Re: [css3] [css21] browser specific CSS

On 4/2/2011 8:40 AM, Felix Miata wrote:
> On 2011/04/02 03:00 (GMT-0700) Glenn Linderman composed:
>
>> reporting the bug, and even having the bug be fixed in a
>> newer version, doesn't remove the buggy version from the WWW... so it
>> must still be detected and dealt with in some manner.
>
> Actually you have the power to deal with it very simply without regard 
> to the state of browser "bugs". All you need to do boils down to using 
> CSS for what it is, suggestion rather than demand. CSS is not a page 
> layout language. CSS is not PDF. User environments differ. Browser 
> window sizes differ. Visitor font size requirements differ. It's 
> _expected_ that all users will not have the same visual experience. 
> Users don't expect to have identical visual experiences. Users do not 
> open your work in different browsers at the same time looking for 
> minute, or even not so minute, differences among them. Stop expecting 
> your work to look the same in every browser, start expecting 
> differences, and learn to be content with what the web is and should 
> continue to be, adaptable to different user needs as reflected in 
> their local environments. Once you modify your expectations in this 
> way, browser bugs and UA become immaterial.
>
> http://dowebsitesneedtolookexactlythesameineverybrowser.com/
>
> What the CSS4 spec needs is px units larger than a single digit to be 
> invalid, and deprecation of same in CSS3 if it ever gets to be an 
> officially published spec. This would force authors to stop using px 
> other than minimally, such as for small margins or borders, forcing 
> authors to think relative to something the visitor has predetermined 
> to be an appropriate size unit - 1em. In that panacea users would no 
> longer need to drop their display's resolution from optimal to 
> something lower in order to enlarge the bulk of web page objects to 
> legible sizes. Instead of users having to squint or hurt their backs 
> leaning forward in their chairs in the time between loading a page and 
> engaging their browsers' zoom defense[1], page text would just be 
> legible to start with. Ah, what a dream.
>
> [1] defense - n - a tool or strategy used for dealing with offensive 
> strategy or behavior

Felix,

You have some very valid points.  I attempt to make most of my designs 
"flow" with the viewport size, as one of my computers is a netbook, with 
a small screen, and another has two large 1600x1200 screens (one 
portrait, one landscape).

While you recommend using em units, that would lead to a more likely 
requirement for fractional units.  Gérard was lambasting my use of 
decimal fractions in some of my ancient (but still in use) CSS rules, 
because browser differ in their treatment of fractional pixels: 
apparently, according to him, some might round up, some might round 
down, some might floor, some might ceil, and the standard doesn't berate 
them for it.  The places I used such fractions really didn't care, they 
were only achieving "more indentation than the previous one" or some 
similar feature, and a pixel different here or there in different 
browsers really didn't matter, as you point out.

Back to the first hand, though, some browser differences, even the one I 
just finished posting in a different subthread of this discussion, can 
make things look really stupid -- and there are few web designers that 
want their site to look really stupid, unless there is a serious 
constraint, such as displaying it on a tiny phone screen, or something.

Glenn