Heading-related HTML issues

[Dave Patton]

http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/gps.html

In another newsgroup(relat ed to GPS), in regards to
the above page, someone said:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
That page has quite a cryptic title: "CIS: GPS". I saved the URL in my
browser but changed the title to "Patton's GPS pages".

The headings are rather haphazard. For example, the first one ("On
This Page") is a third level heading (an <h3>), which looks strange
because it doesn't fall under an <h2>.

A little distance down the page, "Overview" is a first level heading.
Below that are titles which to me look like they deserve to be
headings, e.g., "GPS resources". However, they're just ordinary text.
I think "Links" definitely should be a heading, since there's a link
at the top of the page to jump to this section.
----------------------------------------------------------------------

The "CIS" refers to the initials of my company, and I agree I should
change it - maybe to something like "Patton"?

The reason for the <h3>On This Page:</h3> being near the top of the
page was that originally the navigation menu was at the bottom of the
HTML, but when viewed without CSS support, it meant the navigation
menu was at the bottom of the page, so I moved it to the top of the
HTML, without making changes to the heading structure :-(

I want to change the first level "Overview" headings that appear on
some of my pages, because, taken by themselves, they don't provide
any context(e.g. to search engine indexing). On the above page,
maybe something like "GPS Information Overview" would be better?

"GPS Resources" is marked up as:
<div class="heading1 "><a name="resources ">GPS Resources</a></div>
rather than, for example, as a second level heading. I can't recall
exactly why I did that, but it was at the time I was learning CSS,
and probably isn't "the correct way to do things".

Anyone care to offer any suggestions, either about the proper
way to structure the page/headings, or anything else on my site?
Thanks

--
Dave Patton
Canadian Coordinator, Degree Confluence Project
http://www.confluence.org/
My website: http://members.shaw.ca/davepatton/

[Jan Roland Eriksson]

On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 19:25:46 GMT, "C A Upsdell"
<cupsdell0311XX X@-@[e-mail]> wrote:

[...]

Perhaps his point is that topography...
"topography " ?
...has an 'em' unit which is the width of a font's letter M.
That "Anglo-Saxon bullshit definition" of an 'em' pops up again, just
about a week since the last time it was mentioned right here.
I remember being confused myself when I started using CSS
because its definition of 'em' units was so perversely
different
There is only one single font design available where the 'em' unit just
happens to coincide with the width of its letter 'M' and that is for a
font named "Capitalis Quadrata". CQ is in effect a reconstruction of the
font that was used in the ancient Roman Empire for carving of
inscriptions on columns, statues and the likes. (one of CQ's most famous
occurrences can be found on the "Trajanus Column" in Rome, Italy)

http://hans.presto.tripod.com/isbn/trajan.html

Due to changes in writing style and typesetting procedures over hundreds
of years after the fall of the Roman Empire, the connection between the
'em' unit and the width of letter 'M' has been lost.

Still the 'em' unit comes to its best use in typography when it is
defined as the total height of a lead block where each and every
character in a font can be casted on the same baseline.

There is historical evidence to this, available at the Plantin Moretus
Museum in Antwerp - Belgium, where the major part of Claude Garamond's
original font design work is kept. Most especially it can be seen that
CG did know that a relative unit that describes the total height of a
font would make typographical work much simpler. His design drawings for
the 'em-dash' and the white space filler 'em-square' clearly indicates
this.
(I think that the CSS unit should have been named something else)

I think that people of Anglo-Saxon origin, and "Americans" especially,
needs to study, and learn, from real history instead of inventing their
own.

The CSS 'em' unit, as originally defined in CSS1, is correct and stands
on historical facts. Haakon and Bert did their job correct on this part,
as well as for just about all parts of CSS1 as a total.

http://www.css.nu/articles/typograph1-en.html

--
Rex

[C A Upsdell]

"Jan Roland Eriksson" <re*@css.nu> wrote in message
news:et******** *************** *********@4ax.c om...

On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 19:25:46 GMT, "C A Upsdell"
<cupsdell0311XX X@-@[e-mail]> wrote:

...has an 'em' unit which is the width of a font's letter M.

That "Anglo-Saxon bullshit definition" of an 'em' pops up again, just
about a week since the last time it was mentioned right here.

Maybe because there is some validity to it, e.g. see
http://wvdg.westvalley.edu/wvdg-tips.../lexicon6.html among other
sources. As for "Anglo-Saxon Bullshit": my grandfather and
great-grandfather were in the print business, and they did not think it was
BS ... but then they WERE Anglo-Saxon, and perhaps such people have no
credibility in your eyes.

[Tim]

Brian wrote:

Em units are based on font-size. The bigger the font-size, the
larger the width, if that width is set in em units.

Tim wrote:

But not in a manner that's always so useful.

e.g. If I have some text that's ten characters wide, but if I were
to set a width of 10em, it'd be *far* wider than my text. But if I
try to compensate by using a smaller width, I might make a mess
should a browser use a font that draws some characters wider than I
anticipate.

Brian <us*****@juliet remblay.com.inv alid> posted:

I'm not sure I see your point. It's true that you cannot make e.g. a
nav only precisely wide enough for text links, and not 1 pixel wider.
So what? The www is not a place for pixel-perfect layout. You already
knew that, so perhaps you could explain what you mean by that.
I'm not trying to achieve pixel precision, just avoid wasting a lot of
space. As my prior paragraph stated, the difference can be quite
excessive.
To restate: make the positioned box wide enough for the content, leave
a small amount of breathing room, check using different font sizes. If
the user has selected a wide font, the em unit should take that into
account.
There's two issues with that:

1. I could check a plethora of different fonts, and not come up with a
clearly useful answer.

2. The width of the words would entirely depend on what characters are
used, and that's something that can radically change with different fonts.
See url in sig for example.

