Frightened new owner of wide screen finds her web pages are in tiny print on it...

In article <4612bea0$0$24600$9b536df3 (AT) news (DOT) fv.fi>,
Osmo Saarikumpu <osmo (AT) weppipakki (DOT) com> wrote:

Bergamot wrote:

Honestly, I think you argue for its own sake. Pick something worth
debating over. This isn't.

Me thinks you are missing the point. Jukka's argument could be stated
classically: if it works, don't fix it. But you are saying: it don't
work, fix it ("It can mess up positioning, among other things.").

Jukka is asking for some beef, while you are evading the question.

Time to put the cards on the table.

--
dorayme

On Tue, 3 Apr 2007 20:08:01 +0300, "Jukka K. Korpela"
<jkorpela (AT) cs (DOT) tut.fi> wrote:

So 80% is 85% now?

No, it's a typo.

For a common default size of 12pt,

It's _not_ the most common default size (for our IE users, anyway),
that's the point. For a statistically significant majority of the target
audience (who by the nature of the content were likely to be tech
early-adopters) the IE 100% default size was excessive and 125% of what
it ought to have been, owing to the aforementioned bug.

For the other IE users, then tough. There were fewer of them and they
lost out. If you know of a way to keep everyone happy, then please
enlighten us. They could of course still adjust their default font size.

Yet you told that 80% is the best solution.

Yes. Best, not perfect. Some of us have jobs, projects, deadlines and
paying users.

Management, hardly surprisingly, wanted to use fixed pixel font sizes.
Would you advocate that instead?

What you need to prove is that it's better than not setting overall
font size at all.

Can't do that.

I kind of suspected you cannot prove your claims.

That's a particularly duplicitous piece of trimming on your part. Your
trollish behaviour is getting worse. Isn't it dawn up there in the
Arctic yet?

OTOH, it's harmless on non-Windows or non-IEs, so anyone who cares
should get their act together and a better browser.

No, the setting that sets font size to 20% smaller than the user has
selected is even more wrong on browsers where the user has better
possibilities of setting the font size.

That's why it's wrapped in an IE -only conditional comment. It's one of
the few good uses I've found for the things.

Osmo Saarikumpu wrote:

Bergamot wrote:

Honestly, I think you argue for its own sake. Pick something worth
debating over. This isn't.

Me thinks you are missing the point.

It can be hard to see his point when he is so unpleasant all the time.

Jukka's argument could be stated
classically: if it works, don't fix it.

And if you don't size anything in em units, that is indeed the desirable
way to go. My original comment was in response to a suggestion for using
body {font-size:1em}
This triggers a well-known IE bug.

But you are saying: it don't
work, fix it ("It can mess up positioning, among other things.").

Jukka is asking for some beef, while you are evading the question.

It's a tiresome subject. The problems IE has with scaling ems is not
anything new. If you have never run into it before, perhaps you just
don't make much use of em units, or if you do you haven't done much
testing in any of IE's Text Size settings except "Medium". That's where
problems make themselves known. For example, a 1em border does not scale
predictably (if at all) at Smallest vs Largest settings, even after
reloading the page. That's a very simplified case of course.
body {font-size:100%} avoids all those issues with ems.

As I said, this is nothing new.

--
Berg

Sherm Pendley wrote:

Is triggering bugs in IE a bad thing? :-)

sherm--

Sherm,

IMO it is a good thing. We should all do it whenever possible (and the
possibilities are legion...). If enough sites did this, the general
public might <optimism> notice and elect to use a more stable browser
</optimism>.

Besides, it's fun, in a dark sort of way.

Chris Beall

Ahh,

I've enjoyed (?) reading this exchange, though it proves my theory
that you're a little scary over here. I am 53 and my eyes aren't great
so I HATE websites with tiny print, yes, I increase the text size in
my browser, but this often makes all the columns and placements go
screwy and causes overlaps etc. So the websites OFTEN look like hell
when I increase text size but I don't care - I won't squint at the
little letters...

To follow-up, since it seemed I can't do what I originally wanted to
do (have a somewhat smaller type-size indicated for people who are
viewing at 800x600) I took the easiest suggestion and specified
100%... so now I guess my site looks retarded on a small monitor but
at least everybody can read it.

The reason I didn't post the URL is simply that it's a blogger site
and I've patched on the code so often it's a mess and I didn't want to
get scolded. But here it is: http://pratie.blogspot.com

Thanks to all who answer in a kindly fashion so we gentle confounded
types don't feel like it was our day on the windshield.

