How can I stop XP 'Large Fonts' affecting web page?

[Chris Tomlinson]

That doesn't really make much sense. Browser support for HTML/3.2-ish
stuff isn't going to go away any time soon, so if you've got a
quantity of that legacy stuff you might as well leave it that way. At
least until you're ready to radically rebuild it.

Thanks, I think you're right. It looks right and works right in the most
popular browsers, so I may as well leave it as it is. I have seen far worse
sites from far bigger companies than my mere mortal self.

On the contrary: I'd be inclined to compare it with trying to turn
cheese into fresh whipped cream. Both of them are milk products, it's
true: but if you want whipped cream then I'd suggest using fresh
starting materials, not trying to start from another end-product.

And with 4 million pus cells per glass of milk, who'd want either!

 

[Chris Tomlinson]

Actually, in the link you listed that I visited, the font size _did_
change, and the page didn't look too page in the doing. What specific
page-url are you referring to?

Not sure what you thought u typed there, but if you mean the BBC link, it's
http://news.bbc.co.uk that doesn't resize fonts in IE.

If you mean my site, I have changed www.superhighstreet.com to use px since
I started this thread, so it shouldn't change size in IE and shouldn't look
too bad in other browsers.

 

[Chaddy2222]

No and you can't do that. People who want to increase font size will be
able to regardless of whatever messures you put in place.

Not sure what you thought u typed there, but if you mean the BBC link, it's
http://news.bbc.co.uk that doesn't resize fonts in IE.

If you mean my site, I have changed www.superhighstreet.com to use px since
I started this thread, so it shouldn't change size in IE and shouldn't look
too bad in other browsers.

Yeah, but it does not look that good eather, try increasing the font
three or four times.
Take a look at http://www.deakin.edu.au to notice what can be done with
CSS.
I myself are still looking in to the use of CSS but are planning a
re-design useing it shortly.
I should mention that you need to use alt text on all your images.
http://freewebdesign.cjb.cc/design-tips2.html
also read, http://freewebdesign.cjb.cc/design-tips7.html

 

[Thomas 'PointedEars' Lahn]

Hope someone is able to help. I notice when I design a basic HTML page,
it is affected if a WinXP user has Large Fonts set in their Control Panel.
However some pages, e.g. www.bbc.co.uk/news are unaffected by this I
think.

Without looking at the source code, the most likely reason is that the BBC
people know what they do, and therefore they do not use `pt' as unit of
length for displaying fonts on the screen. Because that unit, designed
for printouts instead of the screen, is dependent on the font resolution;
with "Large Fonts" on Windows it is 120 ppi instead of the (1024x786)
default 96 ppi. And the (default) font resolution differs on display
resolutions and window frameworks (Macs have a default of 72 ppi, for
example).

With regard to the source code, I simply trust David Dorward's observation
and see this confirmed (they use `em' instead).

They are definitely not affected by changing the font size within the
browser.

"The browser" must be Microsoft Internet Explorer 6 or older, because these
UAs are the only ones (to my knowledge) that are unable to scale _px_-sized
fonts. (In that case, it should be possible to scale the fonts on the BBC
Web site because they do not use `px'. Another possibility is to use `%'
instead of `em'.) IE 7 is going to fix at least this issue by allowing for
an Opera-style zoom of the display of Web resources.

This has nothing to do with client-side scripting. Please stop crossposting
from alt.* into Usenet, and please stop crossposting off topic.


F'up2 alt.html

PointedEars

 

[Randy Webb]

David Dorward said the following on 5/28/2006 7:39 AM in

For a definition of "support" that comes to "entirely accessible, even if it
doesn't look all that pretty".

For scripting support, the word support has a different meaning.

Why not? It doesn't take any extra effort on my part.

It does when scripting the UA. And as I am reading this from c.l.j then
it would clearly apply to scripting the browser and supporting NN4 with
script does take an extra effort.

What about those who have no choice?

That argument gets old David. Especially with regards to NN4.

User1: Uses Mozilla 0.9.xxx where it is an outdated Mozilla
User2: Uses Netscape 4

User1 gets told to update to the latest Mozilla/Firefox
User2 gets the benefit of the doubt and is presumed to not have a choice?

What category encompasses the "users who have no choice"?

 

[Randy Webb]

Alan J. Flavell said the following on 5/28/2006 9:54 AM in

Congratulations, you've just produced yet another slight variation on
the HTML Straw Man Arguments, that have been refuted repeatedly over
the years. Do *try* to get up to speed before arguing, please.

