[WEB4LIB] Re: sizing width of scroll windows

[Bailey, Katrina]

This just clicked something. How many of you in universities or schools have
a college-wide dictate on what type of browser is used/supported, what
resolution should be used, etc.? And how many of you design with those
requirements in mind? 

Katrina Bailey
Serials/Online Services Librarian
University of Mary Hardin-Baylor
kbailey at umhb.edu <mailto:kbailey at umhb.edu> 
254-295-5011

	-----Original Message-----
	From:	Thomas Dowling [SMTP:tdowling at ohiolink.edu]
	Sent:	Friday, April 28, 2000 7:37 AM
	To:	Multiple recipients of list
	Subject:	[WEB4LIB] Re: sizing width of scroll windows

	----- Original Message -----
	From: "Stefano Bargioni" <bargioni at usc.urbe.it>
	> "Sheryl Eldridge" <sheryl at newportlibrary.org> wrote:

	> >
	> > Does anyone know what can be done to control the width
	> > [of a SELECT element]?...

	> Are you sure there is a standard way to do this? IMHO, may
	> be you can control the width in some browsers, but using
	> propriertary html tags. Try <font size=...>.


	The standard for controlling this or any other aspect of
presentation is
	CSS.  Aside from the all-purpose CSS caveat ("Netscape's buggy
	implementation keeps web design two years behind where it should
be"), you
	should also note that form elements like SELECT will be especially
	problematic.  Most browsers use native widgets from the operating
system
	to generate buttons, drop-down lists, etc., and as the folks at
	mozilla.org are discovering, users like that.  It's probable that
form
	elements will always be less controllable than other elements, by
CSS or
	by anything else the browser can throw at them.

	Also, a CSS width property doesn't give the browser much advice
about what
	to do with content that's too wide.  IE5 supports, for example,
<select
	name="foo" style="width: 12em">, but it truncates any OPTIONs that
go
	longer than 12 ems with no way to see what it cuts off.

	In general, I'd say any design that *depends* on controlling the
width of
	an SELECT element is doomed to failure.

	[Obligatory accesibility gripe: the original post included a form
that
	relied entirely on JavaScript, and which is completely unusable with
JS
	disabled.  See checkpoint 6.3 on
	
<URL:http://www.w3.org/TR/1999/WAI-WEBCONTENT-19990505/#gl-new-technologie
	s>.]


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