Magnify font size?

[BobK]

Hello Everyone,

I am updating the CSS for my site but want new and original page to appear
the same.

My original CSS permits small increments of zooming (ctrl/mouse wheel) so
that you get perhaps 3 usable levels of zoom. The increments are small and
it only has 4 zoom levels. Same thing with changing resolutions. When you
change from 1280x1024 to 800x600 the page looks acceptable after changing
the zoom a click or two.

However, my new CSS seems to have larger increments of zoom so that there is
only one level of zoom that is reasonable at 1280x1024 and when you change
resolutions there seems to be no good zoom level. The problem is that all
levels of zoom are too large. So the new page had much larger increments of
zoom.

Is there a way to control the size of the zoom increments so you can get an
acceptable appearance at all resolutions or have a couple of levels of zoom
at a given resolution that people might use?

Thanks a lot,

Bob

[Stan Brown]

"BobK" <rk1@usernomics[no> wrote in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets:

My original CSS permits small increments of zooming (ctrl/mouse wheel) so
that you get perhaps 3 usable levels of zoom.

Why are you even trying to control this? Any decent browser lets the
user do this -- even Internet Explorer gives the user some choice.

At best, you are duplicating the work that went into browsers, but
forcing users to learn a new interface. At worst, you are
_interfering_ with users' selection of the text size they find most
comfortable.

Doctors learn "primum non nocere" -- the main thing is to do no
harm. I wish Web dee-zighn-ers would learn the same thing.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[Andrew Thompson]

On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 13:24:54 GMT, BobK wrote:

I am updating the CSS ..
* What CSS?
..for my site ..
* What site?
but want new and original page to appear
the same...

It appears (not) exactly the same on all three
browsers on which I din't test it.

* URL?

But it sounds like you are doing something silly.
For starters, thinking the user cares if the built
in (if you've done the page right) ability of
their browser to make your page bigger or smaller.

Font size, 100%, is what the user actually wants
of your page, 'cos that's not "too big", nor
"too small", but.. "just right".

HTH

--
Andrew Thompson
http://www.PhySci.org/ Open-source software suite
http://www.PhySci.org/codes/ Web & IT Help
http://www.1point1C.org/ Science & Technology

[Harlan Messinger]

"BobK" <rk1@usernomics[no spam].com> wrote in message
news:GU*******************@typhoon.sonic.net...

Hello Everyone,

I am updating the CSS for my site but want new and original page to appear
the same.

My original CSS permits small increments of zooming (ctrl/mouse wheel) so
that you get perhaps 3 usable levels of zoom. The increments are small and it only has 4 zoom levels. Same thing with changing resolutions. When you
change from 1280x1024 to 800x600 the page looks acceptable after changing
the zoom a click or two.
How about 982 x 604? Or 493 x 760? Do you realize people don't always
maximize their browsers?

However, my new CSS seems to have larger increments of zoom so that there is only one level of zoom that is reasonable at 1280x1024 and when you change
resolutions there seems to be no good zoom level. The problem is that all
levels of zoom are too large. So the new page had much larger increments of zoom.

CSS doesn't have "increments of zoom" so I have no idea what you're talking
about.

[BobK]

* URL?

But it sounds like you are doing something silly.
For starters, thinking the user cares if the built
in (if you've done the page right) ability of
their browser to make your page bigger or smaller.

Font size, 100%, is what the user actually wants
of your page, 'cos that's not "too big", nor
"too small", but.. "just right".

HTH

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the feedback. I think I did not make my point clear. I do
understand that each individual will set the zoom at whatever level they
choose, will have different resolutions, browsers, and screen sizes.

However, on my new CSS I had to set several font-sizes for body, headers,
navigation buttons, etc. When I get the fonts looking right using a
1280x1024 resolution, I can not get a good zoom level when I change my
resolution to smaller sizes. That is, the increments of zoom are so large
that the font-size is either too small or too large. My current page seems
to have finer increments of zoom so when you do change resolutions there is
always a suitable font size.

I know that each browser / user will set the zoom to their liking but the
page should have font-sizes so that there are one or two levels that are
acceptable on all resolutions. That is the case with my current page but not
my new page. I am new to CSS and must have done something in my structure
that is not permitting acceptable zoom levels at high and low resolutions -
I think.

