Using top-level selectors

[Andreas Prilop]

Re: Using top-level selectors

On Sat, 19 Apr 2008, Jukka K. Korpela wrote:

Michael Everson says about his Everson Mono Unicode:
"I have found it quite legible at sizes as small as 4 points."
( http://www.evertype.com/emono/ )

I wonder whether this statement applies to the Latin script only
or also to all the other scripts that Everson Mono covers.

--
In memoriam Alan J. Flavell

http://groups.google.com/groups/search?q=author:Alan.J.Flavell

[Felix Miata]

Re: Using top-level selectors

On 2008/04/22 10:47 (GMT-0500) Bergamot apparently typed:

Felix Miata wrote:

>On 2008/04/19 14:37 (GMT-0500) Bergamot apparently typed:

>So OEM or 12pt isn't relevant, especially considering that IE doesn't support a minimum
>font size.

>It's good that included facts are facts rather than perpetuated myths.

It's a fact that both Opera and gecko browsers default to 16px, at least
on Windows. What's the myth?

That 16px is the default on the most widely deployed browser on the planet.
If 16px was the IE default, then 'font-size: medium' with the browser's text
sizer set to medium would always be the same size as 'font-size: 16px', but
it isn't. It is however always equal to 'font-size: 12pt'.

>>Besides, it would be foolish to give up a browser you are
>>otherwise happy with over this.

>All other things being equal, I very much think not.

All other things are not equal, though.

Exactly equal, of course not. Very similar, I think very much so.

>In basic function,
>Safari is remarkably similar to Firefox.

I'm not a Firefox fan, but I've tried the Windows version of Safari and
found nothing that would make me want to switch to it. Heck, I can
barely even read the tiny type in the UI.

I noticed that very quickly, and almost as quickly found that apparently no
one else who might have, attempted to do anything about it. I filed an Apple
bug (#5816271), but I don't know if anyone but me or Apple devs can access
it. I also filed a Webkit bug: http://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=18001

Konqueror and Safari are likewise both KHTML.

No they are not. Konq is KHTML. Safari is Webkit.

Most desktop display devices (notice I didn't say monitor ;) ) are not
properly calibrated. That's especially true for Windows users.

Most OS X users not only default to an arbitrary DPI like on doz, but also
they have no way to correct it.

>Think some more about your target audience and what you want from it. Isn't
>it mostly precisionists? Do you think such people relate well to factual
>errors or language easily interpreted multiple ways

So what specifically is easily interpreted in multiple ways?

More than I care to spend time on any time soon. Maybe some other time.

BTW, I targeted Windows because that's where about 90% of the users are

Are you targeting windoz users, or deeziners? Ordinary Windoz users can't fix
stupidly designed web sites.

Do you want your article to be a reference for good design practices? Most
good web design practices are OS (and browser) agnostic, as well as body font
size agnostic. ;-)
--
"Either the constitution controls the judges, or the
judges rewrite the constitution." Judge Robert Bork

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

[Eric B. Bednarz]

Re: Using top-level selectors

Felix Miata <UgaddaBkidding .due2UCE@dev.nu lwrites:

Are you targeting windoz users, or deeziners?

On a related note, are you targeting teens, or toddlers?

(*sigh*)

--
||| hexadecimal EBB
o-o decimal 3771
--oOo--( )--oOo-- octal 7273
205 goodbye binary 111010111011

[Bergamot]

Re: Using top-level selectors


Felix Miata wrote:

On 2008/04/22 10:47 (GMT-0500) Bergamot apparently typed:
>

>BTW, I targeted Windows because that's where about 90% of the users are

>
Are you targeting windoz users, or deeziners?

Windows users are most *affected* by this ridiculous design practice,
simply because of their sheer numbers. It is not an IE problem, though
you think I should bring up a bunch of unrelated and unimportant (to me)
IE factors, nor is pushing Safari the answer.

BTW, you are free to write your own article on the clagnut issue, if you
don't think I'm doing it well.

--
Berg

[Felix Miata]

Re: Using top-level selectors

On 2008/04/23 23:09 (GMT-0500) Bergamot apparently typed:

Felix Miata wrote:

>On 2008/04/22 10:47 (GMT-0500) Bergamot apparently typed:

>>BTW, I targeted Windows because that's where about 90% of the users are

>Are you targeting windoz users, or deeziners?

Windows users are most *affected* by this ridiculous design practice,
simply because of their sheer numbers.

Can users do anything significant about the problem? Not likely. Can
deeziners? Certainly. Can the teachers of deeziners? Absolutely.

The problem and its solution are 100% platform agnostic. The problem affects
100% of Gecko and Opera users of minimum font size equally, regardless of
platform. It affects 100% of Gecko, Opera, IE, KHTML and Webkit users of user
stylesheets containing 'body {font-size: 100% !important}', 'body {font-size:
1em !important}', or 'body {font-size: medium !important}', regardless of
platform, as well. Limiting the target of the article to some arbitrary
subset of the entire universe seems pointless, and likely counter-productive,
in the fight against the ridiculous design practice.

