[thelist] Site check please rocky-hills.com

Scott Glasgow paladin at fuse.net
Sun Sep 18 00:38:04 CDT 2005


[Inline]
Felix Miata wrote:
> Scott Glasgow wrote:
>
> [re: http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/SS/rocky.png &
> http://www.rocky-hills.com/sample/mfh/index.shtml]
>
>> I would think that
>> most users with that level of lack of visual acuity might be using
>> either a reader or a magnifier in any event.
>
> That screenshot implies absolutely zip about anyone's visual acuity.

This is an utter non sequitur. Your judicious quoting, not too surprisingly, 
omitted the context in which that statement was made. Furthermore, your 
churlish attempt to make it appear that I was commenting on your asinine 
screenshot, with the "[re: http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/SS/rocky.png &" above, 
is nothing more than a red herring. In point of fact, neither of the two 
lines shown preceding my statement above actually appeared in the message to 
which I replied, and there was NO mention of the screenshot, nor any 
reference to it, nor any URL for it provided. At _NO_ point in my message 
did I mention or refer to any screenshot of any kind produced by anyone. 
Therefore, your reply in this statement has precisely nothing to do with my 
statement that you partially quoted to precede it.

Furthermore, for the sake of argument, even had I referred to a screenshot 
in my statement, you cannot state with any authority what might have been 
inferred by a viewer, only what _you_ inferred. Ten different viewers might 
have viewed the same statement (or screenshot, were there actually one under 
discussion) and taken ten different inferences from it. Each could say with 
authority what they inferred, none could state with authority what the 
statement implied. Implication and inference are in the eye of the beholder.

> The simple fact is that 12px (set on body in
> http://www.rocky-hills.com/sample/mfh/style.css) at 1792x1344
> resolution is less than half the size of typical newspaper front page
> copy on my 19" CRT and probably even also on a 22" CRT display. Even
> at a much more common 1280 wide resolution 12px is far too small,
> making the page painful if stuck using IE

Well, plainly and simply, horsepucky. In my remark about visual acuity I 
speak from some small experience. I'm in my mid-50's and have been wearing 
glasses for presbyopia for 10 years. I viewed the page at 1600 x 1200 on my 
ThinkPad R50p's 15" LCD screen, in its native format and without any 
zooming, and it was sharp, clear, and entirely legible. Very, very far from 
painful, in fact. On my 19" CRT at 1280 x 1024 it was even more readable, as 
might be expected. Were I to have to zoom in four levels to make the text 
readable, I can assure you that my prescription would be much, much 
stronger, and my visual acuity correspondingly lower. Hence the statement 
that you took such issue with and yet completely failed to address in your 
reply. The paragraph above, and the neat but nugatory math following, are 
completely meaningless with regard to actual user experience. You know, that 
elusive goal toward which we're supposed to be striving?

> http://mrmazda.no-ip.com/SS/rocky2.png . A 12px character box
> provides about 72 discrete dots per character box compared to my 20px
> preference's 200, a dismal 36%.
>
<<::SNIP::>>
>
>> I was also kinda curious as to how one
>> designs _any_ layout that survives zoom to essentially any arbitrary
>> level of magnification. Seems like the old "10 pounds in a 5 pound
>> bag" problem, ya know.
>
> It really isn't hard once you understand a simple basic shown here:
> http://members.ij.net/mrmazda/auth/widths-em-v-px.html
> --

I frankly fail to see the relevance of the example to my inquiry. Your own 
example, presuming that this is your example, illustrates that regardless of 
whether one font sizing method or the other is chosen the layout under 
discussion would be broken. One, your chosen approach, produces a constant 
line count (although not physical paragraph height), and a continually 
varying paragraph width, while one, the approach which you so decry, yields 
a varying number of lines, and paragraph heights, but does at least result 
in constant paragraph width. Both are equally readable. Frankly, as either 
user or developer, I prefer the one which provides at least one dimension of 
constancy.

> "Cast your cares on the Lord and He will sustain you."
>                                                Psalm 55:22 NIV
<<::SNIP::>>

"The absurdity of a religious practice may be clearly demonstrated without 
lessening the number of persons who indulge in it." - Anatole France 



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