Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

[Steve Pugh]

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

"Barry Pearson" <news@childsupp ortanalysis.co. uk> wrote:
[color=blue]
>I've been confused by the following page:
>http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...rties/font.asp
>
>It is talking about the "font" property in CSS. (I use such a DOCTYPE):
>
>"As of Internet Explorer 6, when you use the !DOCTYPE declaration to specify
>standards-compliant mode, the following conditions apply to this property. The
>font-size and font-family values must be declared. If font-size and
>font-family are not declared, or are not in the correct order, the font
>property is ignored. All specified values must appear in the correct order.
>Otherwise, the font property is ignored. In standards-compliant mode, the
>default font-size is small, not medium. If not explicitly set, font-size
>returns a point value".[/color]

That is rather badly written isn't it?
[color=blue]
>That last bit was a puzzle - it appears to say the IE 6 is not obeying the CSS
>specificatio n properly. Or it may mean something else entirely! It has led me
>to specify "medium" in the body rule. I get the expected results in the
>browsers I use, but I haven't a clue what it does to other cases "out there".[/color]

If you set font-size: medium; in your CSS then you would expect this
to appear at the user's/browser's default font size, wouldn't you?

Not if you work for MS!
IE, up to version 5.5 assumed that the browser's default was what
should appear if you set font-size: small.

In IE6 doctype sniffing means that font-size: medium may be the
browser default size (if standards mode s triggered) or may be larger
than the default size (if quirks mode is triggered).

(NB, the CSS font-size: small, medium, etc., has nothing to do with
the IE font sizing, smallest, smaller, medium, etc. Whichever size is
set in the IE preferences is the browser default and hence becomes CSS
small/medium)

Opera also complicates matters. It used to get it right, then it got
it wrong and now it sniffs doctypes.
[color=blue]
>Is there actually a consensus on best practice for font properties in the body
>rule? If there is, what are the implications for all those web sites?[/color]

If you set a font size for body then set it at either 100% or 1em (or
maybe at 101% to cope with an Opera 5/6 bug). 100% is preferred as it
avoids an IE bug when the default size in the browser is set to
anything other than Medium.

Of the other font properties, it would be rare to set font-weight,
font-style or font-variant on body. Setting font-family is common and
the only advice is to avoid fonts like Verdana that _appear_ to be
very different in size to the 'average'.

Steve

--
"My theories appal you, my heresies outrage you,
I never answer letters and you don't like my tie." - The Doctor

Steve Pugh <steve@pugh.net > <http://steve.pugh.net/>

[Barry Pearson]

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

Brian wrote:[color=blue]
> Barry Pearson wrote:[color=green]
>>[/color][/color]
[snip][color=blue]
> Doubtful. There is no way to count the visitors you gain from a
> spiffy presentation. Besides, as I said much earlier in this thread:
> people are on the web for content. And no wonder: the www is a
> content-rich medium driven by pull technology. This will likely
> elicit a counter argument from you that the web is not always about
> content, but then you don't recognize the distinction between content
> and presentation.[/color]
[snip]

I fully understand the difference between content and presentation. This leads
me to believe you haven't been reading what I've saying. I'm convinced that
you have put me in a category that you have experience of, and you are then
responding to that category. I also appreciate the finer distinction between
structure, content, and presentation.

I want to use an example from one of your sites to make a point. So first,
I'll say that I think your sites are very well designed and make some of your
points well. And I think Julie Tremblay's photographs are excellent. I'll
spend more time looking at these sites.

She has a photograph "Bronze Woman". It is not only an image of a woman, but
also has a border like that of a photographic film. I can't tell whether it
comes from the original or was added later. It doesn't matter. People use both
techniques, for example in Photoshop.

http://www.julietremblay.com/portfolio/imagesc/bronze_woman.jpg

As far as HTML is concerned, this border is "content". I have seen
photographic sites where a border has been added some other way. It is
probably possible to add a border as further content in the HTML. It is
obviously possible to add borders via CSSs, and I do so throughout my web
sites. In that latter case, are they presentation or content? According the
language here, they are presentation.

http://www.barry.pearson.name/photography/pictures/glamour/gl01_09_09_2.htm

But, stepping out of the narrow scope of HTML and CSS, I believe all those
borders are presentation. Sometimes they are simply presentation added at an
earlier stage of the process so that HTML sees them as content. I could easily
replace the borders, that I currently add to my photograph pages via CSS, by
borders that look identical across a large range of browsing conditions yet
are part of the JPEG.

