Re: [css-d] font-size advice
On 3/27/07, Gunlaug Sørtun [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There are no definitive answers to anything on the web, there will always be an exception to any rule we care to make, that's what we have to live with, and work with. So lets all accept it and move on.. Agree or not 'Georg?' Asked directly like that, I have to say I agree - more or less. Rules without exceptions are limitations, in my terminology. I hate limitations, so I always reserve the right to make exceptions :-) I've learned a lot over the last ten days, now have to start all over again.. Slightly wrong approach, IMO. No need to discard what works, only what doesn't. A better approach might be to fix or remove the parts that aren't working, keep the rest and add whatever is needed to make it all work together as a whole. One of the nice things about CSS is that you can throw all of it away, or some of it, and you will most likely still have a working website. It's never too late to fix/tweak/accommodate new thinking. I'm going to keep my sites at font-size:76% - for now. At the moment Dennis has to cut off his nose to spite his face on nine out of ten websites he encounters, rather than bumping up his default browser font size, but the day may come when he doesn't. It doesn't always pay to be on the vanguard. Without de facto standards - such as XMLHTTPRequest, Flash, RSS, nofollow links, etc - the web would be messier and develop at a slower pace. -- Chris Ovenden http://thepeer.blogspot.com Imagine all the people / Sharing all the world __ css-discuss [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d IE7 information -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=IE7 List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] font-size advice
On Sun, 25 Mar 2007, Stephen Jungels wrote:
Now I find that everything looks as expected in Firefox. In IE 6, the main
content font-size is a little too large.
It depends on matters of taste and eyesight etc. whether it is too large,
but it's definitely larger than on Firefox, with factory settings. The
reason is that you use sizes that are ultimately relative to the
browser's basic font size. That size is smaller on Firefox than on IE, in
typical conditions.
The variation is more or less a basic feature of the approach you have
used; it's not an undesired side effect but part of the goal.
1. Is this the best I can do or is there a way to make all three browsers
look like Firefox?
You can set body { font-size: 15px; }, but then you are taking a different
approach entirely.
2. For usability, is it more important to enable font-resizing in IE, or
to get the right size in all three browsers?
I'm afraid that question has been discussed to death in this list and
elsewhere. I'd say you just have to decide between usability and right
size, since usability means that there is no right size.
If you want a default font size in pixels (the right size) _and_ font
scalability on IE (i.e., let users override the right size), then the
practical approach is probably the inclusion of some scripting
(client-side or server-side) that lets the user change the font size by
clicking on a button, for example. It's not easy, though, since to be
convenient, it would have to work using server-side scripting and cookies
so that the user only needs to set the font size _once_ for the site.
--
Jukka Yucca Korpela, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/
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Re: [css-d] font-size advice
I'm afraid that question has been discussed to death in this list and
elsewhere. I'd say you just have to decide between usability and right
size, since usability means that there is no right size.
Surely the right size, or a t least the right initial size, is the
same size as (most) other sites. By using body { font-size:100% } or
similar, you're immediately making your fonts annoyingly large
compared to the majority who use something like body { font-size:76% }
- a de facto 'standard' for good reason:
http://www.thenoodleincident.com/tutorials/box_lesson/font/
--
Chris Ovenden
http://frontend.blogsome.com
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Re: [css-d] font-size advice
On 3/27/07, Chris Ovenden [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
I'm afraid that question has been discussed to death in this list and
elsewhere. I'd say you just have to decide between usability and
right
size, since usability means that there is no right size.
Surely the right size, or a t least the right initial size, is the
same size as (most) other sites. By using body { font-size:100% } or
similar, you're immediately making your fonts annoyingly large
compared to the majority who use something like body { font-size:76% }
- a de facto 'standard' for good reason:
http://www.thenoodleincident.com/tutorials/box_lesson/font/
--
Chris Ovenden
hello all,
just wanted to chime in and also add a question of my own here. i usually
wet body {font-size: 62.5%} so then when you size with ems 1.2 ems =12px and
so on. this seems to work for me but last week i had posted a site on here
and was told that with windows set at 120DPI that Opera was increasing the
font size by 25%. i prefer using ems to px but don't want my sites to look
out of wack on high res monitors. is there any solution to this?
