[thelist] dynamic font size

[VOLKAN ÖZÇELİK]

> Yes a pixel is a pixel regardless. The problem is that definition has no
> meaning until you know the amount of space available for pixels to
> occupy, and how many pixels are designated to occupy that available
> space.

But we should also note that generally users with high resolutions are
users with large screen areas. For instance an 14inch monitor-user
will possibly browse with
800*600, while an 17'' will possibly browser with 1024*768.

If I am a CAD designer and prefer to user 12048*11024 on 17'' monitor
or higher, even 1 em will be small for me.

Besides, there are problems wrt mac/win dpi differences, css-rendering
differences (of 1em normal) between various versions of MSIE and many
more that I cannot recall right now. I do not want to go in detail but
the issue is a candidate to take a whole chapter in a book on web
typography.

If you use pixels, you will make some unhappy. If you use em's you
make some others unhappy. There is no means of making everyone
satisfied.

An alternative solution can be using different stylesheet and using
a-la style switcher (or a server-side switcher if you do not want to
rely on js)

* * *

I am not a pixel fan. And using em's is *not* a bad bad thing. The
thing to keep in mind is not to specify font sizes less than 1 em;
unless absolutely necessary.

(However afaik, 1em corresponds to approximately 14px on msie-win
1024*768; which some designers (and some users) may think a
larger-than necessary font size.)

> If most text is too big on your own page on your own display, it
> can only be because YOU have neglected to do the right thing, and first
> set your default to your preference first before doing your page design.

I completely agree on this. Some (actually more than some) designers
on mac prefer to work with "small", even "smallest" text-size
preferences as per the browser default; not "normal" - which is the
default for the browser.

> Using 100%/medium/1em for most page text is simply the right thing to
> do, respecting the needs of visitors.

partially (okay mostly) agree.

> Preferring the wants and needs of
> the clueless over the clueful is utterly backwards nonsense.

If the clueless happens to be your client thing changes a lot :)
If the client has a clue, but s/he thinks that the audience is clueless
that's another story. You will have a hard time persuading your client.

To sum up, nothing is 100% right for everyone.
The converse is also true: "nothing is 100% wrong for everyone".

Cheers,
Volkan.