I think Julie Tremblay and I have something in common. We both care
passionately how our photographs are presented to the viewer, including such
presentation details as the nature of the area around the image. We probably
both don't care much about fine distinctions between changes of name (from
"content" to "presentati on") depending on where in the total process, from
taking the photograph to having it presented to the user, the details are
added.

Julie clearly wants that border round the photograph, exactly as she envisaged
it. It is her "work", and that is part of the work. I want borders round my
photographs exactly as I envisage them, for exactly the same reason. I accept
that once I have put them on the web, I have no final control. But ... I want
to ensure that in the maximum possible range of browsing conditions, they
appear exactly as I envisage them. If that makes me a control-freak, then
realise that Julie is even more of a control-freak, by locking the
presentation details in at an earlier stage.

Where the HTML content is inherently visual, distinctions between content and
presentation get frustrating, and ultimately get in the way of treating the
web as a full partner in the process of displaying that material.

It is related to another issue I've raised. The W3C recommendation for the
"px" unit in CSS is that it is a relative measure, related (approximately) to
the angle subtended at the eye. That is presentation, in terms used here. An
image in the HTML is content. Now what is the visual relationship between an
image of <img ...width="700"> , and a description underneath it of { width:
700px; }? What should it be? I believe the "px" presentation value should be
"inherited" from the UA's pixel value, (or perhaps vice-versa, but surely the
UA is what knows?), but I can't find any indication to this effect. I worry
that the separation of presentation and content may screw up the display of
many pages on the web.

--
Barry Pearson

http://www.Barry.Pearson.name/photography/

http://www.BirdsAndAnimals.info/

http://www.ChildSupportAnalysis.co.uk/

[Alan J. Flavell]

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

On Mon, 29 Sep 2003, it was written:
[color=blue][color=green]
> > Best bet is simply to avoid fonts which are exceptionally small or
> > (especially) exceptionally large, like Verdana. In the former case I can[/color]
>
> Maybe an other possibility would be use the font-size-adjust property in
> CSS (see http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS2/fonts.html...t-size-adjust).[/color]

That's what it was put there for, indeed. Except that it doesn't
really deal with Verdana, since Verdana seems subjectively
significantly larger than its objective em/ex ratio would imply (as
has been repeated numerous times before on this group).

If font-size-adjust could be based on some kind of subjective size
parameter for each font, it might be put to effective use. But...

But worse than all that, browser implementers wouldn't implement it,
and so the CSS2.1 working draft has dutifully taken it out of the
spec.
[color=blue]
> I use it myself with a value I chose by trial and error but the result
> is very satisfying... in Gecko-based browsers, because IE ignores this
> property.[/color]

[Cue standard response...]

[Barry Pearson]

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

Steve Pugh wrote:[color=blue]
> "Barry Pearson" <news@childsupp ortanalysis.co. uk> wrote:
>[color=green]
>>I've been confused by the following page:
>>http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/de...thor/dhtml/ref[/color][/color]
erence/properties/font.asp[color=blue][color=green]
>>
>>It is talking about the "font" property in CSS. (I use such a
>>DOCTYPE):
>>
>>"As of Internet Explorer 6, when you use the !DOCTYPE declaration to
>>specify standards-compliant mode, the following conditions apply to
>>this property. The font-size and font-family values must be declared.
>>If font-size and font-family are not declared, or are not in the
>>correct order, the font property is ignored. All specified values
>>must appear in the correct order. Otherwise, the font property is
>>ignored. In standards-compliant mode, the default font-size is small,
>>not medium. If not explicitly set, font-size returns a point value".[/color]
>
> That is rather badly written isn't it?[/color]

Chuckle! Just a bit.
[color=blue][color=green]
>>That last bit was a puzzle - it appears to say the IE 6 is not
>>obeying the CSS specification properly. Or it may mean something else
>>entirely! It has led me to specify "medium" in the body rule. I get
>>the expected results in the browsers I use, but I haven't a clue what
>>it does to other cases "out there".[/color][/color]
[snip][color=blue][color=green]
>>Is there actually a consensus on best practice for font properties in
>>the body rule? If there is, what are the implications for all those
>>web sites?[/color]
>
> If you set a font size for body then set it at either 100% or 1em (or
> maybe at 101% to cope with an Opera 5/6 bug). 100% is preferred as it
> avoids an IE bug when the default size in the browser is set to
> anything other than Medium.[/color]
[snip]

Aaaaarrrggh!

