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W3C advocates Verdana and font-size-adjust?

<URL:http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/font-size>

In the "recommneded practices", I don't agree with their second bullet
point, but the last 2 bullets sound like really bad advice, at least in
a WWW context.

How can they, in good conscience, advocate using font-size-adjust when
it is virtually unsupported, besides probably being dropped from the
next spec update? If they just made some disclaimers about browser
support or font availability on the client side, it wouldn't be so bad,
but they make it sound like this will work nicely for everyone, everywhere.

In a case like this, is W3C doing more harm than good?

--
Reply email address is a bottomless spam bucket.
Please reply to the group so everyone can share.
Jul 20 '05 #1
8 2249
kchayka <us****@c-net.us> wrote:
W3C advocates Verdana <URL:http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/font-size>
No mention of Verdana I could find.
In the "recommneded practices", I don't agree with their second bullet
point
Point 1 is nonsense (only applies to IEs broken implementation).
but the last 2 bullets sound like really bad advice, at least in
a WWW context.
Point 4 refers to the css 2.0 spec for information, the css 2.0 spec
contains in depth info on fonts that is absent from the 2.1 candidate
recommendation.
How can they, in good conscience, advocate using font-size-adjust when
it is virtually unsupported, besides probably being dropped from the
next spec update? If they just made some disclaimers about browser
support or font availability on the client side, it wouldn't be so bad,
but they make it sound like this will work nicely for everyone, everywhere.

In a case like this, is W3C doing more harm than good?


It's not wise to look to w3c for practical guidance, they concern
themselves with the theory, not practice.

--
Spartanicus
Jul 20 '05 #2
kchayka <us****@c-net.us> wrote:
W3C advocates Verdana <URL:http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/font-size>
No mention of Verdana I could find.
In the "recommneded practices", I don't agree with their second bullet
point
Point 1 is nonsense (only applies to IEs broken implementation).
but the last 2 bullets sound like really bad advice, at least in
a WWW context.
Point 4 refers to the css 2.0 spec for information, the css 2.0 spec
contains in depth info on fonts that is absent from the 2.1 candidate
recommendation.
How can they, in good conscience, advocate using font-size-adjust when
it is virtually unsupported, besides probably being dropped from the
next spec update? If they just made some disclaimers about browser
support or font availability on the client side, it wouldn't be so bad,
but they make it sound like this will work nicely for everyone, everywhere.

In a case like this, is W3C doing more harm than good?


It's not wise to look to w3c for practical guidance, they concern
themselves with the theory, not practice.

--
Spartanicus
Jul 20 '05 #3
Spartanicus wrote:
kchayka <us****@c-net.us> wrote:
W3C advocates Verdana
<URL:http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/font-size>


No mention of Verdana I could find.


See point 4, mention of a font with a high aspect value. Read: Verdana
Point 1 is nonsense (only applies to IEs broken implementation).
Other than the inferences that the resizing issue is global, and
cross-platform is the main problem, point 1 isn't complete nonsense. It
could have been worded better, but it does convey some general issues
with absolute font sizes.
It's not wise to look to w3c for practical guidance, they concern
themselves with the theory, not practice.


Then they shouldn't be offering practical guidance like this.

I bring the subject up because accessible font sizes came up in another
forum. A poster, who is a member of IWA-HWG, seems to think what W3C
says is some ultimate truth.

Reference: <URL:http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-CSS-TECHS/#units>
This only mentions em units for font-size, thus the poster would not
accept that % is also OK, let alone preferred over other units. For
those of us who know better, we can shrug these things off, or at least
read between the lines. That isn't the case with everyone, though.

It concerns me that W3C has this kind of influence yet is doling out bad
or misleading advice. It's counterproductive. Am I making a mountain out
of a molehill, or not?

--
Reply email address is a bottomless spam bucket.
Please reply to the group so everyone can share.
Jul 20 '05 #4
Spartanicus wrote:
kchayka <us****@c-net.us> wrote:
W3C advocates Verdana
<URL:http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/font-size>


No mention of Verdana I could find.