My current page and css is located at:

www.usernomics.com
www.usernomics.com/nice.css and www.usernomics.com/basic.css (someone did
this for me and has two css pages)

The new version is located at:

www.usernomics.com/testsite/testpage3.html
www.usernomics.com/testsite/main3.css

I am trying to get the pages to match each other in appearance.

Thanks a lot,

Bob

[Steve Pugh]

"BobK" <rk1@usernomics[no spam].com> wrote:

However, on my new CSS I had to set several font-sizes for body, headers,
navigation buttons, etc. When I get the fonts looking right using a
1280x1024 resolution, I can not get a good zoom level when I change my
resolution to smaller sizes. That is, the increments of zoom are so large
that the font-size is either too small or too large. My current page seems
to have finer increments of zoom so when you do change resolutions there is
always a suitable font size.

The new version is located at:

www.usernomics.com/testsite/testpage3.html
www.usernomics.com/testsite/main3.css

I am trying to get the pages to match each other in appearance.

Which browser on which OS is giving you problems?

I'm guessing that it's IE for Windows because (a) that has silly zoom
levels (smallest -> largest) rather than a simple precentage value and
(b) that has a bug whereby it makes the intervals between sizes larger
when the font size is specified in em compared to other resizable
units.

I find you site readable at Medium and Larger. Too big at Largest. Too
small for comfort at Smaller and totally illegible at Smallest.

Try changing all you font-size styles from em to %.

Or just stick with the default size for the main copy and let the user
see the site as they want to without needing to make any adjustments.

Steve

--
"My theories appal you, my heresies outrage you,
I never answer letters and you don't like my tie." - The Doctor

Steve Pugh <st***@pugh.net> <http://steve.pugh.net/>

[Andrew Thompson]

On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 15:41:44 GMT, BobK wrote:

www.usernomics.com/testsite/testpage3.html

You might want to fix the validation errors
before worrying about slight differences in
rendering*. If it's invalid mark-up, all
bets are off.

* (You might also want to validate your pages
so those cute little 'W3C' images down the
bottom of the page are not ..how shall we say,
...inaccurate? ;-)

--
Andrew Thompson
http://www.PhySci.org/ Open-source software suite
http://www.PhySci.org/codes/ Web & IT Help
http://www.1point1C.org/ Science & Technology

[BobK]

Hi Steve,

Thanks so much for the tips. I think you may have hit on a possibility.

Which browser on which OS is giving you problems?
I am using WinXP with IE6.0 but I check with Opera and Mozilla.

I'm guessing that it's IE for Windows because (a) that has silly zoom
levels (smallest -> largest) rather than a simple percentage value and
(b) that has a bug whereby it makes the intervals between sizes larger
when the font size is specified in em compared to other resizable
units.
Yes, I am using em. I will change to % and see what happens.

I find you site readable at Medium and Larger. Too big at Largest. Too
small for comfort at Smaller and totally illegible at Smallest.

That is what I get at 1280x1024 (one good zoom level). But try at 1024x768
or 800x600 and I can't get any acceptable zoom level (all too large or too
small)

I think the em to % might be the culprit. I did not know it made a
difference. And, those zoom increments are quite large in the new version.
The current version did use % so that may be it.

Thanks so much. I will let you know what happens.

Bob

[BobK]

Hello Andrew,

Thanks for the catch. I have been validating but made some changes and did
not do it a last time. I will do so next time around.

Thanks a lot,

Bob


"Andrew Thompson" <Se********@www.invalid> wrote in message
news:1d******************************@40tude.net.. .

On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 15:41:44 GMT, BobK wrote:

www.usernomics.com/testsite/testpage3.html

You might want to fix the validation errors
before worrying about slight differences in
rendering*. If it's invalid mark-up, all
bets are off.

* (You might also want to validate your pages
so those cute little 'W3C' images down the
bottom of the page are not ..how shall we say,
..inaccurate? ;-)

--
Andrew Thompson
http://www.PhySci.org/ Open-source software suite
http://www.PhySci.org/codes/ Web & IT Help
http://www.1point1C.org/ Science & Technology

[BobK]

Hello Harlan,

Thanks for the suggestions.

How about 982 x 604? Or 493 x 760? Do you realize people don't always
maximize their browsers?
Right, but you would think that you could find one acceptable zoom level at
those resolutions - and I can't. They are very very large or too small to
read.

CSS doesn't have "increments of zoom" so I have no idea what you're talking about.

Steve may have the solution about using % rather than em for specifying
font-size.

