Re: [csswg-drafts] [css-fonts] Proposal to extend CSS font-optical-sizing (#4430)

Vlad: The W3C, device manufacturers and browser vendors seem to agree that content authors should NOT know the scale factors used by devices, i.e. they should NOT know the scale factor between 12pt in reality and "12pt" at "100%" on the device. In hand-held devices, this factor is significantly less than 1 — smaller devices use smaller scale factors, based on predicted viewing distance. This decision is presumably related to the decision (certainly a wise default) that "px" units in CSS should be decoupled from device pixels. Both of these decisions very likely improve the web as a publication medium, avoiding the advantages and disadvantages of allowing authors to fine-tune output per device and per platform.

Unfortunately these scale factors are not documented publicly, so authors have little option but to trust that the scale factors baked into devices are wisely chosen by vendors. I [appealed above](https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/4430#issuecomment-694520791) to get device makers and device users to publish the scale factors of devices they produce/own, hoping for some kind of educated assessment of the results, but there was little interest.

As with other typographic defaults, it seems to me a good idea to let experts override them, and that is the basis for the [September 2020 proposal by @fantasai and me above](https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/4430#issuecomment-697956807).

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Received on Thursday, 4 February 2021 13:24:36 UTC