Re: Making pt a non-physical unit

Robert O'Callahan:
> (At this time, I don't think we need to give up on physical units  
> entirely; all the problematic sites I'm aware of are misusing pt,  
> but not mm or in. mm remains useful for specifying the dimensions  
> of touch-based interfaces.)


I don’t give much a damn about points and picas and inches, in fact  
I wish them gone. People, though, seem to like (or just are used to)  
specifying absolute font sizes without decimal fractions sometimes  
and they are used to somethng called “points” through their word  
processor or other print-related experience, hence the problem at  
hand. Despite well-known samples of standard misuse from the Web,  
some of them really want a sixth of an inch when they write  
“12pt”. So you better provide those folks with an alternative to  
‘pt’ if you were to move that from “Absolute length units”  
to “Relative length units” in CSS: Values – ‘pp’ or ‘p’  
perhaps, or ‘bp’ as in Latex, defined the same as ‘pt’ is now.  
Picas, which are basically unused anyway, would continue to be twelve  
points, despite the identifier changing.

Also remember that W3C standards influence beyond explicit references  
and inclusions. Someone might want to reuse he parts on absolute  
length units only.

PS: Integer millimetres are too big for font and similar sizes: 3mm =  
8.5pt, 4mm = 11.3pt, 5mm = 14.2pt; 1q := 0.25mm (~ √½pt) would  
help. But I repeat myself.

Received on Wednesday, 6 January 2010 01:07:31 UTC