Viewing This Site
Dealing With Site Display Issues
Display Issues - Changing Font Sizes & Colours - PDF Documents
This page is a general introduction to the CAA site layout and design considerations. If you are looking for a specific item on this site, the Site Map will be more useful to you.
Display Issues
Any Current Browser Works
Content on this site is designed to work with any current browser. Support for older browsers is deprecated.
Valid Site Coding
All pages have been checked and found to be valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional and valid CSS using W3C's Validator services:
Different Browsers—Different Experiences
Please be aware that pages view differently in different browsers. This site has been designed using Cascading Style Sheets (CSS1 and CSS2) for layout and works best when the browser conforms to Web standards.
Firefox Recommended
Firefox most closely follows these standards at the time of the site design. Internet Explorer 6 does not follow a number of these recommendations, although these standards are more closely followed by Internet Explorer 7. Internet Explorer 8 is even more compliant and is strongly recommended. Other browsers also vary in their conformation to standards.
Update to Internet Explorer 8 Recommended
It is strongly recommended that Windows users update their Internet Explorer to version 8 using Windows Update or Microsoft Update if is available to your version of Windows. (If you are using an older version of Windows you are at significant risk when using the Internet because security vulnerabilities are no longer being addressed by Microsoft.)
While these standards are not infallible, they help in ensuring that changes in technology do not degrade your experience on this site and avoid restricting the viewer to one browser because of proprietary markup tags.
Changing Fonts Sizes & Colours
This site design is created with browser sizing at 800x600 and care has been taken to choose colours that are cross-platform compatible. Font sizes are specified in ems to give the view the greatest flexibility (rather than fixed in points, a static print medium that is converted into pixels differently by different browsers).
Current browsers (Firefox, Mozilla, Opera, Internet Explorer) offer a great deal of flexibility in changing these settings to suit your needs and preferences. I would suggest altering text size or colour settings to enhance your experience on this (and other) sites if you have special requirements.
Text May Be Enlarged/Reduced
Text sizes may be increased/decreased in modern browsers if you have difficulty viewing the default sizes or if the default sizing doesn't work for you. This function varies by browser but is usually located in the View menu:
- Internet Explorer: View > Text Size.
- Netscape/Mozilla/Firefox: View > Text Zoom.
- Opera: View > Zoom.
- Safari: View > Make Text Bigger / Make Text Smaller.
- Maxthon: View > Zoom Page.
- Netscape 4: View > Increase Text / Decrease Text.
Internet Explorer 8 users with the menu turned off (default setting) use the Page menu (grouped with the home icon) to change these settings.
Extreme Increase May Create Problems
Note: extreme increases in size may create problems with the page layout. Images do not resize and there are limits to how much room there is on the menu for the increase in text sizes.
However, Firefox version 3 has introduced a new zoom feature that increases both graphics and text making this effect less noticable. However, enlarging graphics tends to make them appear less crisp.
Customizing Colour Settings
Issues With Contrast
Some viewers may find that there is insufficient contrast for comfortable viewing. This can be altered within your browser.
Changing Browser Settings
If you are having difficulty viewing this site, please change the sizing of the fonts (see resizing text above) or change your browser's default settings to view the page with fonts and colours that work for you:
- Internet Explorer 7: Tools > Internet Options and click on the buttons in the Appearance category on the General tab.
- Firefox: Tools > Options and select Fonts & Colors on the Content tab.
- Opera: Tools > Preferences and select the Web pages tab.
- Safari: Edit > Preferences and select Fonts in the Appearance category (there are no settings for colour, although you can specify a personal style sheet).
- Internet Explorer 6/Maxthon: Tools > Internet Options and click on the Accessibility button.
- Netscape/Mozilla: Edit > Preferences and select Colors in the Appearance category.
Additional settings may be found under Advanced, Accessibility or elsewhere, depending upon the browser you are using. Your browser's help menu will give you more information about how to use these features effectively.
Older Browsers May Not Display Correctly
Unfortunately, some content on this site may not display properly in older browsers that do not recognize or correctly interpret style sheets. Since style sheets are used both for layout and esthetics, this will necessarily degrade your user experience when viewing this site with an older browser. This problem should affect less than 5 percent of the browsers currently in use.
Content should be visible, but may be portrayed in your browser's default fonts and may be placed incorrectly. There may also be unintended side effects like visible borders around linked images (a result of changing Web standards). This affects primarily Netscape 4 and Internet Explorer 4 and their earlier versions.
To view this site properly, you may wish to upgrade to a newer browser. Current versions of Firefox, Opera, Safari and Internet Explorer will work best.
PDF Documents
Adobe Reader Needed
A number of documents on this site are marked (PDF–15k). The number indicates the size of the document in kilobytes.
In most cases, these documents will open inside your browser. Simply use the back arrow to return to the page where the document was linked.
You will need the free Adobe® Reader® to view and print these documents. This program is available for most operating systems (platforms).
While it is very common for Adobe Reader to be installed on computers, you may wish to update the version you are running or simply appreciate the convenience of having a link to the download site for future reference.
www.canauthorstoronto.org/sitenav.shtml
Updated: June 8, 2009