Poor Resolution On Switch Interface

[slow_speed]

Does anyone know about the progress of the resolution problem on the switch's interface?

If you hadn't noticed, the firmware appears to use an HTML-based inteface thru the browser, but it does not conform to W3C standards.  It's major problem is that the zoom function does not work properly and creates a horizontal scroll bar when zooming in.

This issue was reported to the tier 3 support, but the latest update shows no improvement.  In fact, there was a decrease in functionality because of security being decreased to a shorter password field.  Dumb.

[slow_speed · Accepted solution]

My comments are only applying the to assumption that the web-based UI of the switch is an html screen.  If it isn't then all bets are off.

However, whenever something is going to be rendered in a browser window, I don't understand why standard web page formatting is not used.  If it is, then it must conform to W3C standards work correctly across all platforms.

Further, the sub-category of accessibility requires certain functionality.  One of these is that zooming keeps all information confined to the side limits of the view window.

One is free to argue all around these issues, but without these standards the who thing breaks down.  Having an opinion does not make it fact.  The fact remains that zooming should always keep from having a horizontal scroll bar.  Period.  Within the given standards of present and previous resolutions (which still apply), there remains no excuse.

I have never understood why people want to throw out something because they themselves do not use it.  I believe it is insulting to suggest that what others use is not useful.  Duplicate what I use before telling me it shouldn't work.

And even then, should you be able to duplicate it, unless you reach my level of expertise, there remains little that can be proved against the facts of my experience.

I just want the obvious fixed.

[schumaku]

Have randomly zoomed up some current Netgear switch Web UIs, looks perfectly workable even with just very few lines and extremely large text on a 1920x1024 display (at 100% scaling on a current W10 64bit system), using Chrome, Edge, Firefox .. .

Switch model?

Firmware version?

Browser type and version, platform OS?

Screenshots?

Where exactly (what menu, what view?) do you get horizontal scroll bar?

Any JavaScipt destruction software in place (aka. Internet "security" stuff)?

Ready to me like a problem of some client side scaling settings, e.g. with extremely large fonts, configured to rendering beyond the common 100% (or probably 125% on ultra high density resolution display). So provide scaling settings, too. If there is to much scaling involved on different levels, the Web UI can hardly control the full data path behaviour.

Not sure what this has to do with the subject "poor resolution".

[slow_speed]

The model number is as noted in the first post.  Latest firmware.

I have attached the screenshot.  Note the tiny text.

This was taken on Debian 10 with Xfce 4.12 and Firefox Quantum 68.11.0esr running 1024x768 on a 40" screen.

The horizontal scroll bar will appear at any zoom level above this.  No web site should ever have one.  The page must conform to the standards.

[schumaku]

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@slow_speed wrote:

This was taken on Debian 10 with Xfce 4.12 and Firefox Quantum 68.11.0esr running 1024x768 on a 40" screen.

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The screenshot does show a window with a much higher virtual resolution ... looks like something in the 1500...1600px you can never display properly on a 1024px wide config, caused by local screen scaling, or browser zoom - both "features" out of control and not part of W3C.

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@slow_speed wrote:

The horizontal scroll bar will appear at any zoom level above this.  No web site should ever have one.  The page must conform to the standards.

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If you talk about the browser's full width horizontal scroll bar, this does show up if the brower does think (why ever) if the rendering is wider than what the visible view, sometimes it's about a few pixels only.

On a 100% screen scale the Web UI fits wonderful to a 1024x768 browser window, no scrolling required - perfectly crisp and sharp:

The Web UI design width is around 900px - when making it narrower, the horizontal scrolling jumps in - here again at strict 100% (pixel-true resolution), read on a 800x600px configuration, horizontal scrolling. But seriously, these resolutions are a relict from the early days of PCs and Macintoshes:



Looking into e.g. the port list table, there is indeed a frame with hard coded size. If the complete frame can't be rendered on screen, the browser will allow frame scrolling - some browsers show bars, others don't (what can add confusion especially to the Apple Safari friends):

Your screenshoot supplied looks to me like your (sorry more than strange combination) set-up does use local screen scaling ways off from the (logical) pixel true resolution of 100% (or the common 75...125%). The Netgear UI design is very lightly responsive - means only for the stuff top right. 

