How Can I Get VideoHelp To Look Right?

[DarrellS]

In Internet Explorer 6?

I have my monitor set at it's ultimate resolution which is 2048x1152. At this resolution, I have to raise the DPI in display properties so that I can read the text on some pages. By doing this, it messes up the VideoHelp webpage.

I can get it to look right in Firefox if I zoom the page out real big but Internet Explorer is my main browser. I only use Firefox when I have to.

Is there a registry hack to get IE to show skinny pages like VideoHelp in widescreen (to fill the page) or a setting in the webpage itself?

Here is what VideoHelp and VirtualDub look like. Virtualdub is fine since it fills the page no matter what resolution the monitor is set to. Notice how the words run into each other on the left side of the page with VideoHelp in IE.

[Dv8ted2]

Go up to the top pf the screen and click on profile, then scroll down and change the forum width preference.

[lordsmurf]

Update IE to version 8, don't use ancient crap version 6.

[DarrellS]

I can't stand IE8 or IE7 for that matter.

Thanks Dv8ted2, I don't know how I missed that before. I'll have to lower the DPI and see if it helps cause I'm still seeing the left side scrunched up where the words overlap each other.
Also, the main page is still the same size as it was before. Only the thread pages are affected.


EDIT: Dropped the DPI back down to 96 but the words were still overlapping. I remembered changing a setting in IE to ignore font size so I unticked that and set DPI back to 120 but the text is the same size as it was at 96 so I'm stuck at viewing the site with small text or have the text overlap.

I guess I could buy some stronger reading glasses just for the computer. I'm already at +275. The text in wordpad (at 10) is much larger than the text on Videohelp and some other websites. If the column on the left was larger (it stays the same size no matter what settings you use) I would have no problem with the ignore font size setting in IE. The only way to change the font size in view is if ignore font size is ticked.


EDIT: I found a program called EasyRead that puts a + and - in the IE toolbar to zoom webpages. Kind of a hassle to zoom every single page but it works correctly as long as I have ignore font size unticked. I'd much rather have a registry hack that would set the font size for IE but...

If there was a way to turn off the Affiliates in the left column, then it probably wouldn't drive me crazy like it does since that's the only text that overlaps. Everything else seems to barely fit in the column.

[Wile_E]

I don't understand the reasoning behind not wanting to upgrade IE. Upgrade is free. HTML is being updated all the time and sooner or later, you have to upgrade your browser to understand the new code. Older browsers don't understand newer HTML code. I took HTML and javascript in college. IE sometimes does stuff their own (non-standard) way in HTML. Because of this, some code has to be written for both browsers, and then auto-selected when run. Recently a friend came to me about why something didn't work on his website in Firefox. I took a look at the code, and it had some old IE specific code in it that is not HTML standardized. I changed it for him, and now it works in all browsers.

[DarrellS]

Most websites are optimized for IE6.

I can't stand the interface of IE7 or IE8. If I hadn't found a way to get Firefox to look and act like IE6, I wouldn't run it at all. If you notice the screenshot of Firefox, it looks almost exactly like the screenshots of IE 6 (great, I just figured out that I can turn the tab bar off completely in Firefox which makes my toolbar even smaller) instead of the huge default toolbar or IE7 / IE8 rediculous looking toolbars.

I feel more secure running IE6 with scripting and cookies turned off than I do any other browser that is supposed to be more secure. I don't have problems browsing the internet with IE6 this way but I'm always getting warnings from Avast when browsing with Firefox about virus and trojans that I would get without Avast. Maybe I should just use Firefox to browse the sites I trust and use IE6 with scripting and cookies turned off for everything else. That would cure the problem that I have with this site.

The only reason to run a newer browser is to use some of the newer features that I have no interest in using. Most of it is just eye candy or features that Microsoft thinks you should use instead of what you want to use, just like everything else that Microsoft produces. I don't want a bunch of tabs and I don't want my toolbar to take up half of my screen.

If you can show me how to run IE7 / IE8 just like IE6 then I'll upgrade but I'm not using them as they are, just like I won't upgrade to Windows 7. Why should I when Windows XP works just fine and does everything I need it to do.

The issue with Videohelp has nothing to do with my browser but with the text size that the website uses and that extra column they use. There are people out there who can't use a browser newer than IE 5.5 which was even better than IE6.

[lordsmurf]

"Most websites are optimized for IE6" = completely false

[Ai Haibara]

Why not use Firefox with NoScript, all cookies turned off, and a theme that makes FF3 look as less like IE7/8 as possible, then? (And maybe the NoSquint extension, as well, though I don't know if that's been updated to work with FF3/3.5.)

Edit: Also, in Firefox, have you set the minimum font size? I don't know if you can do that in IE, as I don't use it, but it's a definite option in Firefox.

[MOVIEGEEK]

If you can show me how to run IE7 / IE8 just like IE6 then I'll upgrade but I'm not using them as they are, just like I won't upgrade to Windows 7. Why should I when Windows XP works just fine and does everything I need it to do

IE8 is faster than 7 and is way more secure than 6, it even has compatibility view for older websites.
I also was hesitant to upgrade but I like 8.