Please try to read and comprehend what I write before you make
accusations Alan. It wasn't a Straw Man Argument (based on the
definition on your own pages). It was irony and nothing more. I guessed
you missed that though.

I've still got a copy installed, and I would fire it up if someone
complained about the results on an otherwise non-challenging page.
Haven't *needed* to do that for quite some time.

Do you keep NN2/3 and IE3/4 around for testing as well? The same
argument could be made for keeping them around for the same reason. But
there is no need to.

People who choose to stay in the dark deserve to stump there toe on the
furniture.

I hide my stylesheet from it, so it doesn't get a chance to mess up
the CSS. If I was "supporting" it, I could feed it a custom
stylesheet to improve its cosmetics, but I don't - its users still get
the content (text, images, and other media) as intended, i.e using its
default styling. Is that "support", or isn't it? You decide.

I read and replied to this in comp.lang.javascript where it is not that
simple and "support" of NN4 is a long way from simply hiding a script or
CSS from it.

So you had enough wit to complain about a cross-posted article, but
not enough to set narrowed followups? I guess that figures.

I complained? You amaze me. Since my replies were based on a post seen
in comp.lang.javascript and my point is very valid there, I left the
cross-post. I am setting the followup back to comp.lang.javascript and
if you want to discuss the implications of support Netscape 4 with
regards to scripting then you are welcome to post in clj for that reason.

 

[Randy Webb]

John G Harris said the following on 5/28/2006 1:24 PM:

So some of your customers can't read your Terms and Conditions. Have you
discussed this with your lawyer ?

Nah, I read about it in the following two places:
ECMA Specification version 15.43.24.5 section 5, paragraph 4
HTML Specification version 22.47.13.2 section 28, paragraph 9

 

[Neredbojias]

Not sure what you thought u typed there, but if you mean the BBC link,
it's http://news.bbc.co.uk that doesn't resize fonts in IE.

If you mean my site, I have changed www.superhighstreet.com to use px
since I started this thread, so it shouldn't change size in IE and
shouldn't look too bad in other browsers.

It was superhighstreet. That didn't look bad at all with relative fonts
and still doesn't look bad in Firefox. I suspect your insistence on
changing it relates to a somewhat primitive notion of what does and does
not look good in a web page. The best pages I've seen readjust the
placement of their content with elegant facility. superhighstreet almost
fits/did fit in that category now/then, and with just a little more effort
on your part, would. Of course not everyone seeks perfection in the
perfect way.

 

[Neredbojias]

User1: Uses Mozilla 0.9.xxx where it is an outdated Mozilla
User2: Uses Netscape 4

User1 gets told to update to the latest Mozilla/Firefox
User2 gets the benefit of the doubt and is presumed to not have a
choice?

What category encompasses the "users who have no choice"?

Users in establishments like a library or in the workplace who can only use
what a possibly-less-than-interested provider offers.

 

[David Dorward]

For scripting support, the word support has a different meaning.

Feature detection and sane fallback. No problem.

It does when scripting the UA. And as I am reading this from c.l.j

The joy of people cross posting.

User1 gets told to update to the latest Mozilla/Firefox

Really? By whom?

What category encompasses the "users who have no choice"?

People using operating systems for which "The latest Mozilla/Firefox" is not
available.

People who use systems under the control of administrators who won't upgrade
the browser.

 

[Randy Webb]

Neredbojias said the following on 5/29/2006 5:11 PM:

Users in establishments like a library or in the workplace who can only use
what a possibly-less-than-interested provider offers.

I have read so many places that people might not have a choice that it
makes me tired of reading them. Most of them are from server side
programmers that are scared of client side technologies endangering
there jobs though.

 

[Randy Webb]

David Dorward said the following on 5/29/2006 6:00 PM:

Feature detection and sane fallback. No problem.

There is not always a "sane fallback" with client side scripting.

The joy of people cross posting.

Absolutely. So, why did you cross post your reply?

Really? By whom?

Hmmm. Anybody that reads it generally. If you can run Firefox 0.9.xx
then you can run 1.5.xx and the only two reasons for not upgrading it
are laziness and stupidity.

People using operating systems for which "The latest Mozilla/Firefox" is not
available.

Such as? Other than my cellphone. I am talking desktop OS'es.

People who use systems under the control of administrators who won't upgrade
the browser.

See my other reply.

 

[Neredbojias]

Neredbojias said the following on 5/29/2006 5:11 PM:

I have read so many places that people might not have a choice that it
makes me tired of reading them. Most of them are from server side
programmers that are scared of client side technologies endangering
there jobs though.

