Re: CSS enhancement proposal

At 12:59 -0700 6.15.97, David Perrell wrote:
> Todd Fahrner wrote:
> > That was a reference to the disaster of specifying point units on
> > type without some sort of platform-transformation like this:
> >
> > <SCRIPT>
> > <!--
> > 	if (navigator.appVersion.lastIndexOf('Mac') == -1)
> > 	{
> > 	document.writeln("<STYLE> BODY { font-size: 0.75em }</STYLE>")
> > 	};
> > //-->
> > </SCRIPT>
>
> Well, that's a very Mac-centric assumption--that all non-Mac systems
> will be equally un-Mac. Even if that were true, how will that script
> change the way points are displayed on the client?

I apologize for not distinguishing clearly between real prescriptive
information and tongue-in-cheek platform propaganda. Yes, this
particular suggestion implies that all the world renders type at
either 96 dpi or 72 dpi, and that the latter is "correct." I'll back
off a little. As soon as GUIs with universal anti-aliasing and
resolution-independence are deployed on the majority of desktops,
I'll back off completely. In the meantime, scripts like the above
stand to go some way to resolve the differences. Best of all, I think
(and this is serious), would be some means in CSS to declare the
pixel-density of the designer's display. All fixed units could then
be transformed appropriately by the UA, or overridden in a meaningful
way by the user.

> Each user of a machine should decide how large she/he wants
> an inch to be on the display, and that mapping should be part of the
> personal profile of that user, effected smoothly when the user logs on.

I agree. And I suspect it will be many, many years before such
sensibility percolates through to the average desktop.

________________________________________
Todd Fahrner
mailto:fahrner@pobox.com
http://www.verso.com/

The printed page transcends space and time. The printed page, the
infinitude of books, must be transcended. THE ELECTRO-LIBRARY.

--El Lissitzky, 1923

Received on Sunday, 15 June 1997 16:44:10 UTC