Is it possible to set absolute pixel size fonts in non IE browsers?
I realise that I *shouldn't* be wanting to do this, but let's just pretend I have a jusfied reason.
Problem being, a design I'm working on needs to use exact pixel control over fonts in some key areas. Any scaling done by the browser will kill my design dead. (Kill...dead? *shrug* good enough)
Anyhow, can I stop browsers resizing fonts specified with Npx at the user's whim? Maybe there would be a scriptable solution given it's only going to be a problem in modern browsers (I'm serving alternative templates for older browser and alternative clients).
I believe that if you specify font-size:10px; that will lock the fontsize for everything except userdefined stylesheets (local stuff), remember the cascading in Cascading Style Sheet /Dan
{cell 260}
-{ a vibration is a movement that doesn't know which way to go }-
I don't know for Opera, but in Mozilla'n co even if the font-size is specified in pixels, if the user press Ctrl+plus or Ctrl+minus the size of the texts is changed. A quick look in the Dom Inspector shows that the Computed Style gives the altered font size. So it's certainly possible to trap the keyboard events and onfocus events ( in case the user change the font-size via the toolbars ) or run a setInterval to force the font-size attribute.
Since you've brought it up, what has a higher prefererence for resolving conflicts between two seperate style sheets, the style sheet embedded, linked or imported into the website or the styles setup by the user's browser client, if any?
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Thanks poi, the onfocus event sounds like the ticket. Considering I only need to fret over a couple of elements that shouldn't be too difficult to control.
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[This message has been edited by Cameron (edited 02-24-2004).]
Pretending you have a jusfied reason -- the only safe way I can see is to use an image.
quote:Any scaling done by the browser will kill my design dead.
That must be a poor design (sorry).
quote:In IE, anything specfied with an px value stays as it should
Agreed, IE makes the "right" thing, but browsers that lets you scale does the better thing IMO.
quote:Although, since you've brought it up, what has a higher prefererence for resolving conflicts between two seperate style sheets, the style sheet embedded, linked or imported into the website or the styles setup by the user's browser client, if any?
An interesting statement, considering I didn't mention what I'm actually designing.
Indeed, the part of this website that requires pixel perfect control will reduce the accessibility of the website. However, it's not targeted towards people with outdated prescriptions for their glasses and anyone running a stupidly high resolution on a tiny monitor deserves to go blind. At the end of the day, the text size is adequate for a modestly high resolution and the usability benefits far outweigh the accessibility pitfalls this may cause, so I'd consider that a fairly good design decision.
quote:Agreed, IE makes the "right" thing, but browsers that lets you scale does the better thing IMO.
Well IMO, percentages and em's are what a designer should use unless precise pixel control of fonts are required, in which case you'd turn to using px. You said it yourself, with browsers doing this you'd have to resort to using images for text or scripting hacks, which is two steps backwards.
This trend of browsers taking away what little control is afforded to web designers in the event someone runs into a poorly designed page is really starting to get under my skin. The default pop-blocking setting in FF is another one. Since when was it considered okay for browsers to start disabling web technologies by default. How many so called "bad practices" will they be hiding from us in 5 years? How is this ever going to help the web become "easy to access" ??? *shug* I'm ranting again, shutting up now.
quote:The user stylesheet takes precedence.
I figured as much. Thanks for clearing that up for me.
quote:Well IMO, percentages and em's are what a designer should use unless precise pixel control of fonts are required, in which case you'd turn to using px. You said it yourself, with browsers doing this you'd have to resort to using images for text or scripting hacks, which is two steps backwards.
I agree with this statement completely.
With Firefox, the first time a pop-up is blocked, you get a notification telling you what it's doing, how to tell when it is doing it, and allowing you to choose under what circumstances it will continue to do it. You can also choose sites on which pop-ups will never be blocked.
I can't understand how you could possibly have a problem with that.....?
Well, problems arise when you run into websites that exclude visitors for using pop-up blocking. Other problems also arise when a user doesn't realise a website needs to use a pop-up for a particular task, which can cause the user to think the site simply doesn't work when it should be working perfectly.
Designers will stop using pop ups, which many of us would see as a good thing but regardless of how annoying they can be, an annoyance isn't a good reason to disable possibly lawful functionality. This will also cause the current designer/developer using pop-ups for adds to find alternative ways to make ends meet, like so: http://www.popovergenerator.com/
What's next? Disabling Javascript by Default?
Like forcing free web hosts to add inline code to peoples pages, which will most likely cause a standards nightmare for anyone using said free host. But why should we care about that? It's not our website.
Maybe pop-up blockers will solve the problem (which lets face it, is only an issue for personal home pages on free hosts and porn/warez/emulator websites), but with websites simply excluding visitors with pop-up blocking software that we, the users of this software, have caused. So we may have created yet another problem which IMO is a lot worse, but I'll be keeping my fingers crossed that this practice doesn't become wide spread, I like my pop-free porn sites damn it!
I honestly can't say if things will work out for better or for worse, but I am weary of such things as they are effectively a band-aid solution. Perhaps it'll all work out sweal, but this might fuel another whole batch of bad practices, which will inturn see more features of the web switched off in the name of err, censorship? from adds?.... *shrug*
As for the default Firefox settings, even with the introduction of this *feature* for first time users, I still think it should be something the user should explicitly configure themselves forcing them to understand exactly what it is they are doing. Admittedly the current user base of Firefox can easily take this in their stride, but if Firefox want's to go mainstream then such technically orientated features should best be left off at default, those who understand won't have problems using them, those who don't understand won't be further confused when their friends website doesn?t work in their new browser.
At the end of the day there are good and bad points on both sides of the fence, but few people seem to voice the possibly bad points, which IMO has lead to popular software with default settings that might not have the best intensions of the greater community at heart, but that's just my opinion.
[This message has been edited by Cameron (edited 02-25-2004).]
Modal window?... Like an alert or an ok/cancle prompt? Yah, I can see how that would work for the majority of situations. And for the most part I'm not outrightly against pup-up blockers, just thought that default setting was a little too tight. Then again browsers have slowly adapted tighter cookie managament models which seems to have work out well, so hopefully I'm ranting on about nothing.
Got the text working? No, not yet. I got distracted with some other work. I'll give it a go tonight.
[This message has been edited by Cameron (edited 02-25-2004).]
yep a modal window is like an alert or a prompt. It's a child window that keeps the focus until it's closed. They are useful to give/get a short but important information to/from the end user.
Regarding your request of forcing the font-size, I think it's not worth trying to reset the font-size if the user change the font-size while reading the page 'coz there's many ways to do this ( Ctrl+minus/plus , Ctrl+mouseWheel, View>IncreaseTextSize , and certainly some other combinations of Shift/Alt/Ctrl+mouseWheel and who knows what in Opera and Safari ). Simply adjusting the font-size onload of the page should be quite enough for the most part of the users.
And it's not surprise to see a design being ruined ( I think of the designs having some graphical borders surrounding the blocks of text ) when you alter the font-size in the browser.
I realise most designs break when you change the font size, but I'm kinda anal about those things. Actually, after all of this fussing I've decided to change thing up a little, and just use flash instead. It's more of a "feature", but as HTML it'd start to break other more critical areas if the font was resized.
I feel a bit like I'm jumping topics here but I was following your thread and I'm left wondering about Modal windows. I have used the IE built in functions for creating Modal windows. However, what I am not aware of is a similar ability for Mozilla, Opera, etc.
Any help here would be appreciated....
[This message has been edited by pitcher17 (edited 02-28-2004).]
[This message has been edited by pitcher17 (edited 02-28-2004).]
posted 02-24-2004 17:07
/Dan
