Re: Clarify length units in CSS

On Jul 22, 2008, at 4:02 PM, Tomas Carnecky wrote:

>
> There is a difference in how Gecko and WebKit interpret length units  
> (can't check IE, but I guess they have yet another interpretation).  
> The CSS spec needs to clarify what the units exactly mean.
>
> Gecko tries to match absolute lengths (in/cm/mm etc) to the real  
> physical length by using the display device DPI. When there is  
> 'width:1cm' in a CSS, Gecko tries to make it physically appear as 1  
> centimeter, I can put a ruler to the screen and the element will  
> indeed be 1cm wide. But when it comes to 'px' (CSS pixels), Gecko  
> applies a logic to make the 1 CSS pixel correspond to an integer  
> number of device pixels. So 1 CSS pixel maps to one physical pixel  
> on <143 DPI screens, to 2x2 physical pixels on 144-240 DPI screen  
> etc. The logic is described on their wiki: http://wiki.mozilla.org/Mozilla2:Units
>
> While I believe this is mostly what the spec intended (absolute  
> units are indeed absolute, relative units relative), in some cases  
> it will considerably differ. Let's say I'm sitting 28 inches from  
> the screen. In that case 96px should be the length of one physical  
> inch. It is indeed if I configure Gecko with DPI=N*96 (where  
> N=1,2,3,...), but in all other cases 96px will be different from one  
> inch. This is especially well visible in the case of DPI=143, when  
> 1in is 50% larger then 96px (1in = 143 physical pixels, 96px = 96  
> physical pixels).
>
> WebKit on the other hand does not differ between CSS pixels and  
> absolute units. Absolute units have a constant relation to CSS  
> pixels. 1in is always exactly 96px, 1cm exactly 96/2.54px etc. This  
> has the effect that 1in is only one physical inch long when DPI=96.  
> Comments in the code indicate that this is intentional, WebKit  
> doesn't see the 'absolute' lengths as absolute but relative to a CSS  
> pixel [1]
>
> So what is the correct interpretation of CSS lengths? Is Gecko or  
> WebKit right or maybe both wrong?

The problem is with the pt unit.  Web pages use the pt unit without  
understanding that it is supposed to be an absolute unit.  They  
intermix it with pixel units and then the Web site's design breaks if  
you ever change that ratio.
dave
(hyatt@apple.com)

Received on Wednesday, 23 July 2008 22:21:14 UTC