Thanks,
Jeff
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Re: [css-d] font-size advice
On 2007/03/25 23:42 (GMT-0400) Stephen Jungels apparently typed: [this post arrived here only moments ago] I've learned a lot by starting to read this list recently and now am trying my first question. Thanks for any help you are able to provide. After noticing that my site's text did not resize in IE 6 and reading some messages here, I took the advice at http://www.oliverhodgson.com/articles/friendlyfonts/ and used percentages and ems to set my font sizes. Now I find that everything looks as expected in Firefox. In IE 6, the main content font-size is a little too large. In Opera, the sidebar font-size is a little too small. On the other hand, fonts resize nicely in IE, so there is a definite improvement there. I realize sometimes we have to accept tradeoffs, but I solicit your advice: 1. Is this the best I can do or is there a way to make all three browsers look like Firefox? You can't fully do that and at the same time have a user friendly, fully accessible page. 2. For usability, is it more important to enable font-resizing in IE, or to get the right size in all three browsers? Only the visitor can determine the right size, so enabling font resizing by avoiding px and physical CSS units for font sizing is the right thing to do. 3. Any comments you may have about how it works in other browsers you may try I see no apparent difference between IE and FF here. FF here has the same effective default font size as IE, which is both 12pt and 16px. That matching is the effect of the M$ default system DPI setting, which is the determinant of the relationship between pt sizes and px sizes. If you are seeing a difference it is likely the result of your use of a modern system, likely a laptop, on which the system DPI setting is 120 (called large fonts) rather than 96 (normal fonts on WinXP). That DPI difference increases the size of IE's 12pt default from 16px to 20px, while leaving FF's 16px untouched. The other common reason for differences between IE and FF stems from your use of a doctype that puts modern browsers into quirks rendering mode. All new pages should be created using a doctype that puts browsers into standards compliance mode in order to minimize rendering differences among different browsers. http://developer.mozilla.org/en/docs/Mozilla's_DOCTYPE_sniffing http://gutfeldt.ch/matthias/articles/doctypeswitch.html So, the thing to do is accept that the page will not look the same in all viewing environments. Strive to ensure that it remains fully functional in a wide range of environments, and be content with mere similarity as user environments deviate from yours. I am a programmer moonlighting as a designer and relatively new to CSS, so I know there may be stylistic issues already, but if you care to comment on that that's fine. The site: http://www.pithypedia.com/ The style sheet: http://www.pithypedia.com/style.css I like it. :-) -- For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. John 3:17 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/ __ css-discuss [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d IE7 information -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=IE7 List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] font-size advice
On Tue, Mar 27, 2007 at 02:28:33PM +0100, Chris Ovenden wrote:
I'm afraid that question has been discussed to death in this list
and elsewhere. I'd say you just have to decide between usability
and right size, since usability means that there is no right size.
Surely the right size, or a t least the right initial size, is the
same size as (most) other sites.
Wrong. Truth is *not* determined by majority vote.
By using body { font-size:100% } or similar,
You are giving the user what the user finds most comfortable to read.
you're immediately making your fonts annoyingly large compared to the
majority who use something like body { font-size:76% } - a de facto
'standard' for good reason:
Nonsense like that is why I have to increase the displayed font size
(sometimes *twice*) on 90+% of the sites I visit in order to be able to
read them. That is most definitely *not* user friendly.
The web is *not* print. The rules are different. Do not expect your
pages to look exactly the same on all displays. You can't even be sure
that your selected font is available and different fonts have different
base sizes, a fact that could very easily throw off all your careful
calculations.
--
If you will not fight for right when you can easily win without blood
shed; if you will not fight when your victory is sure and not too
costly; you may come to the moment when you will have to fight with
all the odds against you and only a precarious chance of survival.
There may even be a worse case. You may have to fight when there is no
hope of victory, because it is better to perish than to live as
slaves. -- Winston Churchill
Rick Pasotto[EMAIL PROTECTED]http://www.niof.net
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Re: [css-d] font-size advice
On 2007/03/27 14:28 (GMT+0100) Chris Ovenden apparently typed:
the majority who use something like body { font-size:76% }
- a de facto 'standard' for good reason:
That standard was formulated over a decade ago, when CSS1 was in
gestation, for the environmental realities of yesteryear. Good reason for
it is long obsolete, as explained in my replies to today's other font thread
perfect font sizes- any sample solutions? and at
http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/auth/bigdefaults.html with related material at
http://www.informationarchitects.jp/100e2r?v=4 .