Be aware that neither the Web browser nor the Web server/UI code does know anything about screen scaling - not a W3C thing at all btw.

Of course, a fully responsive UI would be nice, however the embedded product makers seem to have difficulties to adopt to the year 2020.

[slow_speed · Accepted solution]

My comments are only applying the to assumption that the web-based UI of the switch is an html screen.  If it isn't then all bets are off.

However, whenever something is going to be rendered in a browser window, I don't understand why standard web page formatting is not used.  If it is, then it must conform to W3C standards work correctly across all platforms.

Further, the sub-category of accessibility requires certain functionality.  One of these is that zooming keeps all information confined to the side limits of the view window.

One is free to argue all around these issues, but without these standards the who thing breaks down.  Having an opinion does not make it fact.  The fact remains that zooming should always keep from having a horizontal scroll bar.  Period.  Within the given standards of present and previous resolutions (which still apply), there remains no excuse.

I have never understood why people want to throw out something because they themselves do not use it.  I believe it is insulting to suggest that what others use is not useful.  Duplicate what I use before telling me it shouldn't work.

And even then, should you be able to duplicate it, unless you reach my level of expertise, there remains little that can be proved against the facts of my experience.

I just want the obvious fixed.

[schumaku]

It's a simple Web UI with some basic JS - not (much) wrong with it, in line with W3C - unless one does extremely scale the display space as you run it. As you see, the proof attached above is a Netgear Web UI rendered to 1024x768 pixels. Can't see anything going wrong with local zooming on the browser - of course this will lead to the need for browser horizontal and vertical scrolling, what is perfectly normal, too.

If you are going to scale the computer desktop (what's completely non-intended by W3C) and/or the browser to behave like a 2048x1436 pixel it's obvious the UI will be crapped to the left top edge of your display, and the small 10pt (about 13.33px) font will massively pixelated, every other scan line will be removed, and only every second scanline will be displayed, just some 5pt (about 6px) will be displayed - because of the browser does know nothing about this misconfiguration.

Zooming applies to the browser, not the desktop config my friend. No problems using zooming or a screen reader (working woth some visually impaired friends) managing Netgear switches fwiw. 

Keeping everything visible without horizontal browsing was more a form the time of the early HTML times where text used to be reflowed. Nowadays, two-dimensional designs are allowed FMI: https://www.w3.org/WAI/WCAG21/Understanding/reflow.html

"Examples of content which requires two-dimensional layout are images, maps, diagrams, video, games, presentations, data tables, and interfaces where it is necessary to keep toolbars in view while manipulating content."

There you go...

 

The problem is your set-up and specifically the desktop configuration, not the Web UI.

Note: There are almost zero complaints or problem reports on the (new style) Netgear switch UI in the community and in the net.

Understand this is user to user community, you don't talk to Netgear people here.

[slow_speed]

I don't think you get it at all.  I am at 1024x768 on my desktop.  The browser window is set to 100%.  This is the switch display:

[slow_speed]

How in the world did you think there is a way to get rid of the horizontal scroll bar and make the contents fit the viewport?

[schumaku]

There are two more layers in the game
- the browser internal "pixel" logic which can do some up and downscaling vs the physical GPU resolution
- the scaling of the display ref the size of what is shown on the desktop in font size.

Even under ideal conditions I've shown in my 1024 px wide browser window screenshots before, there are views which don't match the screen, eg. the table with the Ports view - and that part can't be scrolled individually.

[slow_speed]

We can talk around this problem ad infinitum, but the issue remains that someone does not understand the computer industry.  It is always about the end user.  They do not care about how you get there, they just want you to get there.

I am attaching some more examples.  Please note that the Yealink one has a tiny horizontal scroll bar at 100%, and it does not really effect the usability.  And also note that the Netgear one shows way too much whitespace.  That would be the first error in any page layout: even in a text document.  Fixing that one simple issue would have probably eliminated the usabilty issue without even having to be in compliance.