On Sep 22, 2007, at 8:02 PM, Gunlaug Sørtun wrote: > I'm observing, amongst other things, that 20ex "Georgia" can be either > the same, slightly larger, or slightly smaller than 10em "Georgia", > depending on degree of resizing. > To me this indicates that 'ex' isn't calculated reliably in that > browser. The "stepping" seems to be even more coarse when other > font-families are used. On both Linux Ubuntu and OS X, the behaviour is consistent: the 'ex' box for Georgia is always smaller. Hardly surprising, given an aspect ratio of 0.48 for that font. On XP, there are indeed some (actually: one) errors with Georgia. Rounding ? Other fonts (Arial, Times New Roman, Lucida Sans Unicode) are consistent on XP, Ubuntu and OS X - obviously, I only tested the 'lucida sans unicode' one on XP, it is not installed elsewhere. 'Lucida Grande' on OS X gives consistent results as well (a larger width for the ex box, aspect ratio 0.53).
All tests performed with Fx 2.0.0.6. >> All 3 browsers do exactly what the spec says, unlike IE/Opera which >> always treat 1em=2ex without checking the information provided by the >> fonts. > > Both methods are noted as "acceptable" in the specs I've read so far, > but I may have missed a line somewhere. The regulation of free-ranging > browsers by means of an open-ended set of specs, turns reading of > specs > into an academic exercise more than a practical one. <http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/syndata.html#length-units> (my reading) the UA should first have a look at the information (font- metrics) provided by the font. And then - as a last resort- decide that 1em=2ex. Always going with that last one is a bit of an easy way out. Both Fx and Safari on Win XP are capable of reading/handling that information (on other OS as well, of course, but I strongly suspect that Win OS is the weak point in the chain here. Win OS have never been typographic powerhouses.) >> Of course, if one were to use ex-units for width or height, one has >> to use this consistently, and not mixing e.g. em and ex. > > The preferred behavior would be what 'font-size-adjust' was > supposed to > be all about. With more or less identical _and_ fine-grained > methods for > actual calculation of 'ex' vs. font-family across browser-land, we > could > use, and mix, 'ex' and 'em' freely for font-sizing and element-sizing. > Would be quite useful. A dream, at time of writing :-(. At least with Gecko 1.9 some cross platform behaviour will be possible. Little steps... Philippe --- Philippe Wittenbergh <http://emps.l-c-n.com> ______________________________________________________________________ css-discuss [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ List policies -- http://css-discuss.org/policies.html Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
