Re: font-size and accents, again

On Sat, 27 Nov 1999 09:21:24 -0800, erik@netscape.com (Erik van der
Poel) wrote:
> > The
> > padding and border of inline elements fit vertically around the
> > *font-size* as the height of the box, whereas the line-height is only
> > the logical height used for placement of the inline box within the line
> > box and computing the size of the line box.
> 
> I think it's wrong to choose that definition. If a style sheet author
> wants to make sure that glyphs don't bleed outside their background,
> they must now set not only the line-height but also the padding. That's
> a bit too much. It would be easier for authors if the padding and border
> of an inline element were added to the *line-height* of that element
> (not the font-size). Then the author can select a good line-height to
> make sure glyphs in successive lines don't collide, and that
> automatically makes the background tall enough to encompass all glyphs
> vertically. (The default padding is zero, right?)

But think what would happen if it were around the line-height.  Then
backgrounds and borders on inline elements with large values of
line-height would be grotesquely tall.  (Such a change would also break
backwards-compatibility with Opera 3.6, NN 4.x, WinIE5, MacIE4.5, and
probably other browsers.)

This is why I think scaling-factor line-heights, backgrounds, and
borders should be based on the font-size including the internal leading
(whether or not the 'font-size' includes internal leading).

-David

L. David Baron    Sophomore, Harvard (Physics)    dbaron@fas.harvard.edu
Links, SatPix, CSS, etc.     <URL: http://www.fas.harvard.edu/~dbaron/ >
WSP CSS AC                      <URL: http://www.webstandards.org/css/ >

Received on Saturday, 27 November 1999 12:36:09 UTC