I currently have "medium" in the body rule throughout several CSSs on a number
of web sites. I don't want to change it to "1em" or "100%" if that would be
the same.

I have been influenced by something at W3Schools: "Note in IE 4.0+: Default
value of this property is "small", not "medium" as it should be according to
the W3C specification". And, indeed, the W3C statement is "Initial: medium".

So I assumed that if I specified "medium" in the body rule, I would simply
have a correct but redundant declaration in later browsers, but make earlier
IEs behave to standards. That sounded good to me - a sort of safe browser
hack.

Was that a mistake? Have I screwed up users who had corrected the IE bug using
their IE "view" setting? Do I NEED to change?

(IE 6 appears to behave exactly the same whether I say "medium" or not - I use
4.01 Transitional standards-compliance mode throughout).

--
Barry Pearson

http://www.Barry.Pearson.name/photography/

http://www.BirdsAndAnimals.info/

http://www.ChildSupportAnalysis.co.uk/

[Gerhard Fiedler]

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 12:13:11 +0100, William Tasso wrote:[color=blue]
>Sure, I'll write any report you like. Just send over your P.O. and the
>ncessary data for credit references with your commission documentation and
>I'll be off. Please allow for a minimum 21 days at (£900 + £250 exes) £1150
>+ VAT (if applicable in your location). Please allow extra for travel and
>accommodatio n if you require a personal presentation to your board of
>directors.[/color]

which in a way shows how expensive that can get... you might not have
intended this side-effect :)

[Gerhard Fiedler]

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

On 29 Sep 2003 05:00:40 GMT, Eric Bohlman wrote:
[color=blue]
>The key here is to realize that accessibility is a form of quality, and all
>forms of quality are cheap or free to build into a product or service,[/color]

this is, as a matter of fact, wrong. some forms of quality are
extremely expensive to implement.
[color=blue]
>but quite expensive to add after the fact.[/color]

what most probably would agree upon is that designing quality in is
cheaper than retrofitting it. but cheaper != cheap.

"cheaper" means that there is still cost involved. this cost must be
offset by a gain somewhere. if the gain is 0 or smaller than the cost,
most people responsible for a budget would decide to not implement the
extra part -- even if it is cheaper now than later.
[color=blue]
>Designing a process to produce
>parts that all do better than to meet spec is easy and cheap. Culling out
>parts that don't meet spec because the process that produces them relies on
>luck to meet spec is hard and expensive. The manufacturing world learned
>this decades ago.[/color]

it seems you do not work in designing manufacturing processes. most
manufacturing processes work actually the other way round. for example
it is _very_ expensive to create 0 fault chip wafers. so what they do
is they simply work with the faults -- it is cheaper to work with a
certain fault rate and to test out the defect chips on a wafer than to
create a 0 fault wafer (which in some cases is next to impossible).
rest assured that only a small percentage of the readers here could
afford a computer made from 0 fault chip wafers. let's be happy with
the relatively cheap selected chips we are using.

of course, if it is possible to significantly improve the
manufacturing process with little extra cost in the design, it would
be foolish not to do so. but it is not always possible, and in many
cases, selecting is cheaper.

[Barry Pearson]

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

Alan J. Flavell wrote:[color=blue]
> On Mon, 29 Sep 2003, Barry Pearson wrote:
>[color=green]
>> All the evidence I see here and across the web says it costs extra.[/color]
>
> Most of the evidence I see across the web tells me that putting in
> obstacles to accessibility costs extra, and taking them out again
> costs even more. I think you can work out what I deduce from that.[/color]

I can spot a strawman a mile off! And when I see a strawman, or a paraphrase,
I wonder why the response doesn't stick to the point I was making?

Suppose (strawman / paraphrase coming up!) I had said:

"All the evidence I have seen says it costs extra to design and build cars to
handle wheelchairs".

