Comments on: The problem with IE7 zoom

By: Maj

Maj — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 19:42:04 +0000

I agree wholeheartedly with the original comments on IE’s new zoom implementation. The combined zoom of text & images is a fantastic feature and it’s becomming more a neccessity as the DPI of displays increases (I’m writing this on a 15inch 1920×1080 laptop). The pixelation of images is acceptable – no free lunch expected. The handling of IE’s zoom on variable width site is definately poor – please Microsoft if you’re listening can you fix it!

By: Frank

Frank — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 07:35:04 +0000

Once again, Microsoft ripps an idea and cripples it.

By: Suzie F

Suzie F — Tue, 18 Sep 2007 04:42:02 +0000

I think it’s great that people who have impaired vision are finding it easier to surf the internet. But the problem is, I’ll bet they don’t “selectively” zoom in on things here and there and then go back to 100%. They jack up the zoom to their comfort level and leave it.
The zoom is a good idea in theory, but in practice it wreaks havoc on website designs. Microsoft is notorious for implementing these “cool new features” in their products without knowing whether the bloody things will even work. They seem to blissfully ignore industry standards and just build stuff for the “Microsoft Club.”
Well, I for one am going to work hard to get my client’s entire office to load up Mozilla.

By: Linda DD

Linda DD — Mon, 17 Sep 2007 19:20:57 +0000

Many of My elderly customers think this Zoom feature is great – because the whole page does stay the same, just scaled bigger.
The text function actually causes them problems because much of the text gets “lost” behind the formatting and the whole page becomes very confusing to look at. So this does not solve their problem. Changing resolution to 800×600 also does not help because these days many web sites are written at higher resolutions, and much is lost on the right, and because scrolling on all pages would be frustrating.
However being able to selectively zoom when you find information you need to read in detail is great.
Bravo to a feature of IE which actually does help a lot of people!

By: Suzie F

Suzie F — Wed, 12 Sep 2007 14:34:39 +0000

Of course, you're right. I hate Microsoft. Oh, did I say that already?

By: Jeff Chapman

Jeff Chapman — Sun, 09 Sep 2007 07:22:39 +0000

I wouldn't advise just going all SVG... most browsers require an SVG plug-in, and SVG is not going to do much for you in terms of improving file sizes for photographic and raster-based images.

By: Suzie F

Suzie F — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 14:41:39 +0000

Thanks for the tip on the CSS background. I might experiment with the SVG’s to see if they’re affected. . . I’ve been saving my vector artwork for web as a jpg or gif, but if this continues to be an issue, I’ll use the vector files.
Does the implementation of this zoom thing mean that no one is concerned with band width any more? Am I supposed to save my images without compression so that if some zoom junky wants to scale my page up to 5000% the artwork won’t pixelate? Cuz that’s what I’m getting. . . pixelation.
A buddy of mine waxed hopeful that someone, somewhere will eventually write a script that will hold larger files to be called for upload when the user chooses to zoom a page. It seems like a lot of extra work for nothin’. If people have trouble reading the words on the screen, they can adjust their darn display. 800×600 coke bottle specs!

By: Jeff Chapman

Jeff Chapman — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 14:16:49 +0000

Yeah, I really don’t understand the thinking behind their current zoom implementation either. IE7 shows noticeable improvements over its predecessor, but zoom implementation is not one of them.
Perhaps the IE developers thought that users wouldn’t care if bitmapped images got a little grainy-looking at higher zoom levels, just so long as the proportions of the elements on the page remained intact.
I wonder about SVG images, however, whether the IE zoom feature affects them or not.
Apparently background images set using the CSS background property are unaffected by zoom.

By: Suzie F

Suzie F — Fri, 07 Sep 2007 04:45:04 +0000

Thank you, Jeff! I read this whole string and finally found someone concerned about pixels like me. My site isn't busting apart with this ridiculous zoom, put my pixels are. I hate Microsoft. Are they idiots or what?????

By: Jeff Chapman

Jeff Chapman — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 03:09:55 +0000

One of the most prominent issues about IE zoom that it seems we’re not addressing is the fact that bitmap images (GIF, JPEG, PNG) are typically designed by web designers to look good at 100% zoom level. Designing them to look good at higher resolutions means more pixels, which means a heavier image data-wise.
Opera has the same issues, really. Bitmapped images, especially photos and graphics with sharp edges typically look grainy when zoomed. The more you zoom, the worse they look. In effect, there really is no merit or benefit to zooming in on bitmapped images that have been trimmed and resized for the web.
I personally would like to see some kind of toggle on the IE zoom feature, so that the user could choose to use it to only enlarge or reduce text and not the images on the page.