See point 4, mention of a font with a high aspect value. Read: Verdana
Point 1 is nonsense (only applies to IEs broken implementation).
Other than the inferences that the resizing issue is global, and
cross-platform is the main problem, point 1 isn't complete nonsense. It
could have been worded better, but it does convey some general issues
with absolute font sizes.
It's not wise to look to w3c for practical guidance, they concern
themselves with the theory, not practice.


Then they shouldn't be offering practical guidance like this.

I bring the subject up because accessible font sizes came up in another
forum. A poster, who is a member of IWA-HWG, seems to think what W3C
says is some ultimate truth.

Reference: <URL:http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-CSS-TECHS/#units>
This only mentions em units for font-size, thus the poster would not
accept that % is also OK, let alone preferred over other units. For
those of us who know better, we can shrug these things off, or at least
read between the lines. That isn't the case with everyone, though.

It concerns me that W3C has this kind of influence yet is doling out bad
or misleading advice. It's counterproductive. Am I making a mountain out
of a molehill, or not?

--
Reply email address is a bottomless spam bucket.
Please reply to the group so everyone can share.
Jul 20 '05 #5
kchayka <us****@c-net.us> wrote:
No mention of Verdana I could find.
See point 4, mention of a font with a high aspect value. Read: Verdana


Nonsense.
Point 1 is nonsense (only applies to IEs broken implementation).


Other than the inferences that the resizing issue is global, and
cross-platform is the main problem, point 1 isn't complete nonsense. It
could have been worded better, but it does convey some general issues
with absolute font sizes.


What's "general" about complete nonsense except for a few broken UAs?
It's not wise to look to w3c for practical guidance, they concern
themselves with the theory, not practice.


Then they shouldn't be offering practical guidance like this.


True.
I bring the subject up because accessible font sizes came up in another
forum. A poster, who is a member of IWA-HWG, seems to think what W3C
says is some ultimate truth.
From the site:

The tips are supposed to be helpful bits of information, not
authoritative, dry specifications. The tips should therefore suggest and
justify, not slam "must"s at the reader.
Reference: <URL:http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-CSS-TECHS/#units>
This only mentions em units for font-size, thus the poster would not
accept that % is also OK, let alone preferred over other units. For
those of us who know better, we can shrug these things off, or at least
read between the lines. That isn't the case with everyone, though.


Not w3's fault.

--
Spartanicus
Jul 20 '05 #6
kchayka <us****@c-net.us> wrote:
No mention of Verdana I could find.
See point 4, mention of a font with a high aspect value. Read: Verdana


Nonsense.
Point 1 is nonsense (only applies to IEs broken implementation).


Other than the inferences that the resizing issue is global, and
cross-platform is the main problem, point 1 isn't complete nonsense. It
could have been worded better, but it does convey some general issues
with absolute font sizes.


What's "general" about complete nonsense except for a few broken UAs?
It's not wise to look to w3c for practical guidance, they concern
themselves with the theory, not practice.


Then they shouldn't be offering practical guidance like this.


True.
I bring the subject up because accessible font sizes came up in another
forum. A poster, who is a member of IWA-HWG, seems to think what W3C
says is some ultimate truth.
From the site:

The tips are supposed to be helpful bits of information, not
authoritative, dry specifications. The tips should therefore suggest and
justify, not slam "must"s at the reader.
Reference: <URL:http://www.w3.org/TR/WCAG10-CSS-TECHS/#units>
This only mentions em units for font-size, thus the poster would not
accept that % is also OK, let alone preferred over other units. For
those of us who know better, we can shrug these things off, or at least
read between the lines. That isn't the case with everyone, though.


Not w3's fault.

--
Spartanicus
Jul 20 '05 #7
On Wed, 21 Apr 2004, kchayka wrote:
Spartanicus wrote:
kchayka <us****@c-net.us> wrote:
W3C advocates Verdana
html, body, h2, h3, h4, div, p, ul, li, input {
font-family: "Gill Sans MT", "Gill sans", "Trebuchet ms", sans-serif;

No Verdana there (except perhaps as a generic choice)
<URL:http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/font-size>


No mention of Verdana I could find.


