Re: [CSS21] 4.3.2 Lengths (reference pixel?)

On 13/12/2010 20:10, Tab Atkins Jr. wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 13, 2010 at 11:04 AM, Anton Prowse<prowse@moonhenge.net>  wrote:
>> On 13/12/2010 19:49, Anton Prowse wrote:
>>> On 13/12/2010 15:21, Dr. Olaf Hoffmann wrote:
>>>> Within CSS is is clearly incompatible with previous recommendations
>>>> and therefore in fact with all currently existing documents using CSS
>>>> with such units (whatever authors assume, how this should be presented
>>>> or not).
>>>
>>> Again, a valid argument which the WG must surely have taken on board.
>>> (For me personally, this is the strongest argument in favour of
>>> preserving the original units.)
>>
>> As is clear from my posts, it's also the strongest argument in favour of
>> adopting the /new/ units!  It all depends on how many authors were using the
>> original units correctly as opposed to incorrectly.  My point was that it's
>> a valid concern that authors who were using them correctly now find the rug
>> pulled from under them.
>
> Those authors have never truly had good physical units.  I don't
> recall the precise details of which browsers do what, but more than
> one browser, at least, has done the "1in = 96px" thing for a long
> time.
>
> So there never was a way to do it "correctly" because the physical
> units never were truly physical, in practice.

Sure, but an author who attempted to do it correctly (testing on a 
monitor of a certain, common resolution) cannot be blamed much for not 
knowing that the software he relied upon was letting him down in 
practice on monitors of different resolution.

But what you say, that what the author intended wasn't achievable in 
practice, certainly diminishes that particular argument.  (It doesn't 
remove it altogether though, since one can conceive of a browser which 
does do things correctly according to the old definitions and hence 
displays the author's document in the way he intended – albeit without 
him realising that most browser's don't.)

Cheers,
Anton Prowse
http://dev.moonhenge.net

Received on Monday, 13 December 2010 19:41:17 UTC