Thanks Again,

Bob

[Neal]

On Mon, 30 Aug 2004 17:15:27 GMT, wrote:

I think the em to % might be the culprit. I did not know it made a
difference. And, those zoom increments are quite large in the new
version.
The current version did use % so that may be it.

If you wish to use ems as font size, you must specify font-size: 100% in
the body element. Then ems will work correctly in the descendent elements.
However, using % everywhere is usually the easiest solution.

[BobK]

"BobK" <rk1@usernomics[no spam].com> wrote in message
news:Pg*******************@typhoon.sonic.net...

Hi Steve,

Thanks so much for the tips. I think you may have hit on a possibility.

Which browser on which OS is giving you problems?

I am using WinXP with IE6.0 but I check with Opera and Mozilla.

I'm guessing that it's IE for Windows because (a) that has silly zoom
levels (smallest -> largest) rather than a simple percentage value and
(b) that has a bug whereby it makes the intervals between sizes larger
when the font size is specified in em compared to other resizable
units.

Yes, I am using em. I will change to % and see what happens.

I find you site readable at Medium and Larger. Too big at Largest. Too
small for comfort at Smaller and totally illegible at Smallest.

That is what I get at 1280x1024 (one good zoom level). But try at 1024x768
or 800x600 and I can't get any acceptable zoom level (all too large or too
small)

I think the em to % might be the culprit. I did not know it made a
difference. And, those zoom increments are quite large in the new version.
The current version did use % so that may be it.

Thanks so much. I will let you know what happens.

Bob

Hello Steve,

Thank you so much for the % tip. I changed all em's to % and it fixed the
problem perfectly. While I am still tweaking the test page, you can see the
result at:

www.usernomics.com/testsite/testpage3.html
www.usernomics.com/testsite/main3.css

Notice that the zoom increments are nice and small now so I get a reasonable
appearance at all resolutions.

Thanks Again for the great tip,

Bob

[Steve Pugh]

"BobK" <rk*@usernomics.com> wrote:

Steve Pugh <st***@pugh.net> wrote:

I find you site readable at Medium and Larger. Too big at Largest. Too
small for comfort at Smaller and totally illegible at Smallest.

That is what I get at 1280x1024 (one good zoom level). But try at 1024x768
or 800x600 and I can't get any acceptable zoom level (all too large or too
small)

FWIW, my observations (two usable levels out of five in IE) was at
1024x768.

Steve

--
"My theories appal you, my heresies outrage you,
I never answer letters and you don't like my tie." - The Doctor

Steve Pugh <st***@pugh.net> <http://steve.pugh.net/>

[BobK]

"Steve Pugh" <st***@pugh.net> wrote in message
news:63********************************@4ax.com...

"BobK" <rk*@usernomics.com> wrote:

Steve Pugh <st***@pugh.net> wrote:

I find you site readable at Medium and Larger. Too big at Largest. Too
small for comfort at Smaller and totally illegible at Smallest.

That is what I get at 1280x1024 (one good zoom level). But try at 1024x768or 800x600 and I can't get any acceptable zoom level (all too large or toosmall)

FWIW, my observations (two usable levels out of five in IE) was at
1024x768.

Steve

Thanks Steve,

That is what I find also. I also get acceptable levels of zoom at every
resolution in IE, Opera, and Mozilla.

Again, thanks so much for catching that. A lot of people looked and thought
I was crazy.

Bob

[Miroslav Kaminski]

I am working on a website myself (for a university assignment), and I
came across your article of zoom increments and the like. I have
certain areas which I would like to be immune the text resizing as
well, on this particular site. I believe the way to do this, if it
were possible to control increment sizes, would be to change those
increments to 0.

I have read on many sites, after doing some research, that using
pixels to specify font size in CSS should prevent resizing, which is
what I always thought. I used this approach on the website, and it
isn't working (I am testing in IE6). I have found that IE6 tends to
override this. Would I be correct?

I know that it is a bad design habit to do these sorts of things - I
am a web developer in the industry already, and I would never do that
unless specifically asked to. However, these university tutors aren't
too competent themselves, so I thought they wouldn't have a problem me
working to their standards.

My team developing this website also has to present it at a trade-show
type of set up as a final assessment for the assignment, where
external professionals in the industry come in and talk to us about
what we've done etc. Any suggestions there, for those of you who have
been through that kind of experience?

(Yes, I know that last bit should probably be in a different thread,
but I thought I might ask here, since I'm posting anyway. I will
probably have a seperate thread about this in the right place.)

