Re: font-size inheritance IE6 problem

Veerle wrote:

Replace * by body. Then every font in your page will be size 13px,
unless it is in an html element for which defined another font size,
eg your footer. That's why they call it "cascading" style sheets.

The "cascade" refers to the author -> browser-default -> user-preference
succession of style sources, not to the business of style inheritance.

--
Jack.

Jack schreef:

Veerle wrote:
Replace * by body. Then every font in your page will be size 13px,
unless it is in an html element for which defined another font size,
eg your footer. That's why they call it "cascading" style sheets.

The "cascade" refers to the author -> browser-default -> user-preference
succession of style sources, not to the business of style inheritance.

--
Jack.

Oops, didn't know. I always figured it was because the elements in the
html inherit their style from their parent's style, except if it is
overruled. But after doing some research on the net, I see that you are
absolutely right!

I always go with the stylesheet of the author. I've never in my life
changed the style of a website I visit to my own or the browsers one.
And because a lot of the websites on the net don't seperate their
markup from style correctly (eg tables for layouting) I don't think
there's a lot of advantage in doing so. Except maybe for people who
can't read small fonts very well and want to set the font to a larger
one or change foreground and background color to very contrasting ones.
But even then, a lot of the websites on the internet use fixed font
sizes (like the example above) so it won't work anyway. The idea is
great, but in reality it doesn't always work because people can put
online as crappy html as they whish. But of course, it is good to
advise website authors not to do this, so maybe one day, most of the
websites get it right. Although I don't believe that will ever happen.

Veerle wrote:

The idea is great, but in reality it doesn't always work because
people can put online as crappy html as they whish. But of course, it
is good to advise website authors not to do this, so maybe one day,
most of the websites get it right. Although I don't believe that will
ever happen.

Hey, that's normal; in the real world, most things suck, and good stuff
is very rare. It'll never be different. But if people who can tell the
difference don't insist on quality, the good stuff will become even rarer.

That's philosophy.

--
Jack.

Veerle <veerleverbr (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote:

I always go with the stylesheet of the author. I've never in my life
changed the style of a website I visit to my own or the browsers one.

I usually leave the author's style sheet in place too, unless I need to
switch to my browser's User Mode (which disables a lot more than the
author's style sheet).

My user style sheet has just a few !important rules that target specific
problems. Combined with browser settings like Minimum Font Size, it reduces
the need to switch to User Mode. It isn't a complete design of its own, and
I don't replace the author's style sheet with my user style sheet.

Unless the design is so bad that I switch to User Mode, that is.

Except maybe for people who can't read small fonts very well and want to
set the font to a larger one or change foreground and background color to
very very contrasting ones.

No one can read "small fonts" very well. It's just that the definition of
"small fonts" varies from person to person, and from display environment to
display environment. On my high-res displays, a minimum font size of 12px
is comfortable and reasonable to me. In some other display environment or
for someone with better/worse vision than mine, 12px might be huge or
illegibly small.

But even then, a lot of the websites on the internet use fixed font
sizes (like the example above) so it won't work anyway.

Says who? The rule

html, body { font-size: 100% !important ; }

goes a long way. Throw in Minimum Font Size and you can repair a lot of
microfont problems automatically.
--
Darin McGrew, mcgrew (AT) stanfordalumni (DOT) org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, darin (AT) htmlhelp (DOT) com, http://www.HTMLHelp.com/

"There is no right way to do the wrong thing."

On Fri, 14 Jul 2006, Darin McGrew drags above the scorefile horizon
that:

Veerle <veerleverbr (AT) hotmail (DOT) com> wrote:

But even then, a lot of the websites on the internet use fixed font
sizes (like the example above) so it won't work anyway.

The reality is that there is no such thing as "fixed font sizes" on
the WWW.

Even if you specify CSS px units, or pt units, you'll have a hard time
finding a display on which they are displayed in full and accurate
conformance with the applicable specifications.

Over and above the fact that different users have different needs,
your supposed "fixed" font sizes are going to end up different anyway.

Knowing that px and pt units not only don't work to specification but
aren't what the user needs, it isn't too hard to make a good choice,
IMHO.

Says who? The rule

html, body { font-size: 100% !important ; }

goes a long way. Throw in Minimum Font Size and you can repair a lot of
microfont problems automatically.

Indeed.

"Jack" <mrdemeanour (AT) nospam (DOT) jackpot.uk.net> wrote

The "cascade" refers to the author -> browser-default -> user-preference
succession of style sources, not to the business of style inheritance.

Yes, it's about precedence, not inheritance, but not specifically three
style sources. The cascade can include multiple stylesheets from one or more
sources.

http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS1#the-cascade

Daibhidh