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FF22: display of web changes to huge proportions + sites break

  • 17 replies
  • 29 have this problem
  • 1 view
  • Last reply by hmmm

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I tried everything except complete reset of Firefox. All websites, including Google, display way too big font and images. Causes parts of websites to break down. Using zoom doesn't solve anything. Checked fonts settings, no problem there. Unworkable for productivity. Couldn't even reach this page because link for logging in didn't work. Only after re-installing FF 21 creating this ticket became possible. In FF 21 all aforementioned issues are not present.

I tried everything except complete reset of Firefox. All websites, including Google, display way too big font and images. Causes parts of websites to break down. Using zoom doesn't solve anything. Checked fonts settings, no problem there. Unworkable for productivity. Couldn't even reach this page because link for logging in didn't work. Only after re-installing FF 21 creating this ticket became possible. In FF 21 all aforementioned issues are not present.

All Replies (17)

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Firefox 22 now adjusts the browser display according to your Windows settings, to better supporting high DPI displays. When you first start Firefox 22, if your Windows DPI has been increased (e.g., 125% text size), the content area will be zoomed proportionately.

Global Zoom Factor

The following setting governs both the content area and the "chrome" area (menus, toolbars, and tabs). You can adjust the value, but it might be hard to find just the right number:

(1) In a new tab, type or paste about:config in the address bar and press Enter. Click the button promising to be careful.

(2) In the filter box, type or paste pix and pause while the list is filtered

(3) Double-click layout.css.devPixelsPerPx and change its value to 1.0 for Firefox 21-sized fonts, or choose a larger ratio for larger fonts. For example, 1.25 corresponds to 125% font size in Windows display settings. You may need to switch back and forth to other windows/tabs to see how it's affecting them.

The tricky part is that 1.0 makes the content normal-sized but generally renders the chrome area somewhere between almost unreadable and invisible.

Workarounds

If you can't find a good size compromise, consider an extensions to adjust the size of one or the other.

  • With default setting of -1.0, you can adjust the size of the content area using either of these (e.g., try 80% zoom level to counteract 125% Windows DPI):

- Default FullZoom Level
- NoSquint - for content

  • With setting 1.0, which sets the content area back to 96ppi, try a larger font in this extension to make the chrome area more readable: Theme Font & Size Changer.

Can you get it to work the way you want?

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Idem to 125% here but your fix (layout.css.devPixelsPerPx) made no difference at all. Did a clear cache / clear cookies / restart FF.

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Sorry, what is your current setting for layout.css.devPixelsPerPx?

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It's at 1.25

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Since I set my default font size to allow sites to set them, Google should look okey, but Google is still huge for example. The Fonts I use in FF 22 is Liberation Serif, Liberation Sans, Liberation Mono, size is 13.

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You need to change the value of layout.css.devPixelsPerPx to 1.0 to do this type about:config into the adress bar and hit enter, pass the warning message asying i agree and type layout.css.devPixelsPerPx into the search bar, the first result you get, double click it and it should open a small new window. Type in 1.0. Now everything shall be normal again.

Modified by kobe

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Hi NoLogo, at 1.25, page content is zoomed 25% larger than in Firefox 21, but the chrome area (menu, toolbars, tabs) look normal.

Please check out the "workarounds" section of my first reply for how to shrink the content area using an extension.

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Reading the comments made in other threads created about this same topic, I come to conclude that Mozilla changed these settings to suit the needs of a relatively small amount of users.

The thought that I would need to install several ad-dons to compensate for the ruin created by this change by Mozilla, infuriates me. It would make me dependent on third party publishers updates from now on. How can that be acceptable ?

The way it should be fixed is that we could set this as an option in our Firefox settings GUI. On the tab Content to be precise. I can only guess how this change on behalves of Microsoft settings will influence the user experience for Linux users.

I'm convinced that this will cause many Firefox users to change over to Chrome or Opera. Sad this is, but I'm already considering right now... I'd like an official Mozilla statement on this subject.

Modified by NoLogo

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"I'm convinced that this will cause many Firefox users to change over to Chrome or Opera. Sad this is, but I'm already considering right now... I'd like an official Mozilla statement on this subject."

Chrome is doing the same and Opera runs off of Chromium, both will be affected by DPI changes, but in chrome there is no about:config making it unfixable.

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Hi NoLogo, this is not an official statement:

I would like two see separate percentages for the chrome area and for the content area. This would eliminate the problem of needing an add-on (or userChrome.css style rule) for when a single setting doesn't make everything look the way you want.

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Listen, both of you thanks for the help attempts.

I tried every one of them and they just don't fix the horrible looking web in FF22. Also I tried fixing it with the suggested add-ons, but it did not adequately solve my problem.

If they were able to permanently set the settings right it would have possibly done for now, but the problem I faced is I had to re-apply the settings to every page I visited. Storing pre-sets for web-pages can hardly be called acceptable for productivity settings.

On top of that who's to say the "solutions" will still work 2 generations of FF down the road.

If Mozilla can't quickly resolve this it means (to me) they're getting just as monolithic as Microsoft. Saying: "Here it is, if you don't like it leave it"

What I need to hear is: "Were listening to our end-user base and are willing to put in an effort to meet your needs".

But Mozilla never speaks out on their own forums.

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have you cleared the cache?

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Hi NoLogo, I think you are correct that this support forum is not a place to find official pronouncements, although if such pronouncements exist, someone might link to them here.

User advocates read the forum and bubble up issues to the developers and UI design people. I'm not sure whether that's posted anywhere for public viewing (one of the things about Mozilla is there are so many sites: blogs, wikis, bug tracking, support, that it can be hard to find answers).

Regarding having to adjust every page, did you try setting 80% (or some other value less than 100%) as your default/global zoom in either Default FullZoom Level or NoSquint? That should counteract the 125% Windows zoom level and you hopefully you would only need to adjust individual pages where that doesn't look right.

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I'm curious to hear if anyone found a (new) solution to my reported problems. I'm still sticking to FF 21 until I know it is safe to upgrade. Not planning to change my screen resolution just for the sake of Mozilla.

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Does your Windows version have this setting in the Compatibility tab?

  1. Open the Properties of the Firefox desktop shortcut (right-click: Properties)
  2. Go to the Compatibilities tab
  3. Put a mark before "Disable display scaling on high DPI settings"
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please fix this problem on next release with a option to select your settings none of the above fixes work this effects palemoon as well Iam back using ver 20.0.1 i know there could be security issue but i have no choice why fix something thats not broken