Re: [Worg] Proposing a few CSS changes

[Stefan Nobis]

Adam Porter <adam@alphapapa.net> writes:

> So I think it's very important to respect the user's settings,
> especially for long texts and documentation (i.e. not the "home page"
> parts of Web sites whose purpose is to present projects as a whole).

+1.

HTML pages are neither books nor PDFs nor advertising columns. I have
a LaTeX background and I like to tweak the micro-typography of my PDF
documents (and I find many documents out there quite ugly and hard to
read). Therefore I think I understand and kind of sympathize with
Timothoys point of view.

But the web is quite a different beast. User choices like
Window/viewport size, fonts (serif, non-serif, size,...) are way too
often ignored and even battled against. Sometimes I get the
impression, that every time a web designer gets informed about a new
way for users to override design decisions they try to block these
possibilities - and in most cases to the disadvantage of users.

Yes, today seldom people play with the font settings in their
browsers. But why? I think, because they see that these settings seem
to never really work. Even if you configure your browser to ignore
font settings from HTML/CSS and always use the browser settings, many
pages will be next to unreadable - the layout breaks down, if the
wrong fonts/sizes are used.

Therefore I support Adams wish to honor the configuration of users.
The web should be more seen as a documentation system, not an
installation of art.

-- 
Until the next mail...,
Stefan.