On 2009/04/24 20:34 (GMT+1000) daniel a. thornbury composed: >>> On 24/04/2009, at 7:47 PM, Rimantas Liubertas wrote:
>>> And there is NOTHING wrong with pixel sizes. >> On 2009/04/24 12:47 (GMT+0300) Rimantas Liubertas composed: >> On the contrary, everything is wrong with pixel sizing fonts, because any >> "size" in px totally disregards the size the visitor has set in his browser >> prefs, > I wouldn't agree with Felix's statement at all, and tend to think > Rimantas is correct - there is NOTHING wrong with px font sizes. They > are not absolute According to the CSS spec, it is correct that px font sizes are not absolute. However, what it says is that px is relative to the viewing device. Well, that's little short of an oxymoron. On modern flat panel displays, you don't change the display, nor its resolution. As a consequence, on any given system with such a display, px is functionally absolute - it is what it is and you don't get to change it. > and browsers are able to modify the size... The whole point of a browser having a default size that is independent of everything else on the desktop is that the user can personalize it to best suit his needs. Whatever the size is that he makes it should be respected by the web designer as best suited to the majority of the content. > ...without any problems. Hardly. Designers have different ideas about right size. It's not particularly often that one can browse from one web site to another unrelated one, and find that the fonts are not different in size. If OTOH most designers were respecting user personalization, most fonts on most sites would be pretty much just as the user prefers them, and the defenses of minimum font size, style disabling, and zoom, would rarely be needed. > Likewise, font sizes are irrelevant for accessibility. All > accessibility software and screen readers should be able to scale the > fonts accordingly, if not then it's an issue with the accessibility > software. It's easier to keep track of em and percentage sizes for > site wide but px is You've jumped over a huge web-using population, those between those with perfect and near-perfect vision, and those requiring assistive technology. Accessibility isn't just about special software and hardware to create accessibility for those with extreme handicaps. Far more people have mild to moderate visual limitation. For these people, this is very much an accessibility issue. People in this category don't need special hardware or software. The tools that can work for them are part of standard operating systems and browsers in the form of personalization features. All they need for those personalizations to work satisfactorily is for designers to respect them. Since designing totally in px totally disregards those personalizations, and even disregards the settings shipped by the system vendors, px designs are de facto non-accessible, and offensive. To access such sites, it is necessary to employ the above enumerated defense mechanisms. Without the offense, the defense would not be necessary. > Joe Clarke gave a great presentation on this at @media 2007 titled > "When Web Accessibility Is Not Your Problem", notes available here: > http://joeclark.org/appearances/atmedia2007/#fonts That's largely a dishonest defense of laziness, and rudeness. To say that CSS is mere suggestion is certainly correct technically. In the real world it is not. It is much too difficult to competently disregard the suggestions, which transforms CSS from suggestion to compulsion for the vast majority of web surfers. -- "A fool gives full vent to his anger, but a wise man keeps himself under control." Proverbs 29:11 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ ******************************************************************* List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org *******************************************************************
