[pmwiki-devel] current font sizes

[Patrick R. Michaud]

On Tue, Jan 28, 2014 at 09:18:32PM -0700, Simon wrote:
> I think it is unfortunate that we have reverted a change to PmWiki that
> arguably fixed a bug in PmWiki,css (mixing fixed and variable font-sizes)
> on unsubstantiated evidence (apologies V Krishn - but without screen shots
> and browser versions it is difficult to verify your claim).

I didn't need any additional evidence to substantiate things --
I've experienced this exact situation myself in many projects
(switching from fixed to variable font-sizes causes the layout
to look radically different in some browsers).  Indeed, one of 
the primary reasons that PmWiki's skin mixes font-size specifiers 
is because at the time there was great variation in browsers' 
handling of font-size specifications.

> This seems to be indicating a precedent that not changing the way PmWiki
> looks is of higher importance that fixing bugs, my 2¢.

There's precedent, but this isn't setting it.  It's long been 
a core philosophy that minor revision releases in PmWiki should 
minimize breakage of existing sites in upgrades.  See 
PmWikiPhilosophy #5.

In this case we also identified a different path to improvement 
that doesn't require breakage...  by developing a new skin or CSS 
file alternative that can be bundled with PmWiki.  This provides 
a much more flexible and stable upgrade path.

Lastly, I agree fully with Petko that PmWiki's current .css 
doesn't indicate a "bug" in the normal sense of the term -- it's 
mainly a difference of opinion in design choices, similar to 
choosing to use tables (or avoid them) when creating a skin layout.
As with many things in PmWiki, the core is flexible enough that
you can change the defaults in places where your situation wants
or requires something different.

Pm