--
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the
world, but to save the world through him. John 3:17 NIV
Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409
Felix Miata *** http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/
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Re: [css-d] font-size advice
On 3/27/07, Rick Pasotto [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
On Tue, Mar 27, 2007 at 02:28:33PM +0100, Chris Ovenden wrote:
I'm afraid that question has been discussed to death in this list
and elsewhere. I'd say you just have to decide between usability
and right size, since usability means that there is no right size.
Surely the right size, or a t least the right initial size, is the
same size as (most) other sites.
Wrong. Truth is *not* determined by majority vote.
Who said anything about Truth (capitalization an' all)?
By using body { font-size:100% } or similar,
You are giving the user what the user finds most comfortable to read.
you're immediately making your fonts annoyingly large compared to the
majority who use something like body { font-size:76% } - a de facto
'standard' for good reason:
Nonsense like that is why I have to increase the displayed font size
(sometimes *twice*) on 90+% of the sites I visit in order to be able to
read them. That is most definitely *not* user friendly.
I think you just proved my point. The world wide web is just that - a
bunch of connected things, of which any particular website is but one.
If you have to change the font size for 90% of the sites you visit,
then you have your browser set up wrongly.
--
Chris Ovenden
http://thepeer.blogspot.com
Imagine all the people / Sharing all the world
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Re: [css-d] font-size advice
Thanks for the good discusssion. I didn't anticipate that a question about font sizes would start such a lively discussion ;) Since I am including people with vision impairment in my target audience, it's important to enable font resizing in as many browsers as possible. So I will stick with relative font sizing and tweak the sizes a little. __ css-discuss [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d IE7 information -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=IE7 List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] font-size advice
I just wanted to add a link to an article which was posted by Ed Seehouse on the previous thread perfect font sizes- any sample solutions?- http://pages.prodigy.net/chris_beall/TC/ (then choose Font size from the list on that page) It sums up well, I thought, and in clear, simple language I could understand, what seemed to be a partial consensus from that thread (percentages, set no base font/ or set 100%) __ css-discuss [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d IE7 information -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=IE7 List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] font-size advice
Good evening to All, I think maybe we should now all accept the warning, and not force the intervention of a moderator. I would say this, on this subject. Besides what has been written here, what I've been told privately and what I have managed to find on the web, (some going back as far, as 2003). It seems reasonable for anyone considering asking the question, what is the optimum font size for my website (or however they word it). The answer is No such animal exists. If what you've designed has satisfied you're client, and his site visitors then I guess it's right. If not I guess it's wrong. There are no definitive answers to anything on the web, there will always be an exception to any rule we care to make, that's what we have to live with, and work with. So lets all accept it and move on.. Agree or not 'Georg?' I've learned a lot over the last ten days, now have to start all over again.. DG) __ css-discuss [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d IE7 information -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=IE7 List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
Re: [css-d] font-size advice
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: There are no definitive answers to anything on the web, there will always be an exception to any rule we care to make, that's what we have to live with, and work with. So lets all accept it and move on.. Agree or not 'Georg?' Asked directly like that, I have to say I agree - more or less. Rules without exceptions are limitations, in my terminology. I hate limitations, so I always reserve the right to make exceptions :-) I've learned a lot over the last ten days, now have to start all over again.. Slightly wrong approach, IMO. No need to discard what works, only what doesn't. A better approach might be to fix or remove the parts that aren't working, keep the rest and add whatever is needed to make it all work together as a whole. I'll also advice that one continuously expands ones library of rules and exceptions - especially exceptions, since even the smallest details may come handy one day. regards Georg -- http://www.gunlaug.no __ css-discuss [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.css-discuss.org/mailman/listinfo/css-d IE7 information -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=IE7 List wiki/FAQ -- http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ Supported by evolt.org -- http://www.evolt.org/help_support_evolt/