And you had responded:

"Most of the evidence I see across the car-making industry tells me that
putting in obstacles to wheelchairs costs extra, and taking them out again
costs even more".

Don't you think that I might feel that you had failed to address the point?
Suppose that there were 2 companies, one competently designing cars to handle
wheelchairs, the other competently designing cars that didn't need to handle
wheelchairs. I believe the former would cost more. It is inherently a harder
task. I agee that if the latter company builds flexibility in, and especially
if it wanted to be able to handle wheelchairs later, it could ensure that
extra costs were minimised later.

I'm not talking about broken web sites. I am asserting that accessibility is a
progressive cost. It starts perhaps close to zero simply allowing assistive
technology to handle well-structured documents. But when I use IBM's Home Page
Reader on some pages that appear to obey the letter and the spirit of good
mark-up, there are still things where I say "but this is just "visitable" , not
"livable"". (A comment by a disability lobby group on Part M of the Building
Regulations!)

I feel that, following training, and with extra testing for confirmation,
getting to the "visitable" stage may indeed be low. (I have been talking to
the team of a government department about the training they went on with the
RNIB to learn what was needed for accessibility. Their first efforts were not
cheap).

http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/PublicWebsite/public_seminar_info.hcsp

See also:

http://www.rnib.org.uk/xpedio/groups/public/documents/publicwebsite/public_webaccesscentre.hcsp

I also accept that some things that screw up accessibility cost money. But
that isn't because they are broken - they may well have their place. Pop-up
windows, automatic new windows, Flash, even frames, can all be a problem. But
many people think that pop-up windows & Flash are legitimate design features.
(I used to use pop-up windows for photographs, and that is common).

That is why I consider accessibility to be a programme (or process), not a
standard. Making a start may well be cheapish. But honestly, to say it doesn't
cost anything, as others have done, is wishful thinking.

[snip][color=blue]
> None of this is meant to be a criticism of your own pages, and it's a
> pity that you sometimes seem to react to general discussion as if you
> thought that it was.[/color]

I'm sorry if I gave that impression. In fact, except for a couple of known
cases, I don't assume people have even looked at my pages.

What I feel is that I am thought to be "politicall y incorrect" by saying it
costs extra! It is a bit like saying "intelligen ce is partly inherited", or
"men's brains and women's brains have structural differences". It isn't
allowed to be thought possible - it has to be wrong on principle.

--
Barry Pearson

http://www.Barry.Pearson.name/photography/

http://www.BirdsAndAnimals.info/

http://www.ChildSupportAnalysis.co.uk/

[Steve Pugh]

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

"Barry Pearson" <news@childsupp ortanalysis.co. uk> wrote:
[color=blue]
>I currently have "medium" in the body rule throughout several CSSs on a number
>of web sites. I don't want to change it to "1em" or "100%" if that would be
>the same.[/color]

In theory medium = 100% = 1em = user's chosen default.
There may be minor variation, but there is only one major problem and
that is the one I outlined in my previous post.
[color=blue]
>I have been influenced by something at W3Schools: "Note in IE 4.0+: Default
>value of this property is "small", not "medium" as it should be according to
>the W3C specification". And, indeed, the W3C statement is "Initial: medium".[/color]

Badly worded but correct in a sense.
In IE4+ the browser default and the CSS size small are the same.
In correctly behaving browsers the browser default and the CSS size
medium are the same.
The browser default is still the same in both browsers (assuming
Windows, and small fonts selected, and Medium text size selected it
will be 16 pixels), it's just mapped to a different CSS keyword.
[color=blue]
>So I assumed that if I specified "medium" in the body rule, I would simply
>have a correct but redundant declaration in later browsers,[/color]

Yes.
[color=blue]
> but make earlier IEs behave to standards.[/color]

No. It makes those IEs display the text one size larger than their
default.
[color=blue]
>Was that a mistake?
>Have I screwed up users who had corrected the IE bug using
>their IE "view" setting? Do I NEED to change?[/color]

You've made the text larger than their default for all users of older
IE versions, regardless of what they've set their font size to be in
the view setting.

