Footnote font size

Question

Have been messing around with footnotes ... they're not my favorite things but they work.  Anyway, my biggest complaint is the size of the reference number in the text.  I know that some HTML stuff isn't supported (or at least not recommended) in Wikitree ... can I change font size without getting my hands slapped?  Something like:

Here's some text.  <font size="-2"><ref>footnote</ref></font>  And some more text.

And now I'm thinkin' that this may only work well with named references, ala:

Here's some text.  <font size="-2"><ref name=FN /></font>  And some more text

Comments

To add onto Bob's idea is it possible to make the footnotes at the bottom, under sources, smaller than than the actual biography text, just to make the two sections clearer.

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Comment to A.Raper's comment

I really don't think we want the footnotes font to be smaller. We don't want them to be more difficult to read than the text is for visually challenged people. The two sections should be clearly delineated by the Sources Heading. Or if you want a little more delineation use ---- (four hyphens) at the beginning of a line. This makes a lovely thin dividing line between sections.

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I agree wholeheartedly with Anne about the need for text to be sufficiently clear for those of us with geriatric eyes.  If WikiTree used black instead of a very dark gray for text, the improvement in contrast would be of immense help.  The light green link color is a great strain for me to read and the light yellow that is also sometimes used for links is completely undecipherable to me - it looks like a yellow blob.  Both need much more contrast than they have to be ergonomically correct.  The color problems can be mitigated by having larger font sizes than we now do.  Making font sizes smaller would create an extreme hardship for me and I don't have any vision defects, other than nearsightedness that is corrected with lenses.

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That makes sense, you mentioned larger font, that would be good. I was just conscious of the fact that on lots of profiles the bio's are text heavy and so are the footnotes, (never a bad thing), so sometimes all of that being the same is a bit hard even with the headings and dividing line.

I read somewhere not using black text helps with dyslexia and its better to use dark grey, don't know how correct that is though.

Answer 1

Bob,

You will not only get your hand slapped - and hard - if you do that, it probably will not even do anything.  I don't believe that the font tag is supported at all!

First, the font tag is not even part of HTML any more.  It was deprecated in HTML version 4 and I believe is not supported at all in HTML 5.  Even if you use it on a web page and declare HTML 4, it is likely to be ignored by newer browsers.

Next, you should be aware that the editing page we use is not an HTML page.  The content goes into a database where it is stored as text (the same way we write it).  At delivery time, the HTML code to produce a web page is wrapped around the database content by WikiTree's software.  That software interprets tags (and other symbols when used in specific ways) and knows what HTML tags to replace them with.  The code we enter is not HTML at all, even though many of the tags look a lot like HTML tags.  What we use here is called "wiki code", which I think of as a hocus-pocus kludge.  This is a fact of life - like it or not,  we need to just accept it and move on.

Sorry to be the bearer of such bad tidings.

Comments

Well, hmmmm ... I tried it out on my profile's page in the bio section and it seemed to work ... I would believe that it's not Wiki supported and may not work forever ...

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If it worked then it must be part of wiki code.  As you note, and as Anne mentioned in her answer below, there is no guarantee that it will work forever.  I know there are newer versions of wiki code than WikiTree is using, but I don't knoo (or want to know) a whole lot about the specifications for it (that is, if there are any).  If WikiTree ever switches to a newer version then it may not include that font tag.

Answer 2

In addition to what Gaile said about not being recommended (so not guaranteed to work forever), and maybe not working at all.  I actually think the footnote number itself is a nice size, large enough to read and be evident, and set up just a little so they are obvious as footnotes.

Comments

Well, and no offense intended, but I look at other stuff on the internet and the footnote numbers are up there and at a smaller font.  You don't need to see the number ... it's just a link to the source ... I'm not happy.