My 19" monitor is too small for snesdev

Just a small cosmetic suggestion: The forum reply/edit functions have the "Submit" button just out of view on 1280x1024 screens (ie. one needs to scroll down a bit before clicking Submit, not a real problem, but a bit weird since the actual edit window is ways smaller then 1024 pixels in height). That issue applies only to the "snesdev" section (since it's having that new extra reminder about Forum rules & Reproductions underneath of the NesDev logo).

Workarounds would be removing that Forum rules reminder (or being able to confirm & hide the rules after reading). Or skipping the header with the NesDev logo on post/edit pages (eg. like linking to "page.htm#skipheader" instead of "page.htm", so the browser would automatically scroll down to the relevant portion of the page).

To start with, I removed one redundant line from the rules (text was "Related:"). This will free up some pixels, it's probably not enough but it does look better.

I suppose the easiest next step would be to move the rules into a sticky post. I'd prefer not to, it seems like it being displayed on the posting page has noticeably reduced the amount of posts that need to be moved to the repro section. I'd rather not mod phpBB, those are better workarounds, but I'm paranoid about affecting patches in the future. I only looked briefly, but I didn't see an existing mod that would help with this.

I tried using one of those tools to view the site in different resolutions. It all fits on there, but it's not precise enough for this, as it's not possible to account for the various tabs and tool bars at the top. I never use fullscreen (F11) to view sites, I'd be surprised if anyone else ever does that regularly.

Browser used wasn't mentioned, but one idea would be: assuming your browser has a Zoom mode (Chrome does, Firefox does, etc.): see if there's an extension/plugin/addon for your browser that allows Zoom to be set on a per-site basis, then set forums.nesdev.com to 90%. Yes, the font/everything is going to be 10% smaller, but it should suffice.

There's really no "fantastically clean" way to solve this problem server-side other than doing a whole bunch of patches to phpBB -- patches that have to get reapplied by hand every time there's a phpBB version upgrade (and likely won't patch cleanly between versions, i.e. you have to re-do the work every time). For a while we had to do that on nesdev to get UTF-8 support working (I think patches were provided by Quietust? I forget), and every upgrade was a cross-your-fingers-grit-your-teeth experience.

One feature I do wish phpBB had was letting a user toggle the "Last visit was / It is currently" line at the top of the page. It's <div id="datebar">. That div and underlying table takes up 16 vertical pixels of space. And that gets me thinking:

You might be able to achieve what you need through an extension/plugin/addon like Greasemonkey that can let you "tweak" HTML or CSS content on a per-site basis. For example, it would allow a person to do something like div#datebar { display: none } while not having to change anything server-side. There are probably other extensions that can do this too, but Greasemonkey is the one that comes to mind, though it usually requires that you know Javascript.

Off-topic, sort of: reality says your "web experience" is only going to get worse as time goes on. It's not just you though, nocash. It's a horror I'm going through too, now that more and more websites are adding large amounts of padding and increasing font sizes in their UIs. I've asked front-end folks why they keep doing this and the response is always the same: "it looks better on 4K monitors". Yes I'm sure it does -- and for the 90% of the world that is using 1920x1080, 1920x1200, 1680x1050, 1280x1024, or the still-insanely-common-on-laptops-and-I-don't-know-why-we-had-higher-resolutions-in-the-early-2000s 1366x768? "Sorry, you're screwed". What webfolks don't seem to understand is that for technically-inclined people, we prefer our screen real estate be used up by display of actual information, not empty space.

And FWIW, my second monitor is a Dell E178FP (17" @ 1280x1024, VGA). It's ancient, but better than nothing. My primary is a 13-year-old Dell 2407WFP (24" @ 1920x1200, DVI) that's literally dying as I speak. In other words: I empathise.

I'd bet a lot of the padding is to space controls' centers at least 48px apart for finger use. In your day, people navigated with arrow keys or a mouse, which are much more precise instruments than the flat sheet of glass that is a smartphone or smartphone-derived tablet.

Yeah, some of it is. Has to do with the whole "responsive design" thing, and catering to mobile and tablet usage too. It's a whole complicated world now, where it feels like desktops (esp. for tech-savvy folks like ourselves) are getting the sh** end of the stick. Get a 4K monitor... yeah okay, sure, send me the money, and make sure it's a VA panel and doesn't have PWM used for backlight dimming blah blah. Gone are the days of "it's the right size, right res, good DPI and pixel pitch, BUY IT"... now there's like 10 variables involved, followed by 2 or 3 sub-variables of each of those. It's ridiculous.

Quite strange, I have 15.6 inches diagonal and everything works fine

Results might vary depending on screen resolution & browser.
But, if that was your first post, how often did you post in the SNESdev section already?
With current forum layout, I am now seeing the upper half of the submit button without scrolling (that's quite fine, better than before).

Click the "Start" button and click "Control Panel" to open the Control Panel. Click "Adjust Screen Resolution" in the Appearance and Personalization section to open the Screen Resolution window. Drag the slider's marker upward to select your maximum resolution.

Monitor size Recommended resolution (in pixels)
19-inch standard ratio LCD monitor 1280 × 1024
20-inch standard ratio LCD monitor 1600 × 1200
20- and 22-inch widescreen LCD monitors 1680 × 1050
24-inch widescreen LCD monitor 1920 × 1200

Thanks ..............

[Spam links neutered. User warned. --MOD]

Instructing everyone to adjust to maximum resolution seems a bit blindfolded. There is no message about the fact that increasing your resolution causes more work for your video card or whatever part of the computer that now displays your screen.

Bit-of-Warning: Adjusting to higher resolution may slow your computer down. Depends on its hardware. Note: you should be able to switch back... memorize what your resolution is before switching it.

We could have just deleted that spam instead of pretending it's any kind of valid or well-meaning advice.

Agree Put my warning there bc a month had past and some people, like my dad, like to keep everything.