As I said, the CSS font sizes and IE View > Text Size settings have
nothing to do with each other despite having similar keywords. Treat
them both as independent multipliers of the font size.
[color=blue]
>(IE 6 appears to behave exactly the same whether I say "medium" or not - I use
>4.01 Transitional standards-compliance mode throughout).[/color]

Compare http://steve.pugh.net/test/test2a.html and

http://steve.pugh.net/test/test2b.html

2a triggers quirks mode in IE6 and 2b triggers standards mode. Hence
2a is what IE5 will always display.

Steve

--
"My theories appal you, my heresies outrage you,
I never answer letters and you don't like my tie." - The Doctor

Steve Pugh <steve@pugh.net > <http://steve.pugh.net/>

[Gerhard Fiedler]

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

On Thu, 25 Sep 2003 23:27:42 +0100, Eric Jarvis wrote:
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>> > px is no use...it causes accessibility pro[lems and you have no way of
>> > predicting it's appearance anyway...em is better, but the main use
>> > for em is in relating non text elements to text size[/color][/color][/color]

maybe only loosely related, it seems that most images get dimensioned
in pixels. this seems to me somewhat in contradiction to the common
ground in this thread. if i take the basic ideas for dimensioning text
and apply them to images, it seems to me that dimensioning images in
ems is the appropriate method.
[color=blue][color=green][color=darkred]
>> > the best bet in most cases is to leave main body text as the default
>> > size and define larger and smaller text with %...it is the most
>> > predictable and accessible method[/color][/color][/color]

it's getting better now, but there was a time where a large percentage
of pages looked really ugly on high resolution monitors. it was very
evident that different types of content were dimensioned with
different units -- some pixel-based, some not.

[Barry Pearson]

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

Brian wrote:
[snip][color=blue]
> http://www.julietremblay.com/ (fine art photography)[/color]
[snip]

Quick comment. I tried navigating round the site using IBM Home Page Reader &
the keyboard.

It was OK until I hit <return> to get to the photographs from the (colour)
portfolio. Then I lost track.

I think it was something to do with the pop-ups. With IE 6 I can tab around
the thumbnails, hit <return>, and I don't get a pop-up as I do if I click with
a mouse. Right, that appears to be good behaviour.

But as IBM HPR moves automatically through the links, if I hit <return> I
appear to get puzzling results. One effect is a new blank window. Another is
that the gallery window has been replaced by the photograph (good) but HPR
says "blank page".

I'm a novice with IBM HPR.

--
Barry Pearson

http://www.Barry.Pearson.name/photography/

http://www.BirdsAndAnimals.info/

http://www.ChildSupportAnalysis.co.uk/

[Barry Pearson]

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

Eric Bohlman wrote:[color=blue]
> "Barry Pearson" <news@childsupp ortanalysis.co. uk> wrote in
> news:Ufxdb.227$ Pe7.89376@newsf ep2-gui.server.ntli .net:
>[color=green]
>> But, on the whole, accessibility costs extra. I believe that those
>> who say otherwise are setting the level too low. A building can be
>> made accessible by directing wheel-chair users round the back where
>> they can use the freight elevators. But coming through the front
>> doors is likely to cost extra, even if done from the start. Builders
>> in the UK believe that Part M of the Building regulations will add to
>> construction costs, for example wider doors. Yet some disabled people
>> feel Part M has not gone far enough and may only lead to "visitable"
>> rather than liveable" housing.[/color]
>
> I don't think that anybody would argue that *retrofitting*
> accessibility doesn't cost extra. If your doors are too small for a
> wheelchair to get through, there's not a builder in the world who
> would enlarge them for free. But those arguments don't apply to
> designing accessiblity in *from the beginning*. If you haven't built
> your doors yet, no builder is going to charge you extra for making
> them a little wider, since it doesn't cost them anything extra to do
> so.[/color]
[snip]

It does cost them extra, apparently, so I guess they would charge more.

http://www.jrf.org.uk/knowledge/findings/housing/823.asp

--
Barry Pearson

http://www.Barry.Pearson.name/photography/

http://www.BirdsAndAnimals.info/

http://www.ChildSupportAnalysis.co.uk/

[Barry Pearson]

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

Steve Pugh wrote:[color=blue]
> "Barry Pearson" <news@childsupp ortanalysis.co. uk> wrote:
>[color=green]
>>I currently have "medium" in the body rule throughout several CSSs on
>>a number of web sites. I don't want to change it to "1em" or "100%"
>>if that would be the same.[/color][/color]
[snip][color=blue][color=green]
>>Was that a mistake?
>>Have I screwed up users who had corrected the IE bug using
>>their IE "view" setting? Do I NEED to change?[/color]
>
> You've made the text larger than their default for all users of older
> IE versions, regardless of what they've set their font size to be in
> the view setting.[/color]
[snip]

Thanks. I'll act accordingly.

