style switcher

[Thomas Dowling]

Thanks to the wonders of checksum comparisons, the sunsite listproc 
apparently decided this was some old post and declined to post it 
again.  While I do keep grinding the same axes, I at least take the trouble 
to type them from scratch.


 >
 > >... 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?


You're absolutely right.  I was incorrectly remembering another CSS font
size issue in IE.  At least in my copy of IE6, changing the browser's font
size *does* resize text styled with "font-size: [keyword]".  It is font
sizes in pixels or points that IE does not resize.

However, overriding the default font size, even if the user can change it
back, is still a very bad practice, IMO.  It sounds like you have a browser
configuration problem, and attempting to solve it through bossy stylesheets
isn't the solution.  I was not aware of any Netscape version on any
platform that really prevented users from configuring their preferred font
size.  But if that's really the situation you're in, isn't it time to dump
such a lousy browser?


Thomas ("Ain't Technology Wonderful?") Dowling
OhioLINK - Ohio Library and Information Network
tdowling at ohiolink.edu