The Cascading Model Sheets (CSS) customary consists of seven font-size key phrases supposed to offer designers a easy technique of setting font sizes with out creating accessibility issues. Sizes vary from xx-small to xx-large and are relative to customers’ most popular “medium” settings. Placing these seven sizes to work must be a no brainer. Sadly there are many obstacles forward. Thankfully there’s a workaround. Let’s begin by surveying the harm, then transfer on to a working resolution.
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The primary impediment is Netscape 4, whose implementation of the key phrases really
follows the CSS-1 spec’s steered 1.5 scaling issue between indices. (In different phrases, ascending from smallest to largest, every key phrase is 1.5 instances greater than the final.)
This can be a horrible mistake, since “small” or “x-small” (not to mention xx-small) can very simply slip underneath the smallest legible dimension when the user-chosen “medium” worth seems affordable. Equally, bigger sizes get comically huge in a rush.
I like to recommend that you just contrive to withhold font sizes in key phrases from
Netscape 4.x by placing these guidelines in an imported sheet (by way of @import). Netscape 4 will then safely ignore your keyword-based guidelines, for the reason that browser doesn’t acknowledge stylesheets linked by way of @import. A Record Aside makes use of a variant of this trick to cover its stylesheet from all 4.0 browsers.
In case you can’t afford to let Netscape 4 customers see default sizes for
no matter HTML parts you’re utilizing, you may specify sizes in px in
the first (importing) sheet, and override these guidelines within the imported
sheet by writing selectors with better specificity (defined under). Pixels have many drawbacks as a font dimension unit, however they’re in all probability the only option in the event you’re decided to make use of CSS to affect font dimension in Netscape 4.
The following huge impediment is reconciling WinIE4/5’s incorrect implementation of the key phrases with the proper implementations of Netscape6+/Mozilla, Opera, and MacIE5/WinIE6 in “requirements” mode. (Use full, appropriate DOCTYPEs to change these browsers to requirements mode.)
The character of the discrepancy is that WinIE4/5 implements “small” because the preliminary worth, reasonably than “medium” as known as for in CSS-1. The result’s that with out correction, all sizes laid out in key phrases will probably be one dimension smaller with respect to consumer preferences in conformant browsers than in WinIE4/5.
Thankfully, the methods developed by Tantek Çelik to work round WinIE4/5’s incorrect CSS field mannequin can be used to repair the key phrases bug.
Suppose you’ve acquired a
rule in your main “Netscape–4-safe” sheet that appears like this:
physique, div, p, th, td, li, dd {
/* redundant selectors to assist NS4 bear in mind */
font-family: Verdana, Lucida, Arial,
Helvetica, sans-serif;
font-size: 11px;
}Then in your secondary, imported sheet (which Netscape 4 can’t see) you may write:
physique, physique div, physique p, physique th,
physique td, physique li, physique dd {
/* extra particular to override imported rule */
font-size: x-small;
/* false worth for WinIE4/5 */
voice-family: ""}"";
/* trick WinIE4/5 into pondering rule is over */
voice-family: inherit;
/* recuperate from trick */
font-size: small
/* supposed worth for higher browsers */
}html>physique, html>physique div, html>physique p,
html>physique th, html>physique td,
html>physique li, html>physique dd {
font-size: small
/* be good to Opera */
}The confusion above methods WinIE4/5 into making use of the
“corrected” dimension, offers others the precise values (by way of guidelines with better specificity), and even protects Opera from one in every of its bugs. (In case you’re confused about what the more and more particular CSS-2 selectors imply, strive slicing and pasting them into the Opal Group’s SelectORacle.)
The result’s “one step smaller than medium” textual content in all the chosen parts. In different phrases, small means small even in browsers that ordinarily get font dimension key phrases improper. In fact, you must accept a pixel-based model in Netscape 4, or just let Netscape 4 customers see unstyled markup, which they may choose in any case.
This technique works as anticipated even when the chosen parts are nested. Against this, if you use em or percents for font dimension on parts that will nest, like <physique>, <td>, <div> or <li> (as is successfully required by browsers with screwy inheritance fashions like WinIE4/5), there may be at all times the hazard that they may compound, leading to sort that’s too small or too giant.
Key phrases are by no means too small, as a result of as carried out in IE and Mozilla/Netscape 6, xx-small is at all times above the 9px threshold of ample decision for many fonts, whatever the “medium” worth.
Keep in mind that your HTML should validate towards one of many DTDs that put latest browsers into “requirements” mode. And don’t put textual content you propose to fashion this fashion straight in <physique> regardless that HTML 4.01 Transitional permits that.
An instance of those methods working collectively is on the market. {Ed. – A variant on the methods described on this article controls textual content dimension in ALA 3.0.}