--
Barry Pearson

http://www.Barry.Pearson.name/photography/

http://www.BirdsAndAnimals.info/

http://www.ChildSupportAnalysis.co.uk/

[Brian]

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

Barry Pearson wrote:[color=blue]
>
> I fully understand the difference between content and presentation. This leads
> me to believe you haven't been reading what I've saying.[/color]

On the contrary. Anything I read, I read carefully.
[color=blue]
> I want to use an example from one of your sites to make a point. So first,
> I'll say that I think your sites are very well designed[/color]

Thank you. :)
[color=blue]
> and make some of your
> points well. And I think Julie Tremblay's photographs are excellent. I'll
> spend more time looking at these sites.[/color]

And thank you again. :) I'll pass that along. She's had moderate
success. I gather from your posts that you are a photographer, too.
You must then know that "moderate success" means she still has a day
job, and won't be giving it up any time soon. ;-)
[color=blue]
> She has a photograph "Bronze Woman". It is not only an image of a woman, but
> also has a border like that of a photographic film.
> http://www.julietremblay.com/portfol...onze_woman.jpg
>
> As far as HTML is concerned, this border is "content".[/color]

It's not really an HTML question, but yes, of course you are right,
the border is part of the photograph, and thus is content.
[color=blue]
> I have seen
> photographic sites where a border has been added some other way.[/color]

There are many instances of borders used as decoration on
julietremblay.c om. e.g., on the main portfolio page, the thumbnails
have a thin black border to make them stand out a bit from the
background. That's presentation.
[color=blue]
> obviously possible to add borders via CSSs, and I do so throughout my web
> sites. In that latter case, are they presentation or content? According the
> language here, they are presentation.[/color]

I did concede earlier that art sites sometimes blur the distinction.
Actually, that's not true. The content is visual, so that might
confuse things a tad.
[color=blue]
> http://www.barry.pearson.name/photog...01_09_09_2.htm
>
> But, stepping out of the narrow scope of HTML and CSS, I believe all those
> borders are presentation.[/color]

No. You are confusing the two.

The most important content on julietremblay.c om is photographs. Those
photographs, in their entirety, are content. The border on the
photograph entitled "Bronze Woman" is part of the photograph. If you
ordered that photograph from her, you would receive it with that
border. I know, because I've see a large print of it hanging in her
house. This is not merely semantics. Consider it a matter of
importance, if that helps. "Bronze Woman" can only be displayed from
the web site with that border. The thumbnail images on porfolio/ can
be displayed without the borders, e.g., with a user-stylesheet. For
the artist, she thinks those thumbnails look good with them, but it is
not crucial if they are borderless. The only crucial material on
portfolio/ are the 4 thumbnails and the text. Nothing else is
content. Therefore, nothing else is crucial. Therefore, nothing else
is in the HTML.
[color=blue]
> I think Julie Tremblay and I have something in common. We both care
> passionately how our photographs are presented to the viewer, including such
> presentation details as the nature of the area around the image. We probably
> both don't care much about fine distinctions between changes of name (from
> "content" to "presentati on") depending on where in the total process, from
> taking the photograph to having it presented to the user, the details are
> added.[/color]

She does not care much about technical aspects. That does not
diminish the importance of those technical aspects. You want an
example? I redesigned her site. It already looked much as it does
now, but was done with Dreamweaver, in WYSIWYG mode, or whatever the
hell they call it. Nested tables galore. The thumbnail links did
nothing when js was not available to the browser. Not a title element
on the whole site.

