burlmart
Baton Rouge
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For those who are aging and suffer from some macular degeneration, or like me who are otherwise vision-impaired (I have a form of retinitis pigmentosa), a white background is blinding to look at. Invariably I have had to copy text from the browser and paste it into MS Word where I could control colors. Setting the colors from the browser's tools menu can cause many websites to be unreadable, so that is a poor option.
There are two add-ons available from the Mozilla site:
Blank Your Monitor https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/blank-your-monitor-easy-readin/ Download this, and simply press CTRL+ALT+B and all web pages are accurately transformed to black background and white text. You can leave it on and browser defaults to it until you CTRL+ALT+B and turn it off.
NASA Night Launch https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/nasa-night-launch/?src=cb-dl-users makes all Firefox menus and toolbars dark background and white text.
BTW, these are great even if you got good eyes but browser at night.
* This post was
edited 04/25/12 05:07am by burlmart *
2005 Trail Lite 213 B-Plus w/ 6.0 Chevy
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brobox
Sunny SW. Florida
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Joined: 11/18/2003
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Great tip, thank you for sharing. The machine we had to buy for my MIL was over $5,000 so she could read a newspaper and her mail. Now it can be done for free and wouldn't even have to buy the newspaper.
Chuck
02 Travel Supreme, 2 street side slides
09 Toyota Tacoma 2WD
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lwmuddy
So.carolina
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Great tip. Just downloaded it and it works great. Press Control "B" again and you're back to a white background. Thanks loads.
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skipnchar
Topeka or somewhere else
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Joined: 12/17/2003
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Just downloaded it and while it may take some getting used to, I can sure see the benefit. It's almost irritating the number of sites that use that pale blue text on a bright white background. This can relieve some eye strain at least  Thanks for the tip / Skip
2011 F-150 HD Ecoboost 3.5 V6. 2550 payload, 17,100 GCVWR -
2004 F-150 HD (Traded after 80,000 towing miles)
2007 Rockwood 8314SS 34' travel trailer
US Govt survey shows three out of four people make up 75% of the total population
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burlmart
Baton Rouge
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Glad you all like it.
It is far better than anything you can get from the standard software settings from FF and Win.
For those websites where you cannot read some text when you toggle on Blank Your Computer, quickly toggle it off and take a look at the actual page, then toggle back.
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Fizz
Ottawa, Canada
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Joined: 07/28/2003
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Great find.
Thanks.
Did you notice if you high-lite text and do a right click you can pick "easy read" and it will display that text on a separate page, white on black.
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burlmart
Baton Rouge
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Fizz wrote:
Did you notice if you high-lite text and do a right click you can pick "easy read" and it will display that text on a separate page, white on black.
I just had occasion to try this easy read feature. It was small text, and I highlighted it as though I wanted to copy or cut/paste it, hit CTRL+ALT+Z, and voila - a separate page with the white text on black in large print!
Maybe no more copying stuff into MS Word for me to read it easily.
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burlmart
Baton Rouge
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I have been spending the day playing with Win XP Display settings, and I must say I need to retract my original negative assessment of the usefulness of its built-in accessibility features.
If white text on black background is as useful to you (or someone you know) as it is to me, the Display menu settings in XP (access from Control Panel) are very powerful, indeed. Setting 'Windows and Buttons' box to 'Windows Classic' in the Appearance tab, and setting 'Color' box to 'High Contrast Black' not only effects desktop, but all MS programs, even Open Office. I did not know this for 15 years!
* This post was
edited 04/26/12 09:15am by burlmart *
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Y-Guy
Tri-Cities, WA
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Thanks! Oddly enough the one sites I'm most thankful about this is right here on RV.net! Sure a lot easier on the eyes at times, will be great after a day at work on the computer.
Our RV: '07 Winnebago Sightseer 35J
Our Toys: Four Winns Horizon 190, Polaris Sportsman 500's & Honda Recon's
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burlmart
Baton Rouge
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burlmart wrote:I have been spending the day playing with Win XP Display settings, and I must say I need to retract my original negative assessment of the usefulness of its built-in accessibility features.
If white text on black background is as useful to you (or someone you know) as it is to me, the Display menu settings in XP (access from Control Panel) are very powerful, indeed. Setting 'Windows and Buttons' box to 'Windows Classic' in the Appearance tab, and setting 'Color' box to 'High Contrast Black' not only effects desktop, but all MS programs, even Open Office. I did not know this for 15 years!
If you decide to use the Windows settings, it turns out that it has the same effect on the Firefox menues as NASA Night Launch, so all you would need is the Blank Your Mointor add-on for reversing the web pages.
Note that the windows high contrast black also creates white text on black background for MS Excel, Word, and their Open Office clones - NOT JUST the menues, but all the background where you type a doc or do enter spreadsheet cells.
* This post was
edited 04/26/12 08:53am by burlmart *
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