> Eric: I think that fonts are different for
> different machines. Thus a button of a certain size
> might contain text on one machine, but not be big
> enough on another computer to contain the same text.
Alain: My graphics specialist has indeed confirmed
that even if you have the same fontFace with
apparently the same fontSize, that they might still
NOT be the same size. Not to mention the fact that
screen-resolutions (and thus size) can vary enormously
too.
> Eric: A complex subject which brings
> great wealth to companies like Adobe.
> Perhaps big font houses can guarantee
> uniformity of their fonts across platforms.
Alain: Not just Adobe. The W3C has been studying these
matters too. And they are THE standards body of the
WWW, after all. FreeCard is not a web browser but it
will nonetheless have to grapple with these same
issues that plague the WWW (e.g. multiple platforms
and configs)
> Eric: If that is the case then I definitely
> recommend developing 3 stylistically different
> interfaces rather than 1.
Alain: Why just three? The combinations and
permutations are open-ended. Thus, I favour some kind
of generic mechanism similar to what DeRobertis
suggested recently. In fact, I am wondering why we
don't do something similar to what the W3C/CSS
proposes in this regard, in binary form though.
> Eric: I'm going to have to continue my UI paper
> after hearing this. Drat. Was hoping to avoid it...
Alain: Does your paper deal mainly with aesthetics, or
is it focused on the knowledge-engineering aspects of
GUI design? (ergonomie cognitive). The latter is what
interests me the most.
> Eric: PLEASE tell me what you want then -
> you would be far more likely to get it
> because I cannot read minds.
Alain: What is your mind on this matter, Eric?
> Eric: Very Clever. Still does not get around
> the fact that the buttons will either
> have to be over sized .. not a serious problem
> but not aesthetically pleasing)
Alain: The HTML answer to this question is to make the
final output on the client-side accomodate for these
differences, as best it can. No presumptions a-priori.
An interpretation and rendering bottleneck, however,
because all of the ingredients must be present before
rendering commences, and because one centralized engin
does all of the work.
Alain: The OpenDoc answer to this question was really
wild. The active components of the interface negotiate
the actual output .. among themselves. An agent-based
distributed-computing approach (new paradigm) that
held tremendous potential .. but was unfortunately
Steved in the Dark Years.
> Eric: ... or ... variable geometry...
> I think doing a variable geometry
> on the buttons would slow down the
> interface though I could be wrong.
Alain: Could you elucidate for us what you mean by
variable geometry. What is it? How does it work? What
can it do for us?
> Eric: In principal, I agree that a solution
> would be to test for the platform and
> then set the button fonts appropriately.
Alain: Ouch! A testing nightmare. The combinations and
permutations are numerous, perhaps even infinite.
> Then, let's not do our sizes in some silly unit.
> We'll do them in PostScript points (like the Mac)
> and do any necessary conversions. Or maybe we
> should store them in something even more universal:
> milimeters.
Alain: Millimeters is a universal unit in desktop
publishing!!! I don't think so. While their units and
other terminology might seem arcane to us, I think
that we should NOT under-estimate the usefulness of
doing things the way typographers do them when it
comes to handling fonts.
> Eric: We also have size names, which can be either
> "relative" or "absolute".
Alain: I nearly always use "relative" sizing because
it adapts better to the specific circumstances of each
client. More important information is accentuated by
making it one size bigger, while less important info
can be un-accentuated by making it one size smaller,
even if the base fontSize is much bigger than usual
for example (e.g. amplified for someone with a reading disability).
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