See point 4, mention of a font with a high aspect value. Read: Verdana


Seems to be some confusion. Verdana's aspect value is indeed rather
large compared with -some- fonts, but it's actually not so very
different from other popular sans fonts, such as Arial, Trebuchet...
- nevertheless, Verdana does look significantly larger at a given
nominal font size, which seems to demonstrate that the objective
x-height/em size is by no means the whole story. Which, incidentally,
means that even if implementations of font-size-adjust (as originally
defined) were to appear, they wouldn't be a complete answer to this
issue.
Point 1 is nonsense (only applies to IEs broken implementation).


Untrue. pt units specify 1/72 of an inch: that's a physical
measurement, objectively referenced to an international standard
length. It can be objectively tested whether the display is correctly
conforming to that specification or not. If the display gets resized
then it is no longer working to specification (except in the sense
that CSS is optional anyway).

(What's the use of a character 1/6th of an inch high on a ten-foot
projection screen, riddle me that?).

Even if the pt unit were supported on browsers (most of which in fact
have no idea of the physical dpi settings of the display, and
therefore have no way of assuring the correct size in pt units), it
wouldn't be what users want or need!!

So: what's the point of specifying something in the wrong units in the
hope that those units won't work as designed? Illogical, Mr. Spock.

CSS px units *might* be a more logical choice, if any browser made any
attempt to implement them as defined (i.e scaled by reference to the
screen dpi and/or expected browsing distance); but again, we're stuck
with the fact that most displays take no account of the screen dpi,
and there's no provision for telling browsers the information which
they would need in order to implement the CS px unit per the
requirements of (let's use the draft 2.1 for example)
http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/syndata.html#length-units

So, in reality they display px units as physical pixels, which isn't
so funny when you compare a display of <70dpi with another of >130dpi,
both of which would display 1.0em (or 100%) text at just the size
their users had chosen.

best
Jul 20 '05 #8
On Wed, 21 Apr 2004, kchayka wrote:
Spartanicus wrote:
kchayka <us****@c-net.us> wrote:
W3C advocates Verdana
html, body, h2, h3, h4, div, p, ul, li, input {
font-family: "Gill Sans MT", "Gill sans", "Trebuchet ms", sans-serif;

No Verdana there (except perhaps as a generic choice)
<URL:http://www.w3.org/QA/Tips/font-size>


No mention of Verdana I could find.


See point 4, mention of a font with a high aspect value. Read: Verdana


Seems to be some confusion. Verdana's aspect value is indeed rather
large compared with -some- fonts, but it's actually not so very
different from other popular sans fonts, such as Arial, Trebuchet...
- nevertheless, Verdana does look significantly larger at a given
nominal font size, which seems to demonstrate that the objective
x-height/em size is by no means the whole story. Which, incidentally,
means that even if implementations of font-size-adjust (as originally
defined) were to appear, they wouldn't be a complete answer to this
issue.
Point 1 is nonsense (only applies to IEs broken implementation).


Untrue. pt units specify 1/72 of an inch: that's a physical
measurement, objectively referenced to an international standard
length. It can be objectively tested whether the display is correctly
conforming to that specification or not. If the display gets resized
then it is no longer working to specification (except in the sense
that CSS is optional anyway).

(What's the use of a character 1/6th of an inch high on a ten-foot
projection screen, riddle me that?).

Even if the pt unit were supported on browsers (most of which in fact
have no idea of the physical dpi settings of the display, and
therefore have no way of assuring the correct size in pt units), it
wouldn't be what users want or need!!

So: what's the point of specifying something in the wrong units in the
hope that those units won't work as designed? Illogical, Mr. Spock.

CSS px units *might* be a more logical choice, if any browser made any
attempt to implement them as defined (i.e scaled by reference to the
screen dpi and/or expected browsing distance); but again, we're stuck
with the fact that most displays take no account of the screen dpi,
and there's no provision for telling browsers the information which
they would need in order to implement the CS px unit per the
requirements of (let's use the draft 2.1 for example)
http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/syndata.html#length-units

So, in reality they display px units as physical pixels, which isn't
so funny when you compare a display of <70dpi with another of >130dpi,
both of which would display 1.0em (or 100%) text at just the size
their users had chosen.

best
Jul 20 '05 #9

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