Re: Making pt a non-physical unit

Boris Zbarsky:
> [physical units are] clearly nonsense for anything where you don't  
> control the device;

That’s right.

That said, people may be using CSS Values in instances where they do  
know the environment perfectly (or good enough with Media Queries).  
Those guys could safely use absolute, physical units (i.e. ‘mm’,  
‘cm’, ‘in’, ‘pc’ and ‘pt’ currently).

Everyone else should simply not use them. Yet some are using but one  
of them, namely ‘pt’. Noone (mis)uses the other four, so leave them  
as they are. Fix only the ‘pt’ problem:
  1. Redefine it in relation to ‘px’.
  2. introduce a substitute for the empty space it leaves in physical  
units, e.g. ‘pp’.

Can we leave it with that?

For projection we probably have to live with the outdated thinking in  
terms of transparencies. Powerpoint, Presenter and Keynote should not  
provide ‘pt’, ‘mm’ etc. at all, but perhaps ‘deg’ or ‘min’. Neither  
should @media projection. CSS could allow user agents to cope with  
situations, where authors used an unsuitable unit, in a defined,  
media-specific way. (Then we wouldn’t have to redefine ‘pt’ at the  
base either.)

Received on Saturday, 9 January 2010 14:00:59 UTC