If you have ever use audio/vst applications that require dedicated access to your soundcard and use a lot of CPU & memory, your approach is not practical. I can leave the IDE open, and a browser, but just to be able to view the forum in the way i want, i don't want all those windows open (or minimized for that matter)
OK. Your requirements are different to mine, but please do not complain in an Arduino forum that using Hotmail in a browser does not do what you want and expect the forum software to be changed to work around it
I didn't, all i said was that if i resize my window for the forum, most other sites are not the way i want them to.
I am still not clear what your problem is. It sounds like you have multiple tabs open in a single instance of the browser, which, by definition are all the same size when selected but are so short of resources on the PC due to the other applications that you are running that you cannot afford to open multiple browser instances each of which you could adjust to meet your needs. Does that summarise the situation ?
Incidentally, there are things that I don't like about the forum software too but they are mostly concerned with the moderator functions. Some functionality is not available unless the browser window is wider than I normally use, but it is easy to go full screen when required to access them
Changing the second number doesn't do anything I can see.
No, the issue is that there are times when i want my resources exclusive to the application. Actually it probably is not completely required with the machine i am using these days, but since it is almost the only workspace where i clean up behind myself consistently, i think i should keep it like that. And basically i want to just flick between sites, and close my browser when i don't need it, actually shut my laptop down when i am not using it etcetera. And opening 2 instances of my browser and resizing them, just for the Arduino forum is just to cumbersome. If there would be something i could do 'just once' and get it setup correctly with a single click (without affecting any other workflow) i think i would. I can easily invest the time i would otherwise spend in this thread.
Understood
How about using 2 different browsers, each with a different default set of pages that open with the browser ?
Currently I use a single instance of Chrome with 5 default pages that opens on the right of my screen and just tear off the Arduino page and reposition and resize it on the left to fit the spare desktop, but it is rare for me to close the browser once opened.
I suspect that it may be possible to create shortcuts to multiple instances of Chrome each with their own set of pages but I have not investigated that
You could dedicate a portable browser for such sites. Start it up, do your thing, close it quickly, all without messing with your main browser.
No concept similar to spaces in your OS?
That’s how one of my Mac is set up, keeps things tidy.
Yeah i think there is something like this
I might just do it in Mozilla, my secondary choice and leave Chrome the way it is. It is always going to be a bit of sizing and resizing and i need to copy the thread into the 2nd instance, I don't think i can get the other instance to follow the first automatically. In some ways it should be easier (and more proper) to do the formatting within the single page.
IMO, this is because the format of the site pages, i.e. how and where things appear on the pages is not well thought out. It appears to me that the pages were just haphazardly thrown together with little thought about usability and now the user must often scroll, scroll, and scroll to get to things.
Specifically to your point about certain topics not getting traffic, I think likely relates to my comment of why have "Latest" topics on the "Categories" tab/page. I mean really. Why? "Latest" already has its own tab/page. Why also put it on the "Categories" page? Why not have a "Categories" pages that better utilizes the space?
Perhaps even have high level categories, that can be exapnded into sub categories. like "Using Arduino", "Hardware", "Projects" etc.. are collapsed but can be expanded to see the sub categories within.
This would make it take up much less room and dramaticalaly reduce the scrolling.
In fact what I see lacking is a true configurable home page.
A home page that the user can configure to his liking.
This page could be a mix Categories, Latest, New. etc...
So the user could configure within some blocks or columns what appears there.
For example, if all I wanted was say a dozen specific categories, I could select them and that is all I would see on my home page.
Others could configure their home page for their desires.
I think would go a long ways for usability.
IMO, one of the biggest issues right now is that there are some changes to the way information is layed out and presented with very little configuration that the user can do to alter it.
Some of the way things are done now can make certain things easier/better, but some absolutely destroy certain work flows and make things much more difficult than they used to be.
And THAT is problem.
And sometimes these differences/effects depends on the type of device being used (desktop vs mobile).
One such example for me is the new response box. IMO, it is just plain awful and overall while there are some new capabilities, overall it is a worse than what existed before.
Sure it has a live formatted box but since I tend to refer back to the thread a lot when responding, this new way of doing things make responding a total PITA for me. It now requires using the mouse to resize the input box, and then scrolling around a lot.
An then, surprise, surprise, surprise, sometimes the scroll focus will automatically shift between the input box and the thread.
For example, if you are at the bottom of the input box and scroll down the thread will start to scroll. This type of behavior is completely unexpected and non intuitive.
I have no idea what can be configured and what can't in this this social media s/w that is now used for the site.
But it sure would be nice to fix some of these annoyances and have some user configurability.
--- bill
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On my Categories page the actual categories is so small font compared to everything shoehorned into the page along with "Latest posts". Also the large category icons makes for more scrolling.
There is a news post on Slashdot about how great forums have chuck there boards away in favour of Discord style sites that destroy the "feeling of the site"
I assume that you realise that this forum is nothing like Discord, thank goodness
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Ah good ole slashpot where bait and switch is the norm and you should not post unless you are MURICAN 
Really have you followed any of thier posts ?
It's a free for all dogpile with so many off topic replies its hard to know which one is a troll or sock puppet. 
Many many years ago it used to be a great site for good informed discussion and now its QANON vs the Marx brothers.
the actual categories is so small font
That would probably be my major complaint, style-wise. And the formatting changes depending on ... I dunno what, exactly. But sometimes "Programming Questions" appears on a separate line, and sometimes is filled in a line with other categories.
the new response box. IMO, it is just plain awful
Hmm. The fact that it remembers what you've typed if you accidentally link away from the page is quite nice, though.
Slashdot? Or Discord?
Usenet used to be really good, too. 
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Slashpot used to be good.
Not a great fan of discord either as there is too much needs to be done to it to make it better.
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As a support platform it is a unusable
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It still sucks. I try to bring people here, they don't like it.
But the last one likes Insta-effing-gram where they post code in pictures.
This is what MARKETERS do. They're clueless decorators, tech MORONS.
I do a lot of browsing of the site from my iPad. Or at least I did. As of this morning, neither of my browsers is acceptable to the site and since I can't upgrade either of them, I'll be spending rather less time on the site in future.
By failing to include any details you make it impossible to effect change. Was that your intent?