PM on November 5, 2001

The trouble with user style sheets-- correct me if I'm wrong on this, please--is that they apply to all sites you visit while they're turned on. Maybe if there was a little script or bookmarklet to toggle them instead of having to go through the whole preferences rigamarole...

I think Neale's and holloway's ideas are great, though (and more than a little familiar).
posted by rodii at 9:19 PM on November 5, 2001

Rodii, you are completely right. User style sheets are completely useless for the purpose of customizing MetaFilter. If we're to use our own style sheets with LoFi MeFi, Matt will have to provide a way to link them into the LoFi MeFi HTML.

I do have a user style sheet that forces the cursor to be a hand when pointing to a link, though. Some sites are kinda dicks like that.
posted by kindall at 11:31 PM on November 5, 2001

Of course if you have the might of Opera 5 for your Symbian device (not sure if it's the same on PC or Mac) then you have just such a toggle button for user stylesheets.

btw. I like the preferances to an external host lots.
posted by nedrichards at 3:23 AM on November 6, 2001

"Rodii, you are completely right."

More t-shirt material! :)
posted by rodii at 4:45 AM on November 6, 2001

User style sheets are completely useless for the purpose of customizing MetaFilter.

I’d like to note that this isn’t true. At least one person (me) uses a user style sheet to customize MetaFilter. It was also pretty easy to do. (I’m using Opera 5.12, though—I know IE is (or at least was) a bitch to set user style sheets with.)

In fact, user style sheets can be used with great effect on nearly any site. The only thing that really has given me trouble is complex nested tables. I don’t visit sites like that regularly, though.
posted by gleemax at 4:30 PM on November 6, 2001

do frames inherit stylesheets? is there a way to make them (like put style elements in your frame or iframe tags)? Then you could just create your own page with your own stylesheet that loads lofi.mefi into a frame and viola! It's probably not that easy though.
posted by Hackworth at 4:53 PM on November 6, 2001

I believe (and I have (basically) no experience with frames, inline or otherwise) that the frame tags just say ‘Yo! I’m a page over here! Display me!’ and has no influence on that page’s markup, style, etc.
posted by gleemax at 5:02 PM on November 6, 2001

Could I be any more confusing? Don’t listen to me...
posted by gleemax at 5:14 PM on November 6, 2001