font-size (was Re: Header, Footer, and Sidebars)

Todd Fahrner wrote:

>" I thought it was established that the UA has
>" a hypothetical default stylesheet and that changing the default font in the
>" UA changes the base font size in that stylesheet. Therefore, changing the
>" font on the toolbar should change the font size in any element for which
>" font size has not been specified either in absolute units or relative to an
>" ancestor element specified in absolute units. Conversely, elements declared
>" in author stylesheets in absolute units should be unaffected by UA font size
>" changes.
>
> This is precisely as I see it, also. Thanks for the nice
> articulation, David. What I'd really like to know is whether
> there's any dissent on this point (especially among
> implementors).

At the risk of repeating ground you have covered, I would like to
know why the font-size scaling factor example is explicit at 1.5,
so unlike type size like TeX's 1.2? Also why have 10pt
(small=medium?) and 15pt examples for on-screen display? [1]

I admired David Perrell's description of the future. But I
find there is no coherent font-size style plan for right now
[reference summary, 2]. The CSS1 sample style sheet for HTML
2.0 lists no BODY font size; the CSS2 sample for HTML 4.0 is in
em; the Base Stylesheet (22-Nov) has medium for a BODY value,
more like the initial value in the CSS2 spec (shipped with no
BODY size in its own style sheet, a good plan maybe!); WDG
recommends percents and keywords and no absolute sizes; CSS2
phase two needs absolute lengths.[3]

[1] http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-CSS2/fonts.html#h-14.2.4
[2] http://www.macvirus.com/test/font/fontsize.html
[3] http://www.w3.org/TR/WD-CSS2/fonts.html#descdef-font-size

Susan Lesch

Received on Sunday, 30 November 1997 12:52:14 UTC