Jane

Scripsit Andy Dingley:

For a common default size of 12pt,

It's _not_ the most common default size

On this planet, it is.

(for our IE users, anyway),

I cannot argue with that, but have you actually studied it?

For a statistically significant majority of the
target audience

That's foolish pseudo-scientific babbling. Either you know it's the
majority, or you don't. (The odds are that you don't.) "Statistically
significant" is relevant only as regards to _samples_ (in the statistical
sense, which 99 % of people don't understand).

(who by the nature of the content were likely to be
tech early-adopters) the IE 100% default size was excessive

So you're telling that they are early adopters and yet don't know how to set
the font size of the browser if it's too large for them?

What you need to prove is that it's better than not setting overall
font size at all.

Can't do that.

I kind of suspected you cannot prove your claims.

That's a particularly duplicitous piece of trimming on your part.

No, I didn't silently removed anything. It is your responsibility to make it
clear what you are commenting on, by making _your_ quotations and use of
pronouns adequate.

No, the setting that sets font size to 20% smaller than the user has
selected is even more wrong on browsers where the user has better
possibilities of setting the font size.

That's why it's wrapped in an IE -only conditional comment. It's one
of the few good uses I've found for the things.

Doing wrong things in WWW authoring doesn't become much better if you do
that to the overwhelming majority of users "only".

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

Scripsit Bergamot:

It can be hard to see his point when he is so unpleasant all the time.

I would hate myself if I ever caught myself calling some person unpleasant
in public when I was not writing under my own full name. I would feel myself
a coward, or worse.

For example, a 1em border does
not scale predictably (if at all) at Smallest vs Largest settings,
even after reloading the page. That's a very simplified case of
course.
body {font-size:100%} avoids all those issues with ems.

Fine. Thank you. You could have saved much by giving a specific example
first time when the question was raised.

As I said, this is nothing new.

Maybe not, but I have only seen people mention the setting without saying
_why_ it is used, despite being apparently redundant and potentially risky
(we know that browsers compute percentages wrongly at times).

--
Jukka K. Korpela ("Yucca")
http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

On 2 Apr 2007 04:30:10 -0700, "melinama" <Jane.Peppler (AT) gmail (DOT) com>
wrote:

Hello,

I've looked through alt.html and this group for an answer to my
question.

However, I found only cranky arguments with, occasionally, bits of
hard-to-understand code - out of context - each of which is slammed by
the next people along in the thread.

So I'm afraid to ask this but I need to know!...

Is there a way to insert a couple of lines in my style sheet that say,
"if the resolution of the viewer's screen is more than 800x600 use a
fontsize 130% bigger"

Please don't call me an idiot, I know already that I am one.

Thanks for your help,
Jane
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Jane,

Cranky? You think the people who post to this newgroup are CRANKY?
Just wait 'til I'm through beating my dog, I'll show you CRANKY!

But back to your question. You shouldn't have to worry about screen
resolution. If you are worried about it, you're likely doing something
else wrong. You could post a URL here on the newsgroup, but that's a
little like going up on top of one of those Aztec pyramids in Mexico
and waiting for the high priest to eviscerate you. It hard to regard
it as a learning experience!


Regards,


Kent Feiler
www.KentFeiler.com

Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

Scripsit Bergamot:

It can be hard to see his point when he is so unpleasant all the time.

I would hate myself if I ever caught myself calling some person unpleasant
in public when I was not writing under my own full name. I would feel myself
a coward, or worse.

Should I call myself John Doe or Jane Smith instead? They would be false
names, of course. Is the illusion of a real name more acceptable? I
think that would be worse.

BTW, I don't feel like a coward at all. I like my anonymity.

(we know that browsers compute percentages wrongly at times).

Sometimes that's true with margin, padding or width, but I've never had
an issue setting font-size:100%.

--
Berg

On 4 Apr, 18:03, "Jukka K. Korpela" <jkorp... (AT) cs (DOT) tut.fi> wrote:

I cannot argue with that, but have you actually studied it?

Yes, that's why I said that I had. We had a forum. We had interested
and involved readers. I could get them to do things, such as looking
at sample pages and commenting on the sizes they observed.

For a statistically significant majority of the
target audience

That's foolish pseudo-scientific babbling. Either you know it's the
majority, or you don't. (The odds are that you don't.) "Statistically
significant" is relevant only as regards to _samples_ (in the statistical
sense, which 99 % of people don't understand).

It's a majority of a sample, it's a sample that's large enough to be
statistically significant. Although your "99%" is probably accurate
(or an under-estimate), don't assume that you aren't the only one in
the <=1%.