what are the default fonts and colors

[julieA]

What are the default fonts and colors set on the browsers? Do you think most users change their settings? Do you think most users even know how?

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mother of eight, wife of one...

[Justin]

Most browsers, by default, use Times New Roman as the default font. Colors are usually a white background, blue hyperlinks, red hover color (IE only), purple visited links, and of course black text.

The problem I see far too often is this: In IE, if you use a different color scheme from the default, the default page background is the same color as your window backgrounds are.

I don't like white - it's too bright ;)[nbsp][nbsp][nbsp][nbsp]So my default background is more of a tan color, and too many times I've seen sites with no bgcolor attribute set, so their images that look nice and transparent on white look cruddy on mine...

A good example of using this to your advantage is Yahoo - they have always used the default colors - a very simple design that works with any color scheme, and works for everyone :)[nbsp][nbsp]I believe this is one of the reasons they are so popular - simplicity :)

You can change any of the default colors in IE or Netscape btw, without messing with the Windows color scheme - it's just IE's default to copy your color scheme from Windows, and it's cool with me :)[nbsp][nbsp]I purposely set my default font to some wacky off-the-wall font so that I can tell right away when it's showing the default font - mostly because Netscape has weird CSS problems and sometimes the defaults show through rather than what you set using style sheets...

Speaking of CSS, I think in IE you can also create a style sheet that will serve as your default, meaning any settings the page does not have set will use your default style sheet. I haven't played with that feature yet - I think it's mainly for accessibility issues.

Hope this helps...

PS - keep in mind that users (like me) who sway from the defaults come to expect things not to always work - this goes for programming windows apps as well as designing web pages... too many programmers assume too much, as do web designers, where their work looks just fine if you installed Win98 and changed no settings...

Geez I have to learn to not post till I've finished at least one pot of coffee (or a cup at least ;) )

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Justin Nelson
FutureQuest Support
[This message has been edited by Justin (edited 11-18-99)]