Re: [css3-fonts] Addition of font-size: xxx-large

On 4/19/12 3:40 AM, Aryeh Gregor wrote:
> But the default is different for different fonts -- sigh.  As soon as
> I do<font size=7 face=monospace>, browsers give totally different
> computed sizes -- 45px in Chrome, 36px in Gecko, 48px in IE/Opera.

At least in Gecko's case, the default user font size is different for 
monospace vs variable-width fonts, and has been dating back to early 
Netscape versions.  This was a stand-in for font-size-adjust, to some 
extent: at the same pixel size, monospace text tends to look larger than 
variable-width text, so having normal text with some monospace bits 
makes those bits look too large unless something is done to make the 
actual pixels size of the monospace bits smaller.

Of course this only applies to some languages...

> But for all I know those are only valid on the specific systems I
> tested on.

Note that at least in Gecko the default user font size are set 
per-language-group.  So for example, for what Gecko determines to be 
Japanese or Korean or Chinese text both the variable and fixed width 
fonts are set to 16px.  For most languages they're set to 16px and 13px 
respectively.  For Thai it looks like 16px and 13px with a 10px minimum 
font size enforced.  And some localizations might also set some of these 
differently, last I checked

And of course you may not care what happens if users change preferences 
but these are _very_ common preferences for users to change, as 
preference changes go.  And again, the defaults can vary widely based on 
expected reading material....

> Ideally, they should be standardized at fixed pixel sizes regardless o
> font-family -- with any luck that's web-compatible.

It's not necessarily user-compatible, which is a more important 
consideration.

-Boris

Received on Thursday, 19 April 2012 14:29:41 UTC