Problems with cascade in menus

On 2008-08-05, David Morris wrote:

Bergamot wrote:
David Morris wrote:
http://www.netwiz.com.au/cssmenu.html

/* We change font size to 62.6 % to make 0.1em == 1px. We then jump all
the other font sizes up and fix some of the cascading effects...

Another "clagnut" lemming, I see. <heavy sigh

This is the stupidest method ever devised for sizing text. Will this
crap ever go away?

If you are not just sounding off because you think it makes you sound
good, and you really do have a problem with min-font size, upgrade to
FF3. The font sizes are fine there.

No, they are not fine in FF3; they are too small for me to read.

If I set a minimum font size in FF, the page is too wide to fit on
my screen.

Using 'font-size: 62.5%' is one of the problems.

Both can be solved with a sensible stylesheet.

--
Chris F.A. Johnson <http://cfaj.freeshell.org>
================================================== =================
Author:
Shell Scripting Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach (2005, Apress)

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 08:25:03 +0800 from David Morris
<dlmorrisDONTSPAM (AT) netwizDONTSPAM (DOT) com.au>:

Bergamot wrote:
Another "clagnut" lemming, I see. <heavy sigh

This is the stupidest method ever devised for sizing text. Will this
crap ever go away?

If you are not just sounding off because you think it makes you sound
good, and you really do have a problem with min-font size, upgrade to
FF3. The font sizes are fine there.

So you are saying that someone should change their browser to
compensate for bad Web page authoring? Yeah, that's gonna be real
popular with your visitors.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/
Why We Won't Help You:
http://diveintomark.org/archives/2003/05/05/why_we_wont_help_you

Stan Brown wrote:

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 08:25:03 +0800 from David Morris
dlmorrisDONTSPAM (AT) netwizDONTSPAM (DOT) com.au>:
Bergamot wrote:
Another "clagnut" lemming, I see. <heavy sigh

This is the stupidest method ever devised for sizing text. Will this
crap ever go away?

If you are not just sounding off because you think it makes you
sound good, and you really do have a problem with min-font size, upgrade

to FF3. The font sizes are fine there.

So you are saying that someone should change their browser to
compensate for bad Web page authoring? Yeah, that's gonna be real

popular with your visitors.

What I suspected and the author has admitted, was he was just 'sounding
off' (and rather off topic too). I actually am not aware of anyone who
says the page is unreadable. (And if it is please send a screen shot
and browser details).

I hope you are not suggesting that my site is less usable than the
majority out there covering in Flash and Javascript?

The only hard evidence in support of an observable problem has been the
min-font size in FF2 which if set caused the fonts to appear
unnecessarily large. This was fixed in FF3. No doubt there are other
issues, but I have all ready conceded that my site won't work in some
early versions of Opera and some other browsers. I suspect neither will
yours.

I have as you should be aware, made a considerable effort to make my
site work in a number of browsers. FireFox 2 will work well with
default settings.

In article <1218013495.564458 (AT) angel (DOT) amnet.net.au>,
David Morris <dlmorrisDONTSPAM (AT) netwizDONTSPAM (DOT) com.au> wrote:

The only hard evidence in support of an observable problem has been the
min-font size in FF2 which if set caused the fonts to appear
unnecessarily large. This was fixed in FF3.

If we are talking about

http://www.netwiz.com.au/cssmenu.html

I have no big problem using your site and I come in on this only to
mention that there seems so little reason for me to have to horizontally
scroll to see your material. But if you are not interested in this, I
won't stop to suggest a solution.

--
dorayme

dorayme wrote:

If we are talking about

http://www.netwiz.com.au/cssmenu.html

I have no big problem using your site and I come in on this only to
mention that there seems so little reason for me to have to horizontally
scroll to see your material. But if you are not interested in this, I
won't stop to suggest a solution.

Clever.

Horizontal scrolling is of course a usability issue. For me in FF3 with
min-font size at 14pt and screen width 1024, I can read the main body.
The right panel would need to be scrolled into view, but I don't see
that as important as it is a side panel for a reason. But I think that
would happen anyway since that is required for the menu, and while the
numbers would change the effect would be the same (I just didn't like
two rows of buttons - and that broke things). Without min-font set the
Horizontal scroll starts a little after 800 pixels.

I still have heaps on issues on the site. Starting with content and
spelling. I may change the body font size back to 100% in any case to
simplify some descendant styles (they will all need to be smaller of
course) as, despite the noble attempts of others here previously, I am
not locked into any position. Right now I can't change it since it will
break the menu. So, if and when I get around to it, it will be a big
job - and not one to be taken on lightly. So, if you have another
suggestion feel free.

In article <1218015719.373781 (AT) angel (DOT) amnet.net.au>,
David Morris <dlmorrisDONTSPAM (AT) netwizDONTSPAM (DOT) com.au> wrote:

dorayme wrote:

If we are talking about

http://www.netwiz.com.au/cssmenu.html

I have no big problem using your site and I come in on this only to
mention that there seems so little reason for me to have to horizontally
scroll to see your material. But if you are not interested in this, I
won't stop to suggest a solution.

Clever.

Horizontal scrolling is of course a usability issue. For me in FF3 with
min-font size at 14pt and screen width 1024, I can read the main body.
The right panel would need to be scrolled into view, but I don't see
that as important as it is a side panel for a reason. But I think that
would happen anyway since that is required for the menu, and while the
numbers would change the effect would be the same (I just didn't like
two rows of buttons - and that broke things). Without min-font set the
Horizontal scroll starts a little after 800 pixels.

