[thelist] Re: CSS article

[Arlen.P.Walker at jci.com]

> At the risk of asking a silly question; what about percentages and the
pros
> and cons? I'm curious

Worst con with percentages comes from scaling the font down as you nest.
You can avoid this if careful, though, and beyond that they are similar to
ems. NN4 and IE3 have serious bugs with % (IE3 does % as px) but that
needn't bother you overmuch, if you're bold.

>But if there were a way to use relative sizes, I want to hear it because
I'd like to do that.
>Obviously CSS keywords are not the way to go, so what is?

The only workable way to use relative sizes, I think, is ems, but they're a
matter of taste. Even when you do, you still run some risks. For example,
if the user has their browser set at a default size of, say 9px type,
because they want a lot of information on the screen, and you put a "fine
print" notice on your website specified at, say, 0.75em, you're now
throwing 6px (or 7px, depending upon implementation) type at the reader,
which is probably not at all readable.

I've often thought a "min-font-size" qualifier should be added to CSS, akin
to the "min-width" qualifiers in CSS2. That way you could say
"font-size:0.75em; min-font-size:9px;" and then the font would only be
shrunk down to a minimum size of 9px. In the above example, then, the fine
print would still be 9px.

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

Arlen.P.Walker at JCI.Com
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