Re: Making pt a non-physical unit

On Jan 14, 2010, at 1:59 PM, David Singer <singer@apple.com> wrote:

>
> On Jan 14, 2010, at 12:12 , Brad Kemper wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> On Jan 14, 2010, at 11:58 AM, David Singer <singer@apple.com> wrote:
>>
>>>> I don't like that part. If I know that a scoreboard at the ball  
>>>> park is 800 pixels wide, with pixels the size of lightbulbs or  
>>>> whatever, I should be able to use that information to create  
>>>> borders that are one or two or three device pixels in width. It  
>>>> shares the same characteristics as other screen media.
>>>
>>> There is a huge assumption here of a tie between the designer and  
>>> the output device, which is very rare.
>>
>> For things like scoreboards or billboards, I disagree. Someone who  
>> wishes to advertise on a billboard needs to tailed their content  
>> for that output. Baseball scoreboards show content that was  
>> designed to be shown there. I've never seen anything that size that  
>> was there to just display any content at all from the Web.
>
>
> OK, but if you know the output device you're working towards, then  
> you also know that it's defined, for example, 1 CSS pixel as being 6  
> true inches.  For the 'closet' case where it's a closed system,  
> people can work it out.  Clear specs are needed for arbitrary  
> interoperability.

I also want them to be clear:

For print media where the print driver or printer engine understands  
physical dimensions such as inches (which should be most printers that  
matter), define pixels as being 1/96 inches. For all others, define  
inches as being 96 device pixels. Then apply zooming or scaling.

I don't think it matters if 1px on the Jumbotron is twice the size as  
it might be on a billboard of the same size. I'm not using either one  
to browse the Web; instead I'm paying huge sums to advertise on them,  
and will make sure that my money is well spent, by tweaking my design  
for the output device. Or if I want a more widely applicable design  
for varying resolutions (with some minimum rez probably), I'll use  
different units (percentages, inches, ems,, etc.) to acheive my goals.

Received on Thursday, 14 January 2010 23:46:56 UTC