Re: containing floating img height within a div

dorayme wrote:
In article <a9-dne5MNtnmXxbUnZ2dnUVZ_qvinZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Jeff <dont_bug_me@xxxxxx> wrote:

dorayme wrote:
...
What is going on here? Are you objecting to body {font-size: 100%;} ?

If you do that, be aware of what fonts you are using. Setting Verdana, which is probably the most common web font, to 100% is too large for commercial work and have it look aesthetically acceptable.


I guess you can see "commercial work" as some huge ship that cannot be easily turned around, there are expectations built up, people are used to certain sized fonts and have set their preferences accordingly. Along come some upstarts (like me) who are persuaded that 100% body text is the completely sound way to go and many managers will scream because it is not what they are used to. If they know anything they will link, as you do, small fonts to being to get more on to a page.


You know, I look at almost all sites as being 3 column. And if you look at recommended line lengths, You just are in a different ballgame than an essentially one column page. You have to shrink down block titles and navigation bits and such. Then to have comparatively huge text for the body, it's a bit absurd. And much of what you are looking at is navigation and other details anyway, to have to sacrifice for that so you can oversize text, it's an odd tradeoff.

Now, if you notice, most commercial work has gone tableless, so it's not so much turning around a ship as it is fitting into what is expected.

But getting more onto a page that is hard to read without adjusting ones preferences is not so obviously the best way to go. A good designer might design in such a way that text that needs to be read at some length is 100%, other stuff can be smaller. Verdana is not something to be recommended for the reason you recognise, it does not have to be used. There are many other fonts without the Verdana issues (for body text).


So what's the big deal with using Verdana and setting it at .9em? It's a much more legible font than Arial?

All this sprang from the observation that virtually no commercial work is done at 100%, and that is my experience also, at least for sans serif.

I'm not talking about personal, educational or small business, where you have considerably more latitude in setting fonts and you don't have to fit a lot of content in a 3 column layout.

Insisting on 100% I think is asking too much, better to ask that sites can be zoomed without breaking.


If a site breaks on being zoomed, it may be because the design is not as competent as it should be? Because boxes are made with px width instead of em?

It's virtually impossible to make a percentage width commercial site. You have to consider that images are an important part of sites and images are sized in px. When you start mixing the two you can get work that does not flow correctly, the space and proportions go awry. In commercial work you really can't sacrifice layout and look. This is not to consider even that you *can't* have all your columns at em, you'd wind up with horizontal scrollbars on font enlarge. So, what width gets sacrificed? I'd rather see an item wrap down a line rather than blow out the page horizontally.

But I agree that this is a complicated issue and no one should be
too confident about insisting on anything! <g>

Well good! I fight a lot of useabilty issues with my smaller clients. Many want everything to be just so, or this bold and that red, I have one that was crazy about centered text. That's more of an issue than 100%. The bigger guys, what I consider commercial work, are more concerned with navigation and fitting in their message. They are happy with letting the style*** do the work.

But, I don't do much design work anyways. Mostly just setting up templates and setting up styling. The content is usually poured in by other means. Mostly I program.

BTW, Blinky the Shark is dead, some info in AWW. I believe you two crossed paths...

Jeff

In theory at least, this should make the least number of people unhappy? Because it targets users' prefs in a way that no other value can. It is a special value, it is not like the idiotic claim that some neo-cons make about America being special and therefore not subject to international norms. It has reasoning behind it.


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