[thelist] horizontal menu using a list

[ben morrison]

On 5/11/06, Bill Moseley <moseley at hank.org> wrote:
> > Its not just the Mac that is the issue, you are using fixed sizes for
> > your fonts and should be using relative sizes - either ems or % [0].
> > This is also a priority for accessibility.
>
> And placing ems or percents inside a fixed pixel width box presents
> its own problems, as can be seen when resizing.  Hard to find the
> perfect solution.
>
> I'm working on a nav in a liquid design where there's a fixed width
> box (a photo) on the right and the left content area is suppose to be
> resizeable.  The designer's mockup was a complete table layout (in
> fact, I think the design was driven by the tables instead of the other
> way around:

> Still, depending on the user's font setup/screen size, the buttons are
> sometimes double-height.  There's not enough wiggle room in the boxes
> to allow one or two user font size changes before the buttons go
> double size.
>
> So, I'm even thinking about trying to use background images for the button
> text, but still have the button text so it's semantic and works for
> the screen readers, but move the text off screen.  There's always
> trade offs.

Personally the trade-offs should be the horizontal nav goes over two
lines - this is the issue with horizontal navs. You should always
allow the user to resize their fonts - using a background image for
text does not help anyone. Avoid using a fixed width for nav items.

Fair enough if the designers mock-up looks like a table based design -
most of them are from print background or stuck in pre CSS design, but
these issues should be discussed before development begins - nice
design, but we have to be aware about this nav overlapping to two
lines with user settings, screen sizes, where is flexibility to add
more nav items etc....

ben