[pmwiki-users] new default skin

[Bronwyn Boltwood]

On 8/10/05, Patrick R. Michaud <pmichaud at pobox.com> wrote:
> On Wed, Aug 10, 2005 at 07:31:39PM -0400, Bronwyn Boltwood wrote:

> I think the weight of the web may be stronger here-- most of the
> sites that I've reviewed have sidebar text that is actually smaller
> than what PmWiki is displaying now, so I'm certainly not going to
> go any larger on that.

And that's the reason that I typically browse with Opera's zoom set to 150%. :)
 
> > #wikileft {
> >   width:14em;  /* will adapt to browser's text size setting */
> >   border-right:2px #cccccc solid;
> >   padding:10px 10px 0 10px;
> >   font-size: 85%;  /* more comfortable than small */
> >   }
> 
> I completely understand the preference for ems here; I tend to
> want to use pixels for widths because it helps with the alignment
> of other components (e.g., background images) that I want to use from
> time to time.  With ems the alignments often don't work out right.

If the two items have different pixel values for what an em is, that's
true.  I've gotten used to doing the math if I have to, but most of
the time I deliberately size things before the value of their ems
changes.
 
But, in this case, it's perfectly safe to use ems for the sidebar,
since the layout table will make sure that the cells for the sidebar
and the content columns don't overlap.

> > - body font-size is set to 100% because it (a) leaves the user's
> > preferences intact.
> 
> Using the named sizes leaves the user's preferences intact as well;
> the named sizes are relative to the user preference.

Maybe, maybe not -- I bet it varies by browser.  I haven't tested, but
I remembered having read stuff on this before, and dug these up.

http://westciv.com/style_master/academy/css_tutorial/properties/text_style.html#font-size
http://meyerweb.com/eric/articles/webrev/199908a.html
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/sizematters/

On my setup, at least, they cause bigger jumps than they should, for
readability.  Don't let that stop you; I just wanted you to take that
into account, since percentages also work very well.

Bronwyn