[thelist] [Site Review] Gemsnjewelry.com

[Jeff Howden]

shawn,

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> From: Shawn K. Quinn
>
> > naw, i didn't forget.  it's for the footer text.  i
> > don't like how small it is when set to 75% and the
> > user's font settings are at small or smaller. the
> > difference in size isn't really though much between
> > medium and large and larger so i don't see any real
> > gain from using a relative size.  so, 10px it'll
> > stay.
>
> The problem with this is it's not user-friendly.
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and it also isn't a necessity to be able to read it to use the site.

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> What if the rest of the text is 6px (very possible on
> hand-held units)? Is it really your intent that the
> footer might be *larger* than the rest of the text?
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the rest of the text isn't going to be 6px, even on a handheld unit.  why?
well, because it takes a minimum of 7 pixels to render characters of the
alphabet so they're legible.  besides, if it's on a unit that scales the
fonts down that much, it's likely that a) the unit doesn't understand css
making this moot and b) if it does, it'll just render the text smaller
anyway.

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> It's also quite possible that on a very high-res screen,
> 10px is nearly illegible.
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possible, but simply not true, unless it's an absolutely enormous
resolution.  i'm running 1600x1280 on a 15" flat screen and it's plenty
legible for me.

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> You might want to take a look at
> <URL:http://css.nu/faq/ciwas-aFAQ.html#QA02>.
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that faq contains arguments* that are reasonable for body text, but hardly
relevant to legalese type stuff that you find in a footer.  something that
needs to be understood is that arguments for relative vs absolute font sizes
is not a blanket statement.  relative sizes are good in most cases, but not
in all.

again, i fail to see how using 75% makes it any better than it currently is.
if anything, i think it makes it worse.  it makes the text about 8px at
small and an unreadable 7px at smaller.  At medium (the default), renders
the text at the same 10px i've chosen to specify instead of the percentage.
however, changing the text size in the browser to large or larger (there's
no difference) results in a negligible change to 11px.  the almost
indistinquishable change in size between medium and larger doesn't make it
worth it to risk the text being completely illegible at smaller or smaller.

* (no supporting evidence is included with the arguments, some of which are
quite outdated)

.jeff

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Jeff Howden - Web Application Specialist
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