On 10/17/07, Rafael <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > Gernot Hassenpflug wrote: > I've been trying to improve my own webpage design (header, 3 > columns, footer) to cater for gecko, khtml and IE6/7 rendering /../ > > What I am worried about is the following: how can one design CSS > styles that resize the block elements when the user decided to > increase the font (of the inline text)? /../ > > What I'd like, I think, is an expanded viewport (virtual, i.e., > larger than the actual screen) with---scroll bars activated---as the > block elements all expand to cater for the extra needed space as the > font size is increased. > > /../ > As far as I understand, this cannot be achieved (being 100% safe) > because browsers have problems dealing with this resizing, so the > proportions are lost and you get what you already saw --but it seems all > major browsers will have native zooming once Fx 3 comes out, since Opera > and now IE 7 already have it.
Thanks for the informative reply Rafael, that gives me some much-needed perspective. I just had a 2-hour SkyPE conversation with a colleague about IE7 (he uses) vs. IE6 (me) and khtml and gecko rendering (also me), exchanging video clips of sites as we worked, and showing off the IE7 zoom. Very impressive indeed. I haven't updated Opera but will do so. That makes web designer's goals a little simpler than before, I suppose. > Now, what you're looking for is a solid layout using "relative" units > (em, ex, %, etc.) instead of "absolute" units (px, pt, etc.). Both 'em' and > 'ex' are relative to the font size, so the bigger the font the bigger (in > pixels) they are. Another thing, I guess the sites you mentioned that get > broken have a "safe margin" for font resizing where the layout stays > well-formed, am I right? This is usually the case, if not, the site could > have a couple of issues. Yes, you are surely correct about the "safe" margin, my site had that too. It is better than nothing! I take the point about relative units, but for lining up margins/padding I haven't managed to get rid of all absolute units, for reasons you point out below. > A downside of this method is that you can't have "pixel-perfect" > layouts, and you must use images intelligently. Some people set the images > size in relative units too to get a better scaling effect, just like > zooming. Right, I didn't think about this possibility. Thanks a lot once again. Gernot ______________________________________________________________________ css-discuss [EMAIL PROTECTED] 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/