[Dv8ted2]

I feel more secure running IE6 with scripting and cookies turned off than I do any other browser that is supposed to be more secure

You forgot ActiveX controls- which is a security nightmare. Feeling safe on outdated software is a house of cards that will fall.

If you want to be safer, you would not use Internet Exploder at all.

Where are you going that you get warnings all the time when using Firefox? I suggest you not go there.

[DarrellS]

I didn't want to turn this into a browser war. I asked a simple question hoping that someone with enough knowledge of IE6 could help me solve my problem without having to switch browsers.



There are a few sites that I use a lot that Fiefox does not support or I would probably just use Firefox since I have it looking exactly like IE6. Weird that Mozilla can make a browser that looks like IE6 but Microsoft can't.


Like I said, if someone can show me how to make the IE7 and IE8 toolbar look like this...

untitled-115.jpg

...then I'll upgrade. I don't want to have to use three different toolbars when everything could fit onto one.

Microsoft's new idea is one size fits all. You can have it any way you want it as long as it's the way that we want it. Every new product they create has the same philosophy.

[lordsmurf]

How do I haul 8-foot 2x4's in a VW Beetle? I'm sure you could figure out a way to do it, but it's not even close to the suggested method. That's your problem here, asking for something that's not at all suggested.

[guns1inger]

If you really love IE that much (and each to their own - the world is full of all kinds of people) the use IE because it is better than IE6 - faster, tabbed, more secure (it's all relative people) - then disable the favorites bar and hit F11 to go into full screen mode.

The tool bars shrink down to two levels only, and recede off the top of the screen until needed.

If you choose to stick with IE6, expect to get left behind as Web 2.0 moves on to Web 3.0. Backwoods - erm, sorry - backwards compatibility will only go so far.

[DarrellS]

That's about as stupid as Microsoft creating a favorites toolbar when they already have a link to favorites in the menu bar or as stupid as creating a separate toolbar for menu, address and links when they had them all in one toolbar to begin with. Kinda like tearing a pickup truck apart that carried 2x4s very easily and rebuilding it into a VW Beatle that is worthless when it comes to carrying building materials and moving furniture, it's cute though. They already had a browser that did everything we needed it to do. Why did they have to go and screw it up?

In all of my Googling today on the subject, hundreds of people had the same complaint about Microsoft screwing up the toolbars and taking away all user control of the toolbars. You might like less user control and a one size fits all product, I don't.

If what I am asking is not suggested then why is Firefox offering control of their browser to the user and why did Microsoft offer it for so many years until IE7? No wonder MS is losing so many users to Firefox.

This is my last post on this subject since it's turned into every other thread that mentions browsers. If you don't use the new fandangled browser that we use then you're just a stupid backwoods retard.

Would've been nice if a moderator would've chimed in and said "oh! You mean the left side of the page? We can fix that with a simple change of one line of code, no Problem. It'll just take a little time".

[redwudz]

Would've been nice if a moderator would've chimed in and said "oh! You mean the left side of the page? We can fix that with a simple change of one line of code, no Problem. It'll just take a little time".

That would be up to the Administrator not the Mods.

Personally, I hate IE8 as it screws up several of my add-on browser programs and I refuse to put it on my computers. IE7 was bad enough, but I was able to remove most of the crap I didn't want and I can live with it for sites that need IE. Otherwise I would use FireFox for everything. I'm not fond of MS bloatware. I have better anti-malware than anything MS has put out lately.

[AlanHK]

EDIT: I found a program called EasyRead that puts a + and - in the IE toolbar to zoom webpages. Kind of a hassle to zoom every single page but it works correctly as long as I have ignore font size unticked. I'd much rather have a registry hack that would set the font size for IE but...

One of the MAJOR advantages of Firefox is the amazing number of addons.
You choose which ones you want and don't get cluttered up with features you don't need.

And one of these is NoSquint. It can change the default magnification universally, or on a per-site basis; adjust the text size independently of graphics and override font and background colours.

There are a few sites that I use a lot that Fiefox does not support or I would probably just use Firefox

IE Tab: Embed Internet Explorer in tabs of Mozilla/Firefox.

A lot of the time though all you have to do is spoof the browser ID so the site THINKS you have IE.

And of course, there are several add-ons for that, e.g.: User Agent Switcher

[guns1inger]

Would've been nice if a moderator would've chimed in and said "oh! You mean the left side of the page? We can fix that with a simple change of one line of code, no Problem. It'll just take a little time".

Why should they ?

Why should people continue to waste time and effort ensuring backwards compatibility for every old version of every browser, just to cater for an increasing minority ?

The world moves forward, not backwards.

No-one forces you to keep up.

It is your choice.

But that choice does not give you the right to expect everybody else to support your decision, or to change their design or code to suit you.

I am sorry, but I have no sympathy.

Each decision has a consequence.

If you choose to lag behind, eventually you will be left behind.

It is the nature of things.