[WEB4LIB] Re: style switcher

[Nancy Sosna Bohm]

Thomas and others,
Thanks for responding...

----- Original Message -----
From: "Thomas Dowling"
> ...Assume that the default is a comfortable reading size...

This is the problem. Netscape is the only browser accessible on the dozen
PC's in the Library Reference area, but IE on PC is the most commonly used
elsewhere by the students. Meanwhile, my supervisor and the other reference
librarian use a pre-4.7 version of Netscape on a Mac (which does not allow
resizing by the user), thus I am required to write code for their machines.
This results in huge fonts on the reference machines. Such is the road that
has led me to style switching codes.

> ...if you want to suggest larger and smaller sizes in
> specific contexts, stick to a range of about 85% to 120%....

I too prefer working with those percent sizes, but have run into the problem
of nested elements' percents compounding (especially when styles imported
meet styles in the html--and I am not the only one doing Web pages on the
site) as Fahrner warns in the article Kevin recommended (
http://www.alistapart.com/stories/sizematters/ ). So I decided to use the
keywords, as  my understanding was that only keywords and percents can be
resized by those whose impaired vision necessitates the adjustment (although
pre4.7 NS on Mac doesn't allow this).

After reading the article that explains the differences in browsers' default
sizes and how they interpret the keywords, it seems that maybe by just using
my style switcher to change the body size (maybe even using
percents)--smaller on NS in Win (but not NS6 as Araby Greene pointed out),
larger on pre-4.7 NS on Mac, maybe everything else will equal out? I keep
thinking that if Amazon can do it, so can I.

BTW, is there a chart of the different browsers' base font sizes and how
they interpret styled sizes that gives more information than the Fahrner
article? This would not be the information in a typical chart of browser
style bugs such as http://www.richinstyle.com/bugs/table.html.

>... Say out loud,
> "I'm going to set my users' default font size to either 'small' or 'extra
> small' and the most commonly used browser won't let them change it," and
> see how it sounds...

Thomas, I don't get your drift with the above comment, and I am sure there's
some pearl in it. Can you please restate for those with CSS-induced
headaches? ;) Isn't IE the "most commonly used browser," which does allow
users to change the keyword sizes?

Thanks,
Nancy