[thelist] CSS: Unix and font sizes

[Arlen.P.Walker at jci.com]

>have you taken a look at your site if you don't touch font size at all?

<nosetweak>
Then you have guys like Charles, who specify such small type for their
default that they effectively don't give you the chance to achieve the
typographic effects of smaller-than-the-default type sizes. ;{>}
</nosetweak>

Seriously, I *was* on the track of a Javascript fix/workaround for this,
but it appears NS doesn't let you discover what the current font size of an
element is. I had worked on a script that checked the current font size for
an element, and that information would then allow you to either:

a) bump up the default size, so your type size variations would still
result in readable pages, or preferably,

b) "redo" the smaller sizes, so they wouldn't become too miniscule to read.

For example, a page might have (large)heading type, (default)body type, and
a (small)less-important-type sidebar, but if the user has defaulted to
small type then the 0.8em spec for the sidebar can be replaced by 1.0em,
and everything remains readable.

To my (sick, twisted) mind, that is what things like javascript are for: to
let me check out the parameters a user has chosen and allow me to react to
those parameters by making slight modifications in my presentation
parameters to optimize the presentation for the chosen parameters. Alas,
things like getComputedSize for text are not supported under Netscape, so
there went *that* idea out the window.

Too bad there's no min-font-size attribute in CSS. *That* would handle the
whole problem without coding anything.

Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224

Arlen.P.Walker at JCI.Com
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