Thanks in advance.

[Neal]

On 19 Sep 2004 21:11:06 -0700, Miroslav Kaminski
<an**********@yahoo.com.au> wrote:

I am working on a website myself (for a university assignment),
To whom are you replying? Please quote and attribute. I have no idea what
thread this goes with.
and I
came across your article of zoom increments and the like. I have
certain areas which I would like to be immune the text resizing as
well, on this particular site. I believe the way to do this, if it
were possible to control increment sizes, would be to change those
increments to 0.
If you set nothing, or use CSS body {font-size: 100%;} , you will not
interfere with user preference.
I have read on many sites, after doing some research, that using
pixels to specify font size in CSS should prevent resizing, which is
what I always thought. I used this approach on the website, and it
isn't working (I am testing in IE6). I have found that IE6 tends to
override this. Would I be correct?
If you use px to set font size, it should prevent IE from easily changing
font prefrence. It should result in an unchangeable size under normal
circumstances. Beyond that, I'm not sure what you are asking.
However, these university tutors aren't
too competent themselves, so I thought they wouldn't have a problem me
working to their standards.

University professors should be bound to best practice. Defend your choice
of font-size: 100% based on the facts of how browsers work. Any
measurement other than em or % is unscalable in the most common UA. Ems
pose problems in IE as well when the size is not "normal". % succeeds in
all cases in delivering content at the default size, whether what the
browser is set at, or what the user has set.

[Miroslav Kaminski]

Yes, you are right. I should be more specific. Sorry.

To whom are you replying? Please quote and attribute. I have no idea what
thread this goes with.
I'm not necessarily replying to anything, just that this is along the
same line as what I might be after, so I was thinking I might post in
here about it.
If you set nothing, or use CSS body {font-size: 100%;} , you will not
interfere with user preference.
I actually DO want to interfere with the user preference. The design I
have been given to work with, the text-based menu does not scale
without damaging the layout of the page. Hence, I need to keep this
particular part of the page completely static.
If you use px to set font size, it should prevent IE from easily changing
font prefrence. It should result in an unchangeable size under normal
circumstances. Beyond that, I'm not sure what you are asking.
You are right, it should prevent changes. I think I found the problem
though. My only classes for the menu in question are specific
selectors, like .textMenu a:link {}. I believe that if I just have a
standard .textMenu {}, then have the selectors, it should work
properly.
University professors should be bound to best practice. Defend your choice
of font-size: 100% based on the facts of how browsers work. Any
measurement other than em or % is unscalable in the most common UA. Ems
pose problems in IE as well when the size is not "normal". % succeeds in
all cases in delivering content at the default size, whether what the
browser is set at, or what the user has set.

I completely agree. University professors SHOULD be bound to best
practice. However, this unit is a combination of both our IT faculty
and our Creative Industries faculty (for some reason), and many of our
lecturers are from CI. I can see why they are teaching what they are
teaching - they are currently teaching HTML 4.01 as up-to-date
technology, and I think XHTML was mentioned once in passing by a guest
lecturer. With that in mind, one has to remember that most of the
people in this degree have never touched anything outside of a Windows
GUI, so they aren't as technically-inclined as others. Whatever the
situation is, I think that this unit is a bit like Microsoft - they
make content for a population that is moving towards knowing very
little about a lot.

Anyway, thanks for your input. I'm sorry if this comes across as me
spamming the thread. That wasn't my intention.

[Darin McGrew]

Miroslav Kaminski <an**********@yahoo.com.au> wrote:

I actually DO want to interfere with the user preference. The design I
have been given to work with, the text-based menu does not scale
without damaging the layout of the page. Hence, I need to keep this
particular part of the page completely static.

Or you could fix the design you've been given to work with, so the layout
doesn't break when browsers ignore attempts to enforce inappropriate font
sizes (e.g., via MSIE's Ignore font sizes specified on Web pages setting,
or via modern browsers' minimum font size settings).
--
Darin McGrew, mc****@stanfordalumni.org, http://www.rahul.net/mcgrew/
Web Design Group, da***@htmlhelp.com, http://www.HTMLHelp.com/

"Red meat isn't bad for you. Fuzzy blue-green meat is bad for you."

[kchayka]

Darin McGrew wrote:

Or you could fix the design you've been given to work with,

s/fix/repair/

:)

--
Reply email address is a bottomless spam bucket.
Please reply to the group so everyone can share.

