Re: New Software Forum

["CodeMage" <codemage@crystalcode.com>]

"Keith Thompson" <kst@cts.com> wrote in message
news:yecit154i0y.fsf@king.cts.com...
> "CodeMage" <codemage@crystalcode.com> writes:
[snip]
> Why do you feel the need to tell my browser how to display your text?
> I've configured my browser so that text is presented, by default, at a
> size I find comfortable.  Anything smaller than that is going to be
> difficult for me to read.  Your choice of dark blue on light blue also
> doesn't help legibility.

At the risk of continuing this slightly off-topic discussion in this
newsgroup, I would like to say the following about that, which is partly in
response to "sk" as well. At least I find your posting a little bit more
open-minded and constructive in nature than the posting by "sk".

Using cascading stylesheets (CSS) is an accepted practice to effectively
separate site layout from site content. When I say that my web site 'forces'
its layout on the viewer, I meant to say that a modern web browser (Mozilla,
Netscape, Opera, IE, you name it) is inclined to follow those layout rules
as specified in those stylesheets, but is not by any means required to
follow these rules.

If I look around on the Internet, I see a large amount of web sites that use
the same technique and for a good reason: as a web site author you want to
ensure that no matter what browser is used and no matter what computer
configuration is used, the site will have a 'fair chance' to appear and
behave in exactly the same way. This means the author also needs to be
careful with the kind of HTML, the kind of scripting and the kind of layout
directives s/he uses.

I feel that every site that wants to transcend the simple 'plain text'
appearance will have parts on the screen (e.g. title bars, menu boxes,
navigation chain, sidebars) that have been designed carefully with a
particular homogenous layout in mind. Using CSS this design is recommended
to the web browser, but it may be overridden by the same web browser and
some of them handle that a little bit easier than others.

I suggest that if people still feel the need to discuss this topic further
we could take it to the proper place, i.e. the forum on the CodeMages
Community. (unless people are also having trouble reading that! :P).

Having said all that, I am going to collect all the useful suggestions that
I have read in this newsgroup and I will implement them in the next major
site redesign.

Kind regards,

CodeMage