Yep, I know what you mean. I feel the same way about the anti-porn
propaganda which is mostly promulgated by ersatz religious ayatollahs in
fear of losing their acolytes' contributions (-and possible private
services within those cults which are so enlightened.) Hey, women want it,
anyway, so let's do it to them!

 

[Chris Tomlinson]

It was superhighstreet. That didn't look bad at all with relative fonts
and still doesn't look bad in Firefox. I suspect your insistence on
changing it relates to a somewhat primitive notion of what does and does
not look good in a web page. The best pages I've seen readjust the
placement of their content with elegant facility. superhighstreet almost
fits/did fit in that category now/then, and with just a little more effort
on your part, would. Of course not everyone seeks perfection in the
perfect way.

Thanks, I appreciate your feedback. I tweaked the shadows so they don't
break when the tables are enlarged, and I can live with the bullet point
lines wrapping over to 2 lines if someone wants large fonts in Firefox (a
rare combination I think).

Thanks again!

 

[Andy Dingley]

Hi all,

Hope someone is able to help. I notice when I design a basic HTML page, it
is affected if a WinXP user has Large Fonts set in their Control Panel.

This is a complicated Windows / IE bug that I've no real intention of
explaining at this time (archives of c.i.w.a.s have it, along with the
best fix I know, from Martin Geisler)
http://groups.google.com/group/comp...a545/683463bb7e6d6e1d?&hl=en#683463bb7e6d6e1d

In general though, read the archives of c.i.w.a.h and follow the
recommendations in there.
Use CSS
Never use <font>
Always set font-size for <body> to be 1em / 100%
Never set any size less than 2/3rd of this

Always set font-size with em or % units
Use pixel sizes for font-size _rarely_, only when fitting into a
graphical design is more important than usability.


There are still issues with Firefox (pixel sizes are scalable) and with
IE (base font size is influenced by the Control Panel | Display
defaults)

 

[Stephen Poley]

Could you be more specific about where you saw that? When I look at
www.bbc.co.uk, the texts, where they are sized at all, seem to be
sized in em units, which is good, and IE seems happy to re-size them
at my choice. My complaint would be that it's refusing to fit in the
window width that I gave it, and forcing a left/right scroll bar,
without any evident content-related need to.

On the other hand news.bbc.co.uk seems to do all(?) of its text sizing
in px units, with the expected negative consequences in IE. Of course
that too refuses to fit in my chosen window width...

Well, in for example http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5022524.stm and
all the other similar article pages I've checked, the main article text
resizes, but the sidebars do not. The column width is fixed even where
the text resizes. And two bars at the top of the page also resize,
somewhat incongruously. Altogether it looks like a muddle, not a design.

 

[Alan J. Flavell]

Well, in for example http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/5022524.stm and
all the other similar article pages I've checked, the main article text
resizes, but the sidebars do not.

Thanks. Yes, I'm using the Pederick toolbar, "CSS> View style
information" - it seems to be saying that the sidebars and other
furniture is sized in px units, whereas the main article text isn't
sized at all.

Oh, boggle, I've just noticed that they've got a meta http-equiv
stating that the page's charset=iso-8859-1, but it includes a form (in
a place where a form element isn't allowed, ho hum), with an
Accept-charset of utf-8...

I don't know how much better browsers have become since I last studied
support for forms input, but this seems to be setting browsers a
significant test quite unnecessarily!

The column width is fixed even where the text resizes.

So it seems. Gosh, there's *sheaves* of detailed CSS, with
pixel-sized this, that and the other. No wonder they needed
workarounds for so many different browser bugs. Guess I had been
looking too superficially before. thanks.

Altogether it looks like a muddle, not a design.

/* OLD FOOTER LINKS CAN BE REMOVED ONCE INDEXS HAVE BEEN RE-PUBLISHED */

best regards

 

[Neredbojias]

Thanks, I appreciate your feedback. I tweaked the shadows so they
don't break when the tables are enlarged, and I can live with the
bullet point lines wrapping over to 2 lines if someone wants large
fonts in Firefox (a rare combination I think).

Best of luck. Your site _is_ pretty attractive overall.

 

[Chris Tomlinson]

Best of luck. Your site _is_ pretty attractive overall.

Cheers

--
Thanks,
Me

I recommend www.Superhighstreet.com/home Finds anything or they pay for it!

 

[dorayme]

I recommend www.Superhighstreet.com/home Finds anything or they pay for it!

Could you please stop recommending this? It is an irritation to
me and imagine what Alan Flavell thinks on his 700px wide laptop.