[thelist] Question...

[Jeff Howden]

shawn,

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> From: Shawn K. Quinn
>
> Font sizes should *never* be specified in px or pt in
> an author style sheet, as the user knows best what size
> font fits best with his/her environment and viewing
> situation.
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oh boy, here we go again.

there is a time and a place for *everything*.

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> Line height should *never* be specified in px or pt
> [...]
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*if* the font size is specified in a relative size, then *yes* line-heights
shouldn't be a fixed size.

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> Get rid of every 12px font size and adjust the remaining
> ones to be ((old value in px)/12)em (14px would become
> 1.17em for example). 20px line height with 12px text
> would be 1.67em.
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ems are an exceedingly foul choice for relative sizing.  not only is the
size difference astronomical when changing sizes in the browser (medium can
render as 12px while small renders at 8px and smaller at 4px, both of which
are completely unreadable), but size rendering is very inconsistent across
browsers and platforms.  i know that many of the self-proclaimed css gurus
extol the virtues of ems, they also seem to simultaneously skip over the
part of the discussion about bugs, inconsistencies, etc.

if you're going to go with relative sizing, the only safe bet is
percentages.

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> V2 degrades *very* ungracefully in the absence of
> Javascript. I feel confused about just what is wrong
> with a plain HTML link.
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I agree.  I also dislike the almost obsessive use of html anchors in
extremely poor taste.

Links & JavaScript Living Together in Harmony
http://evolt.org/article/thelist/17/20938/

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> Some users either won't have Javascript capable
> browsers, or will disable this capability.
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don't forget that some of your non-js capable users are the search engines.

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> (Given the number of security problems with Javascript
> over the years, who can really blame them?)
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oh the tales of woe with no stories of the holes actually being exploited.
i'm well aware of all the professed holes that used to exist, but they're
ancient history.  if only paranoia could be disabled with a simply toggling
of a checkbox and a click of the apply button.  ;p

i personally prefer v2, but only slightly.  i think that with some work, the
table-heavy design could be fixed up to work nicely with minimal tables.

just my 2¢,

.jeff

——————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Jeff Howden - Web Application Specialist
Résumé - http://jeffhowden.com/about/resume/
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