BTW, you are free to write your own article on the clagnut issue

IIRC I saw you mention at least one of them upthread:

http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/Clagnut/bbcnSS.html

http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/Clagnut/eonsSS.html

The latter was originally written last June.
--
"Either the constitution controls the judges, or the
judges rewrite the constitution." Judge Robert Bork

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

[Bergamot]

Re: Using top-level selectors


Felix Miata wrote:

On 2008/04/23 23:09 (GMT-0500) Bergamot apparently typed:
>

>BTW, you are free to write your own article on the clagnut issue

>
IIRC I saw you mention at least one of them upthread:

http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/Clagnut/bbcnSS.html

http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/Clagnut/eonsSS.html

Actually, you mentioned them, not me. ;)

The huge screenshots in those pages make it quite difficult to figure
out what you're trying to say, but if you think that gets the message
across better than what I wrote, then I guess we're done.

--
Berg

[Felix Miata]

Re: Using top-level selectors

On 2008/04/24 10:23 (GMT-0500) Bergamot apparently typed:

Felix Miata wrote:

>On 2008/04/23 23:09 (GMT-0500) Bergamot apparently typed:

>>BTW, you are free to write your own article on the clagnut issue

>IIRC I saw you mention at least one of them upthread:
>http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/Clagnut/bbcnSS.html
>http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/Clagnut/eonsSS.html

Actually, you mentioned them, not me. ;)

I guess I wasn't clear. Your Fri, 11 Apr 2008 22:41:46 -0500 post strongly
implied you had visited the latter.

The huge screenshots in those pages make it quite difficult to figure
out what you're trying to say,

They aren't huge on my systems, each being considerably smaller than full
screen, as little as less than half screen, depending on system.

but if you think that gets the message
across better than what I wrote, then I guess we're done.

I invite you to explain how the image sizes make understanding the message to
be difficult.

Looking at bbcnSS, the small SeaMonkey windows blocking portions of the
Firefox windows provide the context that shows default environment. In the
upper screenshot, you should be able to see that the BBC site text is
considerably smaller than the default, and distinctly smaller even than the
UI text in the browsers. In the middle, after application of either minimum
font size or user CSS, you should be able to see that the BBC site text has
grown to be considerably smaller than the default. In the last, you're
supposed to be able to see approximately how the BBC site would look if more
intelligent and respectful CSS was used on the BBC site in the first place.
This is what the actual page text is supposed to explain.
--
"Either the constitution controls the judges, or the
judges rewrite the constitution." Judge Robert Bork

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

[Bergamot]

Re: Using top-level selectors


Felix Miata wrote:

On 2008/04/24 10:23 (GMT-0500) Bergamot apparently typed:
>

>Felix Miata wrote:

>

>>http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/Clagnut/bbcnSS.html
>>http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/Clagnut/eonsSS.html

>

>The huge screenshots in those pages make it quite difficult to figure
>out what you're trying to say,

>
I invite you to explain how the image sizes make understanding the message to
be difficult.

How clear is your message if you aren't using a full size browser window?

The first time I went to one of those pages, I didn't know what I was
looking at. More than 1/3 of it was off the right side of the screen and
I didn't bother scrolling over there. The text annotations don't really
stand out, at least not to me. Note that I'm not the only person who
expressed confusion at what those pages were trying to say.

You wrote it, so of course the meaning is clear to you.

--
Berg

[Felix Miata]

Re: Using top-level selectors

On 2008/04/24 13:50 (GMT-0500) Bergamot apparently typed:

Felix Miata wrote:

>On 2008/04/24 10:23 (GMT-0500) Bergamot apparently typed:

>>Felix Miata wrote:

>>>http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/Clagnut/bbcnSS.html
>>>http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/Clagnut/eonsSS.html

>>The huge screenshots in those pages make it quite difficult to figure
>>out what you're trying to say,

>I invite you to explain how the image sizes make understanding the message to
>be difficult.

How clear is your message if you aren't using a full size browser window?

The thought quite a while about the above question, and couldn't figure out
its meaning. I put it aside for a while, then came back and thought some
more, and still don't understand it.

Most of the time, my browser windows, when not full screen, are nevertheless
using at least 80% of the screen area. Right now, I have 3 puters booted, one
at 1280x960 (doz), one at 1400x1050 (OS/2), the third at 1856x1392 (Linux).
On all, each image requires considerably less than a full screen.

The first time I went to one of those pages, I didn't know what I was
looking at. More than 1/3 of it was off the right side of the screen and
I didn't bother scrolling over there. The text annotations don't really
stand out, at least not to me.

