My Ancestors column widths

[Bryman]

Due to the demise of MS support for Windows Vista, I have finally splashed out on a new laptop with Windows 10 Pro pre-installed. I am now setting up tabs within my Firefox browser to give me a similar capability as I had on my previous system. One of those tabs is for the LostCousins site and I initially displayed the page for My Ancestors which seems to have insufficient width for the Reference column. References for the 1841 census (4 field values) are no longer always shown on a single line of the report but sometimes now extend on to a second line.

Can anybody tell me how to alter the column width to display everything on a single line, as before? I am not aware of anything being different now, except this display of the report format, and have not seen this before.

 

[peter]

Due to the demise of MS support for Windows Vista, I have finally splashed out on a new laptop with Windows 10 Pro pre-installed. I am now setting up tabs within my Firefox browser to give me a similar capability as I had on my previous system. One of those tabs is for the LostCousins site and I initially displayed the page for My Ancestors which seems to have insufficient width for the Reference column. References for the 1841 census (4 field values) are no longer always shown on a single line of the report but sometimes now extend on to a second line.

Can anybody tell me how to alter the column width to display everything on a single line, as before? I am not aware of anything being different now, except this display of the report format, and have not seen this before.

I don't get that problem when I view your My Ancestors page either in Firefox or Chrome. But in general, issues like this are usually caused by an ancestor with a very long name.

 

[Bryman]

Peter, having read your reply, I went back to My Ancestors page on both my old system and the new.

The display on the old system still looks as it always has with each entry on a single line.

Initially, the new system displayed the same way and I was beginning to think that this had been only a temporary glitch. However, a few seconds later and before all of the adverts had appeared, some of the entries changed to the double line display where the second half of the reference data is shown under the first half. The same thing happened when I repeated this using Chrome. None of my entries have very long names - typically the names fill less than half of the available space. I am still getting to grips with the new system 'features/tools' and do not yet have the capability of including a partial screen shot to demonstrate but may add that in future if required.

I am not saying that there is a problem within the LostCousins site/program. I am just reporting the difference observed in my new environment and asking what I might be able to do to get things back the way they used to be. Several forum members have had a lot more experience with Windows 10 and some of them may have seen something similar. It is not a major problem as all of the data still gets displayed but it just looks untidy and results in less entries being displayed on each page. Making the window wider does not make any difference as there is plenty of blank space at each side of the displayed data.

 

[Bryman]

Further investigation shows that the double line entries only occur where the displayed reference is more than 11 characters, such as

694/10/12/16 or 1119/11/12/29 or 1114/12/34/21

I have not changed the font/size of characters (that I am aware of) so am just looking for any ideas as to what might be affecting this display.

 

[peter]

None of my entries have very long names - typically the names fill less than half of the available space

It's not the length of the 'typical' name that matters, it's the length of the longest name.

I have not changed the font/size of characters (that I am aware of) so am just looking for any ideas as to what might be affecting this display.

I'm not aware that you can change them. If the LostCousins site used an unusual font the problem could result from your browser rendering it as the nearest equivalent, but common fonts should be reproduced identically by all browsers.

I am just reporting the difference observed in my new environment and asking what I might be able to do to get things back the way they used to be.

The only thing I can suggest is that you try different browsers on your new computer, and if that doesn't solve the problem, go back to your old computer. It's a purely cosmetic issue, so in your position I would simply ignore it (as has everyone else who is affected).

 

[PhilGee]

Bryman, it is possible that Firefox settings are now slightly different. A quick check shows that if I change the "minimum font size" in the preferences (content->default font->advanced) from 12 to 13 some of the references drop below the arrow symbol and a further increase to 14 wraps the longer references.

Phil

 

[Bryman]

Thank you Peter. My thoughts are very similar to yours except that it will become increasingly unwise to continue using Vista without ongoing security support.

It is very strange that this should only become apparent now, on my new system, while the old one performs as before. I do have one particularly long name recorded for one entry having 37 characters, including comma and spaces, but that was entered on 28/Jun/2015. However, this report does use a proportional font so the exact number of characters may not be especially significant.

Bryman, it is possible that Firefox settings are now slightly different. A quick check shows that if I change the "minimum font size" in the preferences (content->default font->advanced) from 12 to 13 some of the references drop below the arrow symbol and a further increase to 14 wraps the longer references.

You may be on to something there Phil. Both of my systems have font size as 16 for Times New Roman but the new system has an HD screen (1920x1080) whereas the old one was 1366x768. Changing the font size down to 15, then 14, then 13 did not seem to make any difference but perhaps I also need to close and reopen Firefox to get the changes accepted. I will look further tomorrow when I am feeling more awake. Thanks for the suggestion.

 

[peter]

My Firefox has the default set to Times New Roman 16pt but this doesn't affect what I see unless I click Advanced, then untick the box against "Allow pages to choose their own fonts...".

Nevertheless, whilst the font changes after unticking that box Bryman's entries still don't flow over onto two lines unless I also set the minimum font size (previously undefined) to something greater than 12pt.

However if retick the box - switching the font back to Arial (which is what the website uses) it will overflow with a minimum point size greater than 11pt.

 

[PhilGee]

However if retick the box - switching the font back to Arial (which is what the website uses) it will overflow with a minimum point size greater than 11pt.

As you say, the only thing that needs to change to get wrapping is the "minimum font size", which appears to override smaller web page font sizes wherever they are defined.

As the "Name" column is set for "nowrap", the size at which the reference wraps is depends on the longest name (as you previously stated) and the display font scaling.

At a guess, the layout seems to be designed for a 1024x768 screen - the effort to make the layout fit to a window size is probably not worthwhile for what is but a cosmetic problem.

@Bryman

The only other things I can suggest are to look at the font scaling and screen resolution on both systems - you haven't mentioned the screen "sizes" eg 1920x1080. There is an option (win 10) under "settings->system->display" which allows you to change the scaling (default/minimum 100%) which affects font sizes, but you obviously don't want to increase it; also check the screen resolution is correct under "settings->system->display->advanced display settings".

Phil

@peter - I noticed there is a redundant </td> after the "Born" element when checking the source.

 

[peter]

@peter - I noticed there is a redundant </td> after the "Born" element when checking the source.

Thanks - I'll check that out.

Update: now corrected.

I've also made the census references nowrap and allowed the name to wrap since it's a more variable field than the references.

 

[Bryman]

I've also made the census references nowrap and allowed the name to wrap since it's a more variable field than the references.

Thanks, that now looks much neater.