Two Minor Issues - Fourth Try at Posting (now via Google)

Quoth the raven named rf:

grin/
You're supposed to say it like this:

aol>me too</aol

Har! You forgot the caps and all the exclamation points (that ends
with a 1)

<AOL>ME TOO!!!!!!!!!!!1</AOL>

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-bts
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Beauregard T. Shagnasty replied to hisself:

No, I think you have it backwards. I use high resolution and small
type. Therefore, my "fold" is below someone who uses low resolution
and large type.

Let me rephrase my comment:
Consider that your "fold" may be [*taller*] than my "fold." I may
have extra toolbars and a shorter viewport.

My "fold" occurs somewhere around 500 pixels from the top of your page.
This is about where any 800x600 visitor with a couple toolbars is going
to find the "fold."

Over in alt.html, Paul Furman posted this link to his new page:
http://www.edgehill.net/scale.htm

My "fold" occurs around 430 pixels, vertically on the left. Where is
yours?

I see his 800 pixel line on the right.

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-bts
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bgranat (AT) granatedit (DOT) com (Bonnie Granat) wrote in
news:71c7825b.0402091834.4c5bb01a (AT) posting (DOT) google.com:

If people can't read a newspaper, they put on glasses. With computers,
there's a range of sizes for type. I use the smallest size for my own
browsing. That's comfortable to me. I don't read newspapers that are
printed in 14-point text, and I don't read text on the computer that
size. Do you know of any newspapers with 14-point text?

So, I am going to -- like millions of others -- use small type sizes.
Low-vision readers can adjust their browsers, but it's impossible to
design for such large type, and I'm not even going to try, because the
result in high resolution with small type sizes is ugly and
disgusting.

The problem here is that the *physical* dimensions (in units of length like
millimeters or inches, *not* pixels) of text that *you*, or any other Web
designer, see on *your* monitor are *not*, in general, the same physical
dimensions that *your readers* will see on *their* monitors. That's one of
the *biggest* differences between the Web and print.

With a newspaper, everyone (except those who buy a large-print edition)
gets the *same* sized text, and whether it's too small for them depends
only on their vision. But on the Web, it's entirely possible that
variations in browsing situation will mean that if two people have the
*same* visual acuity, the physical size of the text one of them sees will
be too small while the physical size of the text the other one sees will be
just right (or to put it another way, if the *same* person were to view the
page in the two different browsing situations, he'd find the text too small
in one case and just right in the other). And that's because the physical
sizes of the text in the two environments are *different*, because a pixel
in one environment is smaller than a pixel in the other.

And that means that until such time as physically-calibrated browsing
environments become widespread, attempts by Web authors to fix the physical
size their text is rendered at will have exactly the opposite effect; they
will make it *more* variable than if they had just left it alone. And the
more variation, the more people for whom the rendered physical size of the
text will be outside their visual tolerances. Once again, this is the big
difference between the Web and print: a printed page is a physically-
calibrated medium, but a Web page isn't.

As an example, if I were to unplug my 21" monitor and plug in a 17"
monitor, the text that's now perfectly readable to me in my 800x754 browser
window (on a 1280x1024 screen) would turn into flyspecks. It would be
rendered as the same number of pixels, but each pixel would have gotten a
lot smaller.

Richard,

I am testing now whether I can delete all font-size: <x> statements
from my CSS.


Is that what you're saying I should do? I'm willing to do that if I
can then view the page in the size I want. I seem to recall that
sometimes the spectrum of sizes in IE doesn't allow me to make the
type small enough on some pages. Now, perhaps you're saying that's
because a percentage was specified and the spectrum takes you only 5%
or 10% in each direction, thus limiting the possible smallness (or
largeness).

Is that what you're saying? If it is, perhaps tutorials could say
something like this:

If you want to ensure that your visitors can make the text large
enough or small enough to read comfortably, do not specify the font
size FOR ANY STYLE in your style sheet.

OK, Richard, I just deleted all the font-size: <x> statements in a
style sheet here and I'm viewing the page on my browser. It looks no
different than it did before to me, and when I choose Larger (in IE),
that size looks the same as it did before. Are you saying that other
browsers have more choices in making larger or smaller than the ones
IE offers -- Smallest, Smaller, Medium, Larger, Largest?