[BobK]

"Miroslav Kaminski" <an**********@yahoo.com.au> wrote in message
news:16*************************@posting.google.co m...

I am working on a website myself (for a university assignment), and I
came across your article of zoom increments and the like. I have
certain areas which I would like to be immune the text resizing as
well, on this particular site. I believe the way to do this, if it
were possible to control increment sizes, would be to change those
increments to 0.

I have read on many sites, after doing some research, that using
pixels to specify font size in CSS should prevent resizing, which is
what I always thought. I used this approach on the website, and it
isn't working (I am testing in IE6). I have found that IE6 tends to
override this. Would I be correct?

I know that it is a bad design habit to do these sorts of things - I
am a web developer in the industry already, and I would never do that
unless specifically asked to. However, these university tutors aren't
too competent themselves, so I thought they wouldn't have a problem me
working to their standards.

My team developing this website also has to present it at a trade-show
type of set up as a final assessment for the assignment, where
external professionals in the industry come in and talk to us about
what we've done etc. Any suggestions there, for those of you who have
been through that kind of experience?

(Yes, I know that last bit should probably be in a different thread,
but I thought I might ask here, since I'm posting anyway. I will
probably have a seperate thread about this in the right place.)

Thanks in advance.

I think I was the original poster on this thread. What I learned was that
when you set the Body font size it must be in % rather than px. So when
people say to set the body font size to 100% or 90% they really do mean
percent. But, once you do that, you can then specify all of the other font
sizes in px.

My problem was that when I was told to set the body at 90%, I used 90px not
realizing that % vs. px made a difference to IE for the Body font size only.

I hope that helps.

Bob

[Steve Pugh]

On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 19:03:26 GMT, "BobK" <ergobob@sonic[no spam].net>
wrote:

I think I was the original poster on this thread. What I learned was that
when you set the Body font size it must be in % rather than px. So when
people say to set the body font size to 100% or 90% they really do mean
percent. But, once you do that, you can then specify all of the other font
sizes in px.
No, a font-size in px totally ignores any font-sizes set in other uses
further up the document tree. So if used for any significant amount of
text makes the original 100% set on the body pointless.

The advice you should have been given was to never set font sizes in
px and to set all font sizes in %.
My problem was that when I was told to set the body at 90%, I used 90px not
realizing that % vs. px made a difference to IE for the Body font size only.

Oh boy, that's a good one. 90px is about 560% for most users.

Steve

[Stan Brown]

"Miroslav Kaminski" <an**********@yahoo.com.au> wrote in
comp.infosystems.www.authoring.stylesheets:

I have
certain areas which I would like to be immune the text resizing as
well, on this particular site.

Shame on you!

I don't care what you think, you do NOT know better than the visitor
what text size is most comfortable for her.

If you do manage to inhibit changing of text size, you will annoy a
significant number of visitors. They will leave your site never to
return. Is that really what you want?

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Tompkins County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2.1 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[Miroslav Kaminski]

> Shame on you!

I don't care what you think, you do NOT know better than the visitor
what text size is most comfortable for her.

If you do manage to inhibit changing of text size, you will annoy a
significant number of visitors. They will leave your site never to
return. Is that really what you want?

Shame on me? Perhaps you didn't read the first post I made in this
thread.

I am a professional web developer, and I would never do such things
unless instructed to by a client. However, this is for a group
university assignment, and the levels of competence etc. that the
university is asking for isn't exactly high, being a first-year unit.

I never said I knew better than the visitor about anything. I am not
saying anything about how the text will appear. I am talking about how
the size of the text will disrupt the display of the rest of the
website.

And, being only an assignment, there aren't too many visitors to worry
about. All the work I am doing on this website, I am being instructed
to do by the rest of my group, and by the university tutors. So I am
going along with them.

[Neal]

On 21 Sep 2004 04:29:59 -0700, Miroslav Kaminski
<an**********@yahoo.com.au> wrote:

All the work I am doing on this website, I am being instructed
to do by the rest of my group, and by the university tutors. So I am
going along with them.

It seems you have two choices.

1) Go with the flow, do what you know is incorrect but is expected and
will earn the best grade.

2) Show all those involved why the right way is better, and make a
wholesale change to the design to implement what you know is right. And,
do it so well your grade cannot suffer.

That choice is up to you, and I can't say one is more right than the
other. However, realize that since we aren't privy to the detail of
knowledge of the situation, we cannot really advise you how to do 1 above.