On 2009/08/10 22:05 (GMT-0700) Michael Stevens composed: > From: Felix Miata [offlist, BTW]
>> Not the monitor's actual DPI, but the DPI actually applied to the viewport, >> assuming a compliant browser with JS enabled: >> http://fm.no-ip.com/auth/dpi-screen-window.html >> http://fm.no-ip.com/auth/Font/fonts-ptdemo.html > I checked both of those and neither told me my DPI. One showed me a picture > and said 'if this box isn't 1" then your DPI is not properly set.' I guess The word on those pages is "accurately", not "properly". "Properly" is a matter of opinion, while "accurately" is not. If you want to find your system accurately set, you'll either need a display that actually is 96 DPI, or you'll need to run an OS that facilitates use of an accurate setting, such as Linux. > FireFox isn't a compliant browser. When I use IE it give me 96 dpi which is > not correct since the 1" box is not 1". I can't recall ever having found any version of a Gecko browser incapable of producing a DPI report from either of those URLs. Firefox 3.0.13, Firefox 3.5.2 & SeaMonkey 1.1.17 work just fine on them here. http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/Fnt/midori-font-default096.png shows some relatively recent browser versions that get most of it right on a 96 DPI system. http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/Fnt/fonts-cooker-0706-120LS.png shows a couple from more than two years ago at 120 DPI. http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/michst01.png is fresh at 144 DPI (and shows typical results at high DPI of authors using px to size web page objects). OTOH, MSIE 6.0 as found on Windows NT 5.1 is the least compliant browser in widespread use today, and may or may not bother to fill in the cells which it is actually capable of properly filling. It takes a great deal of effort to get Windows to use a DPI that isn't directly selectable in its settings applet. If it reads 96 in IE, it is as set by M$ or as reset to M$'s default by someone else. Unless DPI is _accurately_ set, that image will not measure 1" in IE, or in any other browser. Even if DPI is accurately set, if the actual accurate applied DPI is less than 96, common browsers will typically use 96 instead of the desktop setting for their viewport content, and thus those URLs will show 96 rather than the actual setting applied. In recent Geckos you can get around that via about:config by changing the layout.css.dpi setting from -1 to 0. > So, is coding based off of incorrect data any better than ignoring the data > altogether? Better to ignore it because it shouldn't be relevant rather than because of any difficulty involved in getting it. When you design for accessibility, usability and resolution independence, resolution and DPI don't matter. > Personally, I try to make my job easier and not more difficult. And worrying > about a measurement that likely is incorrect and largely irrelevant is not > making my life easier. Forget pixels/px exist. Forget resolution exists. Forget DPI exists. Forget trying to control that which you cannot see. Size in em, and designer life will, at least after eventually unlearning the pixel perfection fallacy, be easier. -- How much better to get wisdom than gold, to choose understanding rather than silver. Proverbs 16:16 NKJV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ ______________________________________________________________________ css-discuss [cs...@lists.css-discuss.org] 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/
