Michael Kear wrote: > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Felix Miata > <<<<> 5) I'd suggest setting your "body" font size to 76% or 0.7em. It looks > > just a little better at that size. > It already is .7em, which is only half default size (49% of the total > pixels per character box of the default size).>>>>> > Thanks for your thoughts Felix. The size is already at 0.7em because I > adopted the excellent suggestion of Hugh Todd and changed it.
Much too small. If you insist on using too small sizes, at least use % instead of em in the body rule so that IE6 won't fall apart: http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=UsingEms http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/auth/IE/IE6FontInherit.html > <<<<If one is using IE6 and the median screen resolution of 1024x768, > scrolling is required to discover the <H2> "Too small to read?" (which > at 1.5em X 13px is ~2.5px smaller than my Gecko default). If one gets to > the point of seeing it and clicking on it, he is delivered a page that > also has everything except headings and <TD> ("What's on the air today:" > data is much larger in IE than is <p> on the rest of the page) set to > 13px (which is who knows how big compared to the user's default, which > in my case translates to a minescule 35%), on this a page ostensibly > intended to help the user overcome too small page text. How is a user > supposed to read this? What a paradox - help that needs help! > On this help page at the very least the help text should be big enough > to read - e.g. 1.0em. But then that begs the question - if the text was > big enough in the first place, the visitor wouldn't need the page in the > first place, would he?>>>>>> > I put the "too small to read?" page in there because the deputy chairman of > the station who is overseeing the project couldn't read the site. In my Could be his eyes are 20-40 years older than yours. > browser, it all looks fine. In his it doesn't. It's a conundrum. If he > set up his browser properly, the site would look ok. No, if you set your browser up properly before you started work on a site, it would look right in both your browser(s) and those of everyone else who has taken the trouble to suit their own needs by correctly setting defaults. You, as countless others, create problems because you DON'T configure your own to suit your own taste BEFORE beginning design work, instead assuming as do too many others, that most do nothing as do you yourself, and that those who do simply don't matter to you. > You don't think the 'help' page is much use obviously. Well my problem is, I > can't see the issue I'm trying to solve. I don't know how to set up my > browser wrongly so I get the same view that our deputy chairman does. You Maybe you can't. Someone in that position might be using an expensive laptop, configured by default for "high" resolution, 1280x1024, 1400x1050 or 1600x1200. On these displays, 13px is tiny. A font that looks OK at 13px on 800x600 will not on 1600x1200, where 26px is required to render at the same physical height on a given size display. 1600x1200 isn't uncommon on CRT displays 19" or larger either. > do apparently. Since the help page looks wrong to you, and I can't see the > problem that I'm trying to solve, perhaps rather than merely criticising you > could help me out here by suggesting what would be a better setting. I Since you apparently find 13px a good size, set your Gecko to 13px default, and your IE to "smaller". > figured that for anyone who saw the text on the site as being too small, the > only way I could give them a page that they could definitely see would be > one with text fixed at the normal pixel size used in the old-fashioned sites > - namely with body text fixed at 11-15 pixels (I chose 13px). A normal text size is the browser default, whatever that may be. Most browsers that haven't had their settings touched start at 16px, though IE6 gets to 16px because of a 12pt default, which at the standard windoze 96 DPI font size setting translates to 16px. Whether that is a good default on any particular system depends on a multitude of factors, including: 1-display size (12" to 22" or more CRTs, and other types both larger and smaller) 2-display resolution (CRT 640x480 up to 2048x1536 or more, various others) 3-logical DPI (72 up to unlimited, with 120 not uncommon) 4-user's visual acuity (14 year old eyes, to 70 years or more) 5-font rendering capability of the OS (quite varied) 6-display's dot pitch (or equivalent) > To be honest I don't know how to deal with this issue and perhaps others > might like to suggest a way. If they can't see the site because it's too To see how others see it is necessary to use many settings combinations, whether that means one machine with many virtual machines, or many different machines and displays. > small, and I want to keep the relative font sizing, how to I deliver a help > page that they can see? It's silly to give them a page with fonts in > relative sizes (1.0em) because that's the problem they're trying to solve! > For the others that size is huge. That's the paradox I described, except that 1.0em being huge is your opinion, not a fact. If your browser defaults were sized to what you like, then 1.0em would be exactly right for you. > <<<<The chevrons placed to the left of the teaserpara.h2 in Gecko are > obscuring the h2 in IE.>>>> > The chevrons obscuring text? Not in any browser I use at any resolution > I've been able to test at. Perhaps you can give me some more details of > your resolution settings, os etc. Median windoze settings: 96 DPI ("small fonts") IE6 set to "medium" 1024x768 http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/tmp/hawkradioW98-IE1.png > <<<<I didn't look into the why, but at higher resolutions, the topmost menu > wraps below itself on top of the dark background. Also, the date is > split into two parts, part on the left, the rest imposed illegibly on > the dark blue background of the top of the schedule table.>>>>> > I'd be most grateful if you DID look into the why, because on my browsers, > at all resolutions I can test at down to 800x600 (below that I'm not > interested in) it scales nicely, and is right aligned, and comes across to > about 80% of the width of the page. The remaining space is to be used by > two more major divisions of the site once they're ready. I'm not sure what > higher resolution you are using but I work at 1280x1024 and I don't know if http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/auth/aspect.html > many of our users are going to be going higher than that. If there are > problems with layout higher at resolutions higher than 1280x1024 I guess > we'll have to live with it. 2 or 3 users aren't going to be a problem. > What higher resolution are you talking about, Felix? http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/auth/std-resolutions.html > Mike Kear > http://afpwebworks.com Rather than me getting into why, just take a look at these: OS/2 - Mozilla current trunk 1280x960 120 DPI default font size 20px (13px=42.2%) http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/tmp/hawkradioOS2-185.png Note relationship of size of your page text to the size of the browser menu, statusbar & button text. Same as above, except zoomed to 150%: http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/tmp/hawkradioOS2-185Z15.png This wouldn't be so bad if your widths were set in relative sizes instead of px values that assume users don't need bigger fonts than you do. Make your overall width 100ex instead of 780px and the relationship between container width and text size will hold constant. SuSE Linux 8.2 - Mozilla 1.2.1 1400x1050 120 DPI default font size 22px (13px=34.9%) http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/tmp/hawkradioS82-121.png Most of your text is equal to or smaller than the main menu text. The meaning of this I've explained at: http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/auth/defaultsize.html#note1 Same system as above, but with Mozilla 1.7.3 http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/tmp/hawkradioS82-173.png and Mozilla current trunk http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/tmp/hawkradioS82-185.png These last two may well show a bug or two in the standard Mozilla.org Linux builds. But, note similarity to the zoomed OS/2 shot above. SuSE Linux 9.1 - Mozilla current trunk 1400x1050 120 DPI default font size 22px (13px=34.9%) http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/tmp/hawkradioS91b.png This is from a rather fresh install, and I haven't tweaked Mozilla's chrome yet. The statusbar and button text will be larger when I'm done, not quite as large as the menu text, similar to the urlbar text. This is compared set in the entire desktop for perspective. Note the body font-size on the W3 page is 100%, which means I can read that page comfortably without futzing with zoom. Same as above, except with Mozilla's minimum font size set to about 70% of the 22px default (16px): http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/tmp/hawkradioS91-m16.png Note again similarity to the OS/2 150% zoom shot. -- "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." U.S. Constitution, Amendment 1 Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/auth/ ****************************************************** The discussion list for http://webstandardsgroup.org/ See http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm for some hints on posting to the list & getting help ******************************************************