I still have heaps on issues on the site. Starting with content and
spelling. I may change the body font size back to 100% in any case to
simplify some descendant styles (they will all need to be smaller of
course) as, despite the noble attempts of others here previously, I am
not locked into any position. Right now I can't change it since it will
break the menu. So, if and when I get around to it, it will be a big
job - and not one to be taken on lightly. So, if you have another
suggestion feel free.

OK, I had not looked into the exact details but my experience tells me
that whenever there is no very wide pictures or other wide object to
account for it, there is generally a nice enough solution to what I was
complaining about. Not that it would stop me using your site (I don't go
off in huffs at the least little annoyance. Perhaps this is because of
my extreme maturity and calm nature, not to say very good looks, who
knows?

Perhaps I might just let you know the problem in case you come to think
about it later. When I get tired I up my text size quite a bit. When
that happens, I am forced to make my browser wider for your site to read
the paragraphs. It would be nice if this did not happen. Or if it
happened only in the presence of things which by their nature cannot
wrap.

I think the problem comes from your setting such fixed percentages for
the three main cols. But it is not a show stopper. And it is not all
that bad.

--
dorayme

dorayme wrote:

In article <1218015719.373781 (AT) angel (DOT) amnet.net.au>,
David Morris <dlmorrisDONTSPAM (AT) netwizDONTSPAM (DOT) com.au> wrote:

OK, I had not looked into the exact details but my experience tells me
that whenever there is no very wide pictures or other wide object to
account for it, there is generally a nice enough solution to what I was
complaining about. Not that it would stop me using your site (I don't go
off in huffs at the least little annoyance. Perhaps this is because of
my extreme maturity and calm nature, not to say very good looks, who
knows?

Perhaps someone of an appropriate gender who knows you can judge your
looks, but I do appreciate your extreme maturity and calm nature, which
does seem to contrast somewhat with others I have seen in other threads.
Though, perhaps this is just relativity at work.

I think the problem comes from your setting such fixed percentages for
the three main cols. But it is not a show stopper. And it is not all
that bad.

Ok, that is something I could change easily (I think, maybe, perhaps).
What would you suggest? I went with percentages as it was likely to be
approximately proportionate with width:18%, width:64%, width:15%
respectively, with minimum width:90px on the outside two columns (I
forget the reason now but probably to stop the text getting to sub word
width). I can live with the outside columns being fixed, but I want the
center one to max out the space available.

David Morris wrote:

dorayme wrote:

If we are talking about
http://www.netwiz.com.au/cssmenu.html

I have no big problem using your site and I come in on this only to
mention that there seems so little reason for me to have to
horizontally scroll to see your material. But if you are not
interested in this, I won't stop to suggest a solution.

Clever.

Horizontal scrolling is of course a usability issue. For me in FF3 with
min-font size at 14pt and screen width 1024, I can read the main body.
The right panel would need to be scrolled into view, but I don't see
that as important as it is a side panel for a reason. But I think that
would happen anyway since that is required for the menu, and while the
numbers would change the effect would be the same (I just didn't like
two rows of buttons - and that broke things). Without min-font set the
Horizontal scroll starts a little after 800 pixels.

The problem is you can't possibly know anything about a user's setup.
Here's a screen shot as I was looking at your site. My display
resolution is 1280 x 1024. But I don't necessarily want to always use
my browser full screen. My minimum font size in SeaMonkey is 13.

http://edmullen.net/temp/dm.jpg

--
Ed Mullen
http://edmullen.net
Nothing says poor craftsmanship more than wrinkled duct tape.

Ed Mullen wrote:

David Morris wrote:
dorayme wrote:

resolution is 1280 x 1024. But I don't necessarily want to always use
my browser full screen. My minimum font size in SeaMonkey is 13.

http://edmullen.net/temp/dm.jpg

I tried to replicate your screen shot in FF3, and the center column text
was visible as per my previous comments, in fact I then set min size to
14 and it was still visible. Since Sea Monkey is based on Mozilla code,
is it possible that Sea Monkey is using FF2?

In article <1218019715.372867 (AT) angel (DOT) amnet.net.au>,
David Morris <dlmorrisDONTSPAM (AT) netwizDONTSPAM (DOT) com.au> wrote:

I think the problem comes from your setting such fixed percentages for
the three main cols. But it is not a show stopper. And it is not all
that bad.

Ok, that is something I could change easily (I think, maybe, perhaps).
What would you suggest? I went with percentages as it was likely to be
approximately proportionate with width:18%, width:64%, width:15%
respectively, with minimum width:90px on the outside two columns (I
forget the reason now but probably to stop the text getting to sub word
width). I can live with the outside columns being fixed, but I want the
center one to max out the space available.

In many designs this is no problem, best not to specify a width for the
centre, just margins. I am sure you know this.

The trouble with percentage width is often that it does not relate well
to stable content. Imagine a user is happy with his font-size, but
changes his browser width. The width of a column he could perfectly well
read before is now unnecessarily wide. This growth serves no function
here.

Compare this with sizing a side column in ems. Here the width will not
grow just because the user widens his window. And this is perfect if it
was perfectly adequate before. Compare it also with sizing a col in
pixels, the same thing applies in respect to these conditions.

One downside of em widthing is that the col grows wider on text up! Yes,
that is what it is meant to do. But this is not always what is best for
a side column. Better sometimes for it to be fixed in px and the text
wrap earlier. Sure, the danger is it will spill out if the text is upped
real big. Your job is to catch the likelihoods and allow sufficient
room, nothing is perfect.

So, it is all swings and roundabouts. If I have time later, I will take
another look.

--
dorayme