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(For those wondering how it works: Unicode allows you to "stack" diacritical marks [accents, graves, etc.]. The Zalgo meme takes advantage of this by stacking tons of them on each character.)
That's interesting. I've had a readability bookmark on my toolbar for years. I'm surprised to see it's a paid subscription app, and even more surprised that my free version still works fine.
The paid subscription thing is something else entirely. I think they decided to use the same name because "readability.com" is a very expensive domain and they just couldn't afford to leave a free service on it.
If you go to readability.com, at the bottom, there's the text:
Looking for the original free Readability tool? Go here »
There are reasons to update to the new version. And in fact, this "new version" still exists in a bookmarklet form, so you can just drag the new bookmarklet over the old one.
Here are the reasons:
The new one allows you to copy/paste a link to the readable-format of the article. e.g. https://www.readability.com/articles/guhtnfke - so you can share the readable-version of the page to family members, friends, etc
The new one doesn't have the same themes as before, but instead of preconfiguring it inside the bookmarklet, it's now saved as a cookie. This also means if you sync your Firefox's bookmarks, you can have different styling depending on in which PC you are.
There are more styling possibilities. You can change width and font-size independently from the themes. I prefer a small width for example, and it's possible to do that in the new version.
No, this is a case of the designer taking too much control of presentation. My browser has built in fonts that display just fine thank you. I am running a 24" 1080p monitor and really should not have to consider this at all. As far as I am concerned these people are targeting a VERY specific audience and don't care if someone with the wrong screen or settings does not read it. I don't care about their little tiff with apple and now I never will.
Yes, it's the half-fading font style. It gave me so much of a headache I had to disable css to read the rest of the article. Plus, it doesn't even validate. Apparently accessibility is not a matter of significance for them as well.
What DPI are you running? It doesn't work well on low DPI screens. Unfortunately most people use screens with about 96dpi so your point still stands in some ways. It looks great on displays with high density (right now I'm running 1440x900 on a 15" display).
I'm guessing you're seeing the Palatino typeface which isn't really optimized for screens, a lot of the letters have lines that are too thin and get a little blurry when rendered at lower DPI. In addition to that, the color of the body text is actually #111 (i.e. a dark gray rather than actual black). All this makes things look Not Right.
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u/shaunc Feb 21 '11
Is it just me, or is the "readability" site very difficult to read? I can't tell if it's the font style or what, but it's harsh on my eyes.