Re: AWARE-TECHNIQUES

> >Oh, if only.....
> >The truth is that ems don't work. Points - hopeless. The best way is
not
> >to set the font size at all. The trouble is that this results in
larger
> >settings (PC / IE) than desirable. Pixels work but are not scalable
in
> >IE (though they are in Opera and Netscape6).

> You are of course right, they don't work _today_, so use percentiles
then.

But, surely (and according to my experiments), percentages work in
exactly the same way as ems?

> Try using 90% if you find the "default" is too large.

I tried this. If you set less than 100% or less than 1em in a style
sheet then life for Mac/Netscape users becomes intolerable as the
resultant font can display at less than 9px. So, to allow for folk who
change their settings, it really is not permissable to use less than
100% / 1em. I tried 'smaller' too - similar problems.

> The point is, that
> while _you_ may find it too large, my Dad might find it just right...
> (hehe).  Scalable text degrades nicely... the user gets to decide, not
the
> developer.

I agree - and I feel bad about it. However:
On a site I am developing, http://www.wrensong.co.uk/ (temporary home) I
have set the 'base' (body) font-size as 12px (in generation 5+
browsers). I would have preferred a size of 10px or whatever, but
decided that 12 px was as small as I could comfortably go for those who
like their text larger than I do. Any larger than 12px is really too
large for me. It is a bit of a quandary. However, I did not set the
font-size at all for those on generation 5- browsers and, on browsers
other than IE, it is possible to scale the fonts on generation 5+
browsers. So that just leaves IE 5+. The solution here is to ignore the
set font sizes: Tools - Internet Options - General - Accessibility -
Ignore font sizes specified on web pages. Eureka!!! (I will just have to
add this information to a help page - not ideal, I know, but at least it
works.)
[I just used 2 style sheets to achieve this solution.]

Jenny

HWG: hwg-basics mailing list archives, maintained by Webmasters @ IWA