http hangouts font size changed! help!
October 11, 2018 8:43 AM Subscribe
This is a silly AskMeFi, but it's driving me nuts. At hangouts.google.com on chrome 69 + win 7 (no extensions, just at the web https version), I was typing and accidentally hit some combination of keystrokes that reduced the font size by several points.
The browser zoom and font settings are unchanged (100%, medium) but the hangout chat windows and fonts are much smaller now. All other browsing looks as it did before. I googled, but all the answers I find are about browser zoom + font sizes. I even tried rebooting. Yes, zooming in helps, but I'm looking for how to revert this hangouts-only change. Any ideas?
The browser zoom and font settings are unchanged (100%, medium) but the hangout chat windows and fonts are much smaller now. All other browsing looks as it did before. I googled, but all the answers I find are about browser zoom + font sizes. I even tried rebooting. Yes, zooming in helps, but I'm looking for how to revert this hangouts-only change. Any ideas?
Response by poster: Ctrl + 0 is the browser shortcut for resetting to 100%. But I tried it anyway, and it had not affect.
posted by Pig Tail Orchestra at 9:00 AM on October 11, 2018
posted by Pig Tail Orchestra at 9:00 AM on October 11, 2018
Yeah, I was hoping that the text in the window was on a different domain via a frame or something like that. If you do Ctrl-plus and Ctrl-minus to change the overall font size, does the chat window text scale with everything else or stay the same size?
posted by XMLicious at 9:05 AM on October 11, 2018
posted by XMLicious at 9:05 AM on October 11, 2018
Response by poster: Ctrl-plus and Ctrl-minus affect zoom, not font size. But trying that, the chat window text scales with everything else. (which is how I'm using it now, zoomed in).
posted by Pig Tail Orchestra at 9:23 AM on October 11, 2018
posted by Pig Tail Orchestra at 9:23 AM on October 11, 2018
perhaps clearing browsing data in Chrome (settings, advanced), might zap any hangouts specific cookies driving this?
If you switch to incognito view, or a guest user account, then sign into hangouts, does the problem persist?
posted by enfa at 9:27 AM on October 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
If you switch to incognito view, or a guest user account, then sign into hangouts, does the problem persist?
posted by enfa at 9:27 AM on October 11, 2018 [1 favorite]
Response by poster: Incognito view has the same issue! I cleared everything, unsynced from google, signed out, and back in, and it's still small. Weird.
posted by Pig Tail Orchestra at 9:45 AM on October 11, 2018
posted by Pig Tail Orchestra at 9:45 AM on October 11, 2018
On Linux at least, if I go to for example https://en.m.wikipedia.org in Chrome 69 and Chromium 69 and press Ctrl-plus or Ctrl-minus, it's the text itself which changes size and re-wraps.
If, on web sites in general, the page layout and all page elements are zoomed in and out in your browser with those hotkeys, so that on the Wikipedia mobile site you get a horizonal scroll bar showing up at the bottom of the window at some settings, perhaps some lower-level setting related to the behavior of those hotkeys has been changed.
(Or maybe the default behavior is just different on Windows? I'm pretty sure that's what it's done for me in multiple browsers when I'm in Windows, though. Note that it's possible for a web designer to set the dimensions of page layout using units which are relative to font size, and thus change when the font size changes, but the Wikipedia mobile site doesn't appear to do that.)
posted by XMLicious at 9:47 AM on October 11, 2018
If, on web sites in general, the page layout and all page elements are zoomed in and out in your browser with those hotkeys, so that on the Wikipedia mobile site you get a horizonal scroll bar showing up at the bottom of the window at some settings, perhaps some lower-level setting related to the behavior of those hotkeys has been changed.
(Or maybe the default behavior is just different on Windows? I'm pretty sure that's what it's done for me in multiple browsers when I'm in Windows, though. Note that it's possible for a web designer to set the dimensions of page layout using units which are relative to font size, and thus change when the font size changes, but the Wikipedia mobile site doesn't appear to do that.)
posted by XMLicious at 9:47 AM on October 11, 2018
Hmm. Try: chrome://settings/content/zoomLevels in your url bar and X out anything hangouts specific.
(solution search path: googled 'chrome site specific zoom', first hit is a 2015 question: https://superuser.com/questions/463185/how-do-i-set-a-custom-zoom-in-chrome, Caveat explanation includes text 'This is a nuisance because there is currently no way to modify the list of page/site-specific zoom settings' linking to https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=71483, last comment there https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=71483#c26) suggests this zoomlevel approach.
posted by enfa at 9:59 AM on October 11, 2018
(solution search path: googled 'chrome site specific zoom', first hit is a 2015 question: https://superuser.com/questions/463185/how-do-i-set-a-custom-zoom-in-chrome, Caveat explanation includes text 'This is a nuisance because there is currently no way to modify the list of page/site-specific zoom settings' linking to https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=71483, last comment there https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=71483#c26) suggests this zoomlevel approach.
posted by enfa at 9:59 AM on October 11, 2018
Response by poster: Try: chrome://settings/content/zoomLevels
"No sites have been zoomed in or out".
I know for sure that it got smaller with some random keypress (I don't see how it could have been Ctrl-minus though). But, maybe I've had it zoomed in all this time and somehow reset it? I don't think that's the case, but I couldn't be 100% certain, like I am for it all-of-a-sudden getting smaller.
posted by Pig Tail Orchestra at 10:25 AM on October 11, 2018
"No sites have been zoomed in or out".
I know for sure that it got smaller with some random keypress (I don't see how it could have been Ctrl-minus though). But, maybe I've had it zoomed in all this time and somehow reset it? I don't think that's the case, but I couldn't be 100% certain, like I am for it all-of-a-sudden getting smaller.
posted by Pig Tail Orchestra at 10:25 AM on October 11, 2018
Response by poster: Actually, now that I've been running zoomed in, I can tell it wasn't zoomed in before. I can only get 2 chat windows side by side before they start overlapping. I was able to get many more before. Hmmm...
posted by Pig Tail Orchestra at 10:40 AM on October 11, 2018
posted by Pig Tail Orchestra at 10:40 AM on October 11, 2018
Are you sure it's something you did? It could be that Google is using a different WebFont or stylesheet for their UI and your browser flipped to it at some point.
posted by Aleyn at 3:49 PM on October 11, 2018
posted by Aleyn at 3:49 PM on October 11, 2018
Response by poster: I checked on my home windows 7 PC later, and it looks the same there. But I'm thinking you're right Aleyn, and it's just something out of my control. But, it did happen while I was mid-typing and watching. Who knows.
Thanks for the ideas!
posted by Pig Tail Orchestra at 3:40 AM on October 12, 2018
Thanks for the ideas!
posted by Pig Tail Orchestra at 3:40 AM on October 12, 2018
Can you give us a screenshot of what you're seeing? This should be easily fixable with a greasemonkey script.
posted by turkeyphant at 5:35 AM on October 12, 2018
posted by turkeyphant at 5:35 AM on October 12, 2018
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by XMLicious at 8:55 AM on October 11, 2018