Still suffers one thing I dislike, and want to avoid: A rather
significant portion of the canvas is permanently lost to a
navigation bar.

Fair enough, but you've just introduced an entirely different
complaint, one which I didn't address because it wasn't in the
discussion earlier.

Actually, it was; pretty much right from the start. Not that it matters.

--
If you insist on e-mailing me, use the reply-to address (it's real but
temporary). But please reply to the group, like you're supposed to.

This message was sent without a virus, please delete some files yourself.

[Brian]

Tim wrote:

Brian wrote:

Em units are based on font-size. The bigger the font-size,
the larger the width, if that width is set in em units.

2. The width of the words would entirely depend on what characters
are used, and that's something that can radically change with
different fonts.

I'm unable to duplicate this problem here. The only thing
I can think to try is to use a "word" that consists only of
"mmmmmmmmmmmmmm m" and compare it to "llllllllllllll l," which would
only illustrate how to break it in a situation that isn't terribly
likely to occur in a real authoring situation.

--
Brian (remove ".invalid" to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/

[Jan Roland Eriksson]

On Thu, 17 Jun 2004 01:10:21 GMT, "C A Upsdell"
<cupsdell0311XX X@-@[e-mail]> wrote:

"Jan Roland Eriksson" <re*@css.nu> wrote in message
news:et******* *************** **********@4ax. com...

On Wed, 16 Jun 2004 19:25:46 GMT, "C A Upsdell"
<cupsdell0311XX X@-@[e-mail]> wrote:

>...has an 'em' unit which is the width of
>a font's letter M.

That "Anglo-Saxon bullshit definition" of an 'em'
pops up again...

Maybe because there is some validity to it, e.g. see
http://wvdg.westvalley.edu/wvdg-tips.../lexicon6.html among other
sources.
Oh yes; there's a lot of that "mumbo-jumbo" around, most often to be
found on www resources produced in the "big" country on the other side
of the big water.

But since you point us all to an example, let me show you that what it
has to say does not hold up to a logical analysis.

The following snip is quoted verbatim from the www resource given above.

"Em; Traditionally, the width occupied by a capital M that,
usually being a square, gave rise to a linear measurement
equal to the point size of the type being set; thus,
a 9-point em is 9 points wide. A 12-point em is generally
called a pica, or pica em, and measures 4.22mm (0.166inch).
Half and em is called an en."

"Em quad; An em space, which is the size of a square of the
type being set."

Let's now put forward the following set of questions...

1. One 'em' is equal to the width of letter 'M'.
(Yes/No)?

(don't try to answer this one just yet)

2. The point size of a type is the distance from the top
of the tallest character (with a diacritical mark)
down to the bottom edge of a character with a descender.
(Yes/No)?

(my answer here is 'Yes' and international practice is
to set the character combination 'Ép' in print on the
same baseline and then measure the resulting total
height of that combo to arrive at the point size of
"the type being set")

3. Now take this measured point size of the "type being set"
and use it to construct a square with its sides equal to
the measured point size.
Is this the square of "the type being set".
(Yes/No)?

(well, 'Yes' of course it is)

Return to question 1. to find its answer when you try to
place your letter 'M' (from the same type naturally) in
the square in a way that the 'M' fills the full width of
the square.

And your answer to question 1. is? 'Yes' or 'No' ?

Secondary question; Is your referenced source contradicting it self in
its description of what one 'em' represents?

Yes it is in fact and it is in good company. E.g. "The Oxford
Illustrated", which is said to have a level of quality as a dictionary,
manage to create an even bigger mess when it tries to describe what one
'em' represents in print.
As for "Anglo-Saxon Bullshit": my grandfather and great-grandfather
were in the print business, and they did not think it was BS ...

I had no reason to point at any one in particular but more to the fact
that this really persistent BS about the 'em' seems to have its roots in
an Anglo-Saxon printing tradition and that it is kept alive and well fed
in a traditional BS fashion.

As for BS it self, there is this document...

http://www.jelks.nu/misc/articles/bs.html

....which has been available on the www as a definition of BS for as long
as I can remember.

--
Rex

[Tim]

Tim wrote (about setting a width for the floated object):

I didn't need to when playing with lists, which was the beauty of
that approach:
<http://htmltestbed.spe edymail.org/htmlmenus/floated_menus.h tml>

Brian <us*****@juliet remblay.com.inv alid> posted:
Depends. Try floating a block level text container without setting a
width; now have a look in IE 5.x/Mac. ;-) And don't complain about
the browser -- it was only following the spec at the time.

Just for curiosity's sake, can you send me a screenshot? I don't have a
Mac to play with.

--
If you insist on e-mailing me, use the reply-to address (it's real but
temporary). But please reply to the group, like you're supposed to.

This message was sent without a virus, please delete some files yourself.

[Brian]

Tim wrote:

Brian posted:

Try floating a block level text container without setting a
width; now have a look in IE 5.x/Mac.

Just for curiosity's sake, can you send me a screenshot? I don't
have a Mac to play with.

Neither do I. I used to test regularly on a Mac, and I couldn't
understand why floats on short elements didn't work. Then I learned
what was wrong. My sister uses a Mac at work. If noone else can do
it, I'll post a test file on the web and have her take a screen shot
for you. But this will likely take a bit of time.

--
Brian (remove ".invalid" to email me)
http://www.tsmchughs.com/