On 2007/08/03 16:16 (GMT-0400) Rick Lecoat apparently typed: > So, in calculating your 'readable' text size as a proportion of the > (admittedly overlarge) default size, you make yourself vulnerable should > the user have already made their own compensation for the overly large > default size.
The time when is was reasonable to assume the default was either 16px or "admittedly overlarge" is long since past. While the former still might in fact be the case the majority of the time, in the face of growing screen resolutions and DPI the minority of the time is large and rapidly growing, with many instances the DPI high enough that the PC supplier (for laptops usually, and indirectly) changes the default to 20px (actually still 12pt, the real default in most cases) by changing the system DPI from the normal 96 to a necessarily larger 120. The only way to know a size is "too large" is if you are looking at it. You know neither how many px your visitors have available (without JS), nor how big each is (with or without JS). You don't have your users' eyes, nor their seating distance, nor their hardware, nor their lighting conditions, nor their personal software settings, except by small chance. Something you probably do have is no less than average eyesight, which biases you into thinking smaller is OK. So, there's just no way you can know too large or too small or anything in between for any typical site's users. The only reasonable current assumption is that the users' defaults are exactly as they want and/or need them to be. Assuming otherwise with anything other than medium, 1em or 100% in body flowing through to main content unaltered could somehow be any improvement is thus an inexcusably rude imposition. http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/auth/bigdefaults.html > The more I look at the clagnut solution, the more I come > to the conclusion that relying on the user having their browser's > default text size unchanged is simply building a house on sand. Sooner > or later it's coming down around your ears. Absolutely. -- " It is impossible to rightly govern the world without God and the Bible." George Washington Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/ ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *******************************************************************
