different browsers

[Thomas Dowling]

-----Original Message-----
From: Harry M. Kriz <Harry_M_Kriz at vt.edu>
To: Multiple recipients of list <web4lib at library.berkeley.edu>
Date: Wednesday, December 10, 1997 9:56 AM
Subject: Re: different browsers


>At 05:04 PM 12/9/97 -0800, Thomas wrote:
>
>
>>The other approach is to stop expressing presentational ideas with the
>>relatively clumsy style hacks that have been added to HTML, and to start
>>using a tool that was designed for the job.  The tool that has a fair
degree
>>of support is Cascading Stylesheets (CSS); it is supported in 2.5 of the
>>four browsers you mention.
>
>In providing readable presentations on the screen, you still have the
>problem of dealing with the reader's device. For example, I use a 21"
>monitor at 1600x1200 resolution. Pages now using CSS often set fonts so
>small that I sometimes cannot read them easily, if at all. I miss the
>ability of being able to reset the font size to my liking.
>


True, it is possible to abuse stylesheets for really atrocious results.
I've seen a couple of stylesheet style guides, and they recommend setting
font sizes and margins on a relative basis, so that they can work with the
user's settings rather than against them.  That is:

  .big {font-size: 150%}      -OR-
  .big {font-size: x-large}

Rather than:

  .big {font-size: 14pt}



Thomas Dowling
OhioLINK - Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu