Re: Proposal: font-size: auto

Windy Road wrote:
 >
 > Hi,
 >
 > I would like to propose a new "auto" value for the "font-size"
 > property.  When set the broswer would try to automatically set the
 > font-size, based on the element width, margins and padding ( (e.g.
 > width: 50em; margin: 1em; padding: 1em).
 >
 > A javascript simulation of the desired behaviour is available at
 >
 > http://windyroad.org/static/resolution-independence/

We do just this at Royal Holloway (University of London) :

	http://Www.Rhul.Ac.Uk/

The main difference is that we set a lower bound on the font size.

It has attracted some criticism from those used to more traditional
behaviour when the window is re-sized, but in general it seems to
be regarded favourably.

What is lacking in the current implementation (and this is really
something that could only be addressed at a much deeper level :
that of run-time generated events) is the ability to discriminate
between a window resize intended to affect only the proportion of
the page that is visible and one intended to leave the proportion
unchanged whilst varying the font size.  These might (for example)
be implemented as drag window-edge (affect proportion of page
visible) and shift-drag window-edge (affect font size, leaving
proportion unchanged).

Philip Taylor

Received on Monday, 4 June 2007 15:18:19 UTC