CSS abuse

[Boris 'pi' Piwinger]

Jeff Kinz wrote:

>> >> That is what centuries of typesetting showed. Long lines are
>> >> very hard to read 
>> > Yes for books....  We are not using books here.
>> 
>> Why do you believe it changes with the medium?
> 
> Because when the medium changed from paper to browser/HTML this issue
> became one of usability, not readability.

Readability is part of usability.

> I lose usability when I can't size the browser anyway I want it and have
> the text re-arranged within that window.

You can still do it. If the windows becomes smaller than
max-width, the full window width will be used. Above it will
stay limited to some readable length.

>> > By using fixed text width you destroy the inherent flexibility
>> > of the browser to be arranged in the fashion that meets the needs of the
>> > READER, which is the whole point of using browsers and HTML in the first
>> > place.  
>> 
>> CSS changed that long ago. But max-width is *not* fixed
>> width, it is just what it says, an upper bound.
> 
> In both Mozilla and phoenix the width was fixed.

Mozilla implement max-width correctly (at least for the last
several months), i.e., it is not fixed, but has an upper
bound. Phonix should be as Mozilla.

>> > Since there is no way to turn off style sheets in Phoenix I can't turn off
>> > the style either.
>> 
>> Since Phoenix is a Mozilla clone, you can probably use user
>> style sheets to set max-width to auto for body.
> 
> ummm - not yet - There is no handle for it yet. At least I'm not aware of it. 

For Mozilla it is the directory chrome in the profile
directory. There the file userContent.css IIRC.

> Its better to just not use a broken presentation style. 

What do you mean by broken. It sounds to me that any style
is broken from your perspective.

> That way
> all the readers don't have to change the configuration of their browsers.

That is true (or not) for any style and any size attribute.

pi