For 1/3 of those ~1160px wide pages' content to be off screen, your
resolution would have to be less than 800px wide. So assuming you are using
800x600, I can understand why you'd think the text annotations don't stand
out. The difference in your resolution and that of the images is so vast that
your default text size must be quite small in proportion to that on the
system from which the screenshots were taken. If you were to be using
quadruple that 800x600 resolution (1600x1200) while keeping your default size
the same physical size, you'd find the opposite situation to exist, default
size text on the originating system to be quite a bit smaller than your own,
making the annotations stand out quite strongly by comparison. I don't think
there are any really good ways to deal with that without adding a bunch of
whitespace, which is something I definitely do not want there.

I did restyle some to try to make the annotations stand out more on the bbc
page. What do you think? The originally styled page is now at

http://fm.no-ip.com/SS/Clagnut/bbcnSS1.html

Note that I'm not the only person who
expressed confusion at what those pages were trying to say.

The pictures are supposed to be worth "a thousand words", saying more than
any words I could come up with. If a visitor can't make a mental adjustment
based upon the images' browser icons or UI text, or can't make a physical
adjustment, distancing herself from her screen until the browser UI emulates
her own in size, I don't think there's anything more I could do. :-(
--
"Either the constitution controls the judges, or the
judges rewrite the constitution." Judge Robert Bork

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

[Bergamot]

Re: Using top-level selectors


Felix Miata wrote:

On 2008/04/24 13:50 (GMT-0500) Bergamot apparently typed:
>

>The first time I went to one of those pages, I didn't know what I was
>looking at. More than 1/3 of it was off the right side of the screen

>
For 1/3 of those ~1160px wide pages' content to be off screen, your
resolution would have to be less than 800px wide.

You confuse resolution with browser window size.

--
Berg

[Felix Miata]

Re: Using top-level selectors

On 2008/04/25 08:09 (GMT-0500) Bergamot apparently typed:

Felix Miata wrote:

>On 2008/04/24 13:50 (GMT-0500) Bergamot apparently typed:

>>The first time I went to one of those pages, I didn't know what I was
>>looking at. More than 1/3 of it was off the right side of the screen

>For 1/3 of those ~1160px wide pages' content to be off screen, your
>resolution would have to be less than 800px wide.

You confuse resolution with browser window size.

On the contrary, you did not write "off the right side of the window"; you
wrote "off the right side of the screen". Your use of screen rather than
window caused me to believe you meant definition #6 on
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/screen (a more pointed meaning than
"monitor" or "display") and I responded accordingly.
--
"Either the constitution controls the judges, or the
judges rewrite the constitution." Judge Robert Bork

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

[Bergamot]

Re: Using top-level selectors


Felix Miata wrote:

On 2008/04/25 08:09 (GMT-0500) Bergamot apparently typed:

>You confuse resolution with browser window size.

>
On the contrary,

Whatever. I'm bored with this whole subject now.

HAND

--
Berg

[Felix Miata]

Re: Using top-level selectors

On 2008/04/17 16:47 (GMT-0500) Bergamot apparently typed:

Felix Miata wrote:

>Links to criticism of http://clagnut.com/blog/348/ need to be more widespread

I gave it a shot:
http://www.bergamotus.ws/rants/how-n...n-the-web.html

It appears that for post-1.8 Gecko users the minimum size compounding problem
will be history: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=434718

IOW, FF3 seems to behave like Safari.
--
". . . . in everything, do to others what you would
have them do to you . . . ." Matthew 7:12 NIV

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/

[Bergamot]

Re: Using top-level selectors

Felix Miata wrote:

On 2008/04/17 16:47 (GMT-0500) Bergamot apparently typed:
>

>Felix Miata wrote:

>

>>Links to criticism of http://clagnut.com/blog/348/ need to be more widespread

>

>I gave it a shot:
>http://www.bergamotus.ws/rants/how-n...n-the-web.html

>
FF3 seems to behave like Safari.

Even if it does, that doesn't make clagnut a good practice. It's still a
ridiculous, convoluted and illogical way to set font sizes.

--
Berg
now killing all posts from google groups

[Felix Miata]

Re: Using top-level selectors

On 2008/05/30 12:58 (GMT-0500) Bergamot apparently typed:

Felix Miata wrote:

>FF3 seems to behave like Safari.

Even if it does, that doesn't make clagnut a good practice. It's still a
ridiculous, convoluted and illogical way to set font sizes.

Quite true. However, the problem is limited mainly to Opera users and the
idiot designers making their own jobs more complicated. Natural selection
should cull the number of those idiot desingers, eventually leading to the
takeover of sanity. Meanwhile, Opera is liable to see the light discovered by
Safari and Gecko.
--
". . . . in everything, do to others what you would
have them do to you . . . ." Matthew 7:12 NIV

Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409

Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/