Dynamic CSS - variable size text

by David Sharp <David.Sharp(at)sharp-words.com>

 Date:  Tue, 10 Oct 2000 11:53:05 +0200
 To:  <hwg-techniques(at)hwg.org>
  todo: View Thread, Original
Hi,

I've been doing a bit of work on a dynamic stylesheet, which allows 
the user to change font sizes to suit their own preferences.

http://www.sharp-words.com:8080/ - play with the "Text preferences" settings.

I would be interested to hear how useful people find this type of feature.

-- Is it worth doing at all, or should one simply let users define 
their own font size settings?

(I suspect that given the number of sites on the Web which force font 
sizes, many users don't even realise that they can adjust the 
settings to suit their visual preferences. But I may be wrong on 
that).

-- If you think it's worth doing, are there any comments, criticisms?

To create the dynamic stylesheet, I had to specify that PHP should 
parse ".css" files.

The page feeds a "basefont" parameter to the style sheet via the 
query string; PHP then inserts the user's size preferences, specified 
in pixels, into the css file.

To see what I mean, take a look at 
http://www.sharp-words.com:8080/css/default.css?fontbase=10 and fool 
around with the "fontbase" value. Ten is the default; it can go as 
low as six, and as high as the user wants.

NB: right now, the page works best with IE 5. It also works with 
Netscape 4.X, but a few other things need to be fixed for that 
browser.

Comments, reactions?

Best wishes,
-- 
--
David Sharp, journaliste, France http://www.sharp-words.com/
Tel (home) 331 45 49 24 09  - (office) 331 40 41 47 92
  E-mail <mailto:david.sharp(at)sharp-words.com>

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