When I explained the importance of these things, I got the sense that
she thought I was quaint, with my "structure" and html and css and God
knows what else. But she was positively wowed when she saw how much
faster her catalog page loaded with my redesign.
[color=blue]
> Julie clearly wants that border round the photograph, exactly as she envisaged
> it. It is her "work", and that is part of the work. I want borders round my
> photographs exactly as I envisage them, for exactly the same reason. I accept
> that once I have put them on the web, I have no final control. But ... I want
> to ensure that in the maximum possible range of browsing conditions, they
> appear exactly as I envisage them. If that makes me a control-freak, then
> realise that Julie is even more of a control-freak, by locking the
> presentation details in at an earlier stage.[/color]

No. The photos are content. Just like, on my personal site's home page

http://people.umass.edu/btrembla/

the poem extract is content. I am not a control freak for wanting 10
lines of the poem. That's my content. I want that extract to look
nice, and line up. So I set a margin, and floated the image of the
author to the left. But NS4 chokes on the margin. Solution?
Obvious: hide the margin from NS4. It doesn't look as nice, IMHO, but
NS4 users can still read the extract, can still read my (amateur)
translation, can still access the content.
[color=blue]
> Where the HTML content is inherently visual, distinctions between content and
> presentation get frustrating, and ultimately get in the way of treating the
> web as a full partner in the process of displaying that material.[/color]

Decide what is core content. All else is presentation. For a
photography site, only the photos themselves are content. Sure,
present them in a way that is visually appealing. Put in borders,
padding, margin. Position things. Create pseudo frames for the
photos. But do all this in CSS. And let go. If the user-agent
cannot correctly put in the pseudo-frames, or the margins, or the
padding, the user can still see the photos. That's what your
photography section is all about, right? Presenting photos?

HTH.
--
Brian
follow the directions in my address to email me

[Brian]

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

Jim Ley wrote:[color=blue]
> tina@greytower. net (Tina Holmboe) wrote:
>[color=green]
>> jim@jibbering.c om (Jim Ley) exclaimed in
>> <3f771a8d.19349 2998@news.cis.d fn.de>:
>>[color=darkred]
>>>> The correct answer to the question you asked is to NOT use
>>>> browsers to "validate" pages. Webpages won't look the same in
>>>> all browsers - new or 'old'.
>>>
>>> That's ridiculous, QA is as much about user experience as it is
>>> with anything else, you do need to check your documents in user
>>> agents,[/color]
>>
>> 'Valid' has explicit, technical, meaning in the context of the
>> WWW.[/color]
>
> No it doesn't[/color]

Yes, it does. :-p
[color=blue]
> it has an explicit technical meaning in the context of SGML
> authoring,[/color]

This is ciwas, not ciwah, that's true. But I don't think it's so far
off the mark to consider sgml to be a consideration. The w in ciwas
is www, html is common enough on the www, html is an sgml application.
[color=blue]
> that doesn't mean it loses its normal meaning, however[/color]

To have meaningful discussions, it's helpful to be working with the
same definitions. If someones says in one thread, "use several
browsers to make sure your page is valid," and in another, someone
says, "valid html does not permit block level elements inside a <p>
element," there's going to be confusion. "valid/ate/or" has a precise
meaning in SGML. Let's not muck things up by changing the meaning
of the word some of the time.
[color=blue]
> I only mentioned QA, are you also intending to disagree that QA is
> more than validity?[/color]

Qa is certainly indispensible. But can't we call that, well, "qa?"
Or "testing a site?"

--
Brian
follow the directions in my address to email me

[Brian]

Re: Font sizes - Best practice... px vs. em

Jim Ley wrote:[color=blue]
> On Mon, 29 Sep 2003 01:26:18 GMT, Beauregard T. Shagnasty
> <a.nony.nous@ex ample.invalid> wrote:
>[color=green]
>>body { font: normal 11px ...
>>
>>Except the font size is forced and too small.[/color]
>
> A weakness of your UA surely? and there are lots of weak UA's out
> there, one of the specific problems Barry is having is that gaining
> the knowledge of all these weak UA's is expensive, too expensive for
> the vast majority of people.[/color]

That may be true.

Warranted conclusion: adding style to documents to increase their
visual appeal and usability increases the costs of web authoring, in
some cases making such changes cost-prohibitive.

Unwarranted conclusion: adding accessibility to documents increases
the costs of web authoring, in some cases making such changes
cost-prohibitive.

--
Brian
follow the directions in my address to email me