Bonnie

Richard,

Here's the deal:

- It appeared at first as if taking out font-size completely was going
to work. In TopStylePro, when you preview the result of a style sheet,
it is supposedly showing what the style sheet would do if applied to a
chosen document. It appeared that there was no effect, but when I then
tested an actual document in the browser, I found that there was an
effect. The effect is that in IE, for me, the text is too big -- even
on Smallest. There is no way in IE that I know of to specify font SIZE
in the browser by points, which is what Opera provides, and Netscape,
IIRC. Therefore, I don't think that removing all the font-size
definitions is going to work. What's the next alternative? Using 100%
for all text? What if I want some text to be slightly smaller than
other text? For example, the "Samples available" line that appears on
two pages. I want that smaller than the main text. What do you
suggest?

The only reason I use smaller than 100% is because I cannot read the
pages comfortably when I don't do that. Internet Explorer's range of
sizes simply doesn't allow enough reduction on its spectrum from
Smallest to Largest. In other words, Smallest is not small enough.
That's why I used 90 or 95%. I would switch browsers, but I don't like
the others. I find Opera hard to use and distracting and Netscape is a
little better, but it's also distracting and unintuitive.

Bonnie

Bonnie Granat wrote:

So, I am going to -- like millions of others -- use small type sizes.

If you insist on doing this, then you must stop using Verdana (or any
other similarly large fonts) in the stylesheets.

You obviously have Verdana installed, so you don't see what the effect
is for someone that doesn't have it (like me).

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Quoth the raven named Bonnie Granat:

Are you saying that other
browsers have more choices in making larger or smaller than the ones
IE offers -- Smallest, Smaller, Medium, Larger, Largest?

My browser has an infinite number of choices. I could press Ctrl-Plus
fifteen times if I wanted to.


In the css you currently have - at this moment - you have

font-family: Verdana, Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;

many places. It need be only in body { }. The C of CSS means
Cascading. Though if you really want Tahoma in your tables, the
following is ok.

td {
font-family: Geneva,Tahoma, sans-serif;

Now, as a test, remove all font names except the sans-serif. You will
now see your pages as a significant number of visitors will see them,
those who do not have Verdana. This font is too big! Google for many
discussions as to why it is not good to use Verdana.

Once again, you have to see your pages on other computers.

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-bts
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Will <not.me (AT) Invalid (DOT) add> wrote

Someone else mentioned that when someone's using large type, you have
to scroll down to read a column. Well, what's the solution to that?
You have to scroll down on other pages. I simply will not produce a
page that had more than four or five horizontal inches of text.
Period. I'm stubborn on that.


Although newish to authoring websites - and purely amateur at
that - a thought occurred to me about the necessary scrolling to read
all of the information contained in your pages. As you utilise a
twin-column layout, one has to scroll down to finish reading the first
column, then scroll back up to get the top of the second column, then
down again etc. If you were to contain a nominal "page full" of
two-column text in one box, then another, and so on until the page's
content was exhausted, you would half the required scrolling, and make
your content much more user friendly, which, I guess, is what you are
aiming to achieve :-).

That's an idea. However, as you can see, much of the content is in
lists (because that is the logical mode of presentation for the
information), not paragraphs, which is the cause of the dilemma to
begin with. It's easier to read a bulleted list than a paragraph with
a list. Therefore, I don't know that I can even achieve a pageful
without having a lot of unused space on the right. Maybe on some pages
I can do that. I will check it out. Thank you for your comment.

Bonnie

Thanks for your thoughts, Eric. You bring up very good points.

I have thought about it all and created the following, which I'd like
comments on:

http://www.granatedit.com/testdevelopmentalediting.html

I think most major problems will be solved with this, but maybe not. I
have gotten rid of the menu issue entirely, although in large sizes,
the menu isn't as nice as in small sizes. But in large sizes, you can
resize the window and not lose content (I think). At least that's the
way it looks here.

Thanks.

Bonnie

Bonnie Granat wrote:

http://www.granatedit.com/testdevelopmentalediting.html

I think most major problems will be solved with this, but maybe not.

Long horizontal menus like this are hard to read, and even harder to
find any one particular menu item. It's much more legible as a vertical
list.

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