using "col" and "colgroup" tags in firefox?!?

[Jose]

On the rare occasions that I've made available a browser window that's

uncomfortably wide for lines of text, I'd expect max-width (specified
in em units, of course) to solve that problem for me.

Who is "me"? The user, or the designer? If the user has widened the
window to the point where the lines are too long, then the user can
narrow the window so the lines are just the way the user wants them.
That is, unless something like max width makes the decision for the user
as to how wide he's permitted to see his text.

Your "too wide" may be my "not wide enough" and it should be left to the
user. (or is "max width" a browser setting rather than a CSS thing?)

Jose

 

[Jose]

http://blog.dorward.me.uk/2005/11/15/multicol.html

"So great! No scrolling needed. Now imagine you use a screen magifier…"

The only reason you need a screen magnifier is that the web designer has
decided what font size you should be looking at. That is tosh to begin
with.

Imagine a browser that lets you alter the font size at will (like with
the little scroll wheel). Imagine a web designer that does not defeat
such a function. (imagine that!) Now imagine a BROWSER setting,
controllable by the USER and invisible to the web designer.

[X] Flow text in columns if text window width exceeds [ 160] ems

When the user first sees the site, their window is (say) 92 ems, which
is comfortable to the user. But the user expands the window to occupy
most of their 20 inch screen, which at this text size is 250 ems. The
browser reflows the lines into three columns (each about 1/2 of the [
160] setting the user has chosen). Then the user shrinks the window
vertically, and the text is reflown and there is some left over...
hmmm... where should that go (and what should happen when the user
scrolls vertically?)

I see a problem here. However it isn't the maginfier problem (the user
increases the font size and the 250 em width is now 190 ems, so two columns)

But in no case (I can think of) should the web designer limit how far
the text can go. That should remain under user control.

Jose

 

[Dylan Parry]

Pondering the eternal question of "Hobnobs or Rich Tea?", Jose finally
proclaimed:

[X] Flow text in columns if text window width exceeds [ 160] ems

Thus causing the user to have to scroll up and down the window to read
the content of the page. Text rendered in columns is for newspapers, not
for webpages.

 

[Jose]

Thus causing the user to have to scroll up and down the window to read

the content of the page. Text rendered in columns is for newspapers, not
for webpages.

No, the text would flow just to window height. But as you see from the
rest of the post, I have changed my mind about columns (that was quick!).

I have not however changed my mind about giving control to the user
rather than to the webmaster (max width, if I understand it right)

btw, the problem with screen magnifiers is the same (in fact, it's...
er.. magnified.. with non-columnar presentations)

Ouch!
Jose

 

[=?ISO-8859-1?Q?G=E9rard_Talbot?=]

Jose wrote :

Tables work, and are pretty universally supported.


It would be impolite. Websites should resize gracefully - even if
somebody has the requisite screen area,

You have a point... but for another reason:

Authoring for Small-Screen Rendering (SSR)
http://www.opera.com/products/mobile/dev/index.dml


they may not want to (or be able

to) devote the entire screen to the webmasters wonderful creation. They
may actually be doing other things too.

For entirely scalable CSS-template webpages, browser manufacturers
(specially Microsoft and MSIE 7) need to fix several bugs on absolute
positioning and, as we all know, fixed positioning. I did report (and so
has positioningiseverything.net , quirksmode.org , and several others
etc. - see http://www.gtalbot.org/BrowserBugsSection/ for more MSIE 6
bug collection sites).

Resizing gracefully has still not been exhaustively defined either. You
may find that webpage x resizes gracefully while I could disagree and I
could find that webpage y resizes gracefully while you could disagree.
In absence of explicit parameters/measurement criteria, it's still
anyone's call. I assure you that there are many and many types of CSS
templates webpages. As I said earlier, some are based on abs. pos.,
others on float, others on negative margins, some are even js-driven;
and in the middle, you can have all kinds of blend of these features.


Just examine yourself these links at

http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=FrontPage

* FixedLayouts - using position: fixed to lay out pages
http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=FixedLayouts
* AbsoluteLayouts - using position: absolute to lay out pages
http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=AbsoluteLayouts
* FloatLayouts - using the float property to lay out pages
http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=FloatLayouts
* EmulatingFrames - using CSS to recreate the effect of frames
http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=EmulatingFrames
* TwoColumnLayouts
http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=TwoColumnLayouts
* ThreeColumnLayouts - a collection of three column layouts
http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=ThreeColumnLayouts
* FooterInfo - positioning page footers with CSS
http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=FooterInfo
* AnyColumnLongest - how to make all columns appear the same height
http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=AnyColumnLongest
* BorderSlants - using borders to create the illusion of
non-rectangular shapes and layouts
http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=BorderSlants
* SideScrollingNarrowColumnLayout - newspaper-like layout for more
readable text
http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=SideScrollingNarrowColumnLayout
* MultiColumnLayoutWithFooterAndJavascript - make a footer appear
at the end of a multi-column page using JavaScript.
http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=MultiColumnLayoutWithFooterAndJavascript
* MinWidth - different work-arounds/hacks to simulate "min-width"
in IE.
http://css-discuss.incutio.com/?page=MinWidth

Some of them are not so good, some are better, some are improvable, some
are not scalable, some are not customizable (without huge knowledge),
some work/target browser bugs while some others do not, some are for
complex design, some are for simple 2 columns, etc..

At this page, I have recommended several CSS templates that I examined
and believe can be used:

http://www.gtalbot.org/NvuSection/NvuWebDesignTips/WebDesignResources.html#CSSWebpageTemplates

Gérard

 

[David Dorward]

What does max-width do? If all it does is limit the width, no matter
what the user wants, that's Bad. The user should be able to dictate
terms.

This, I think, is taking the idea of user control too far. Setting a
max-width relative to the font size lets you (effectively) limit the line
length to a certain number of characters.

This lets you keep line lengths as something readable, without the problem
of horizontal scrolling on narrow displays.

The user /could/ adjust the width of their window, but having to constantly
adjust the width when switching between sites with different numbers of
columns (traditional webpage columns, not newspaper style columns) isn't a
great deal of fun.