[Bug admin|web|git/11934] web pages: small fonts in CSS

[Bug admin|web|git/11934] web pages: small fonts in CSS

[carlos at systemhalted dot org]

http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=11934

Carlos O'Donell <carlos at systemhalted dot org> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
             Status|NEW                         |RESOLVED
                 CC|                            |carlos at systemhalted dot
                   |                            |org
         Resolution|                            |FIXED
         AssignedTo|roland at gnu dot org       |carlos at systemhalted dot
                   |                            |org

--- Comment #1 from Carlos O'Donell <carlos at systemhalted dot org> 2012-02-07 18:57:22 UTC ---
The currently website uses `px' to specify exact font sizes in relation to the
page layout. We expect users to use browsers scaling support or assistive
technology to make the page view bigger. Using `px' and scaling makes the page
*much* more readable than using "em" and font size changes. The latter can
suffer from improper layout and difficult to read enlarged text, while the
former results in a uniformly scaled website that is easy to scroll and read.

We don't plan to change this any time soon, but if you still have problems
reading the page I'd be more than happy to work with you on the problem e.g.
configuring your browser or other technology.

In the meantime I'm marking this resolved/wontfix.

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[Bug admin|web|git/11934] web pages: small fonts in CSS

[vincent-srcware at vinc17 dot net]

http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=11934

--- Comment #2 from Vincent Lefèvre <vincent-srcware at vinc17 dot net> 2012-02-08 02:11:29 UTC ---
(In reply to comment #1)
> The currently website uses `px' to specify exact font sizes in relation to the
> page layout. We expect users to use browsers scaling support or assistive
> technology to make the page view bigger.

Well, it would be very annoying to have to scale the page each time one goes to
a new site, because each site hardcodes the font size in inconsistent ways.
Moreover not all browsers are able to easily enlarge the page without
reformatting it (so that one doesn't have to do a horizontal scroll after
reading each line). See Nokia's browser for the N900, for instance.

> Using `px' and scaling makes the page
> *much* more readable than using "em" and font size changes. The latter can
> suffer from improper layout and difficult to read enlarged text, while the
> former results in a uniformly scaled website that is easy to scroll and read.

This is plainly wrong. The "em" (or percentage if you prefer) is a relative
font size, so that if you scale the font, every font should be scaled in the
same proportion.

> We don't plan to change this any time soon, but if you still have problems
> reading the page I'd be more than happy to work with you on the problem e.g.
> configuring your browser or other technology.

Actually the current settings now appear to be OK (at least consistent with my
default choices).

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[Bug admin|web|git/11934] web pages: small fonts in CSS

[carlos at systemhalted dot org]

http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=11934

--- Comment #3 from Carlos O'Donell <carlos at systemhalted dot org> 2012-02-08 14:28:08 UTC ---
(In reply to comment #2)
> (In reply to comment #1)
> > The currently website uses `px' to specify exact font sizes in relation to the
> > page layout. We expect users to use browsers scaling support or assistive
> > technology to make the page view bigger.
> 
> Well, it would be very annoying to have to scale the page each time one goes to
> a new site, because each site hardcodes the font size in inconsistent ways.
> Moreover not all browsers are able to easily enlarge the page without
> reformatting it (so that one doesn't have to do a horizontal scroll after
> reading each line). See Nokia's browser for the N900, for instance.

Scaling pages is the best way to get consistently readable text, you need to
scale the layout elements along with the text size to maintain readability. 

Issues of accessibility are important, and I would be happy to guided someone
interested in helping to identify and fix accessibility issues with the current
page.

> > Using `px' and scaling makes the page
> > *much* more readable than using "em" and font size changes. The latter can
> > suffer from improper layout and difficult to read enlarged text, while the
> > former results in a uniformly scaled website that is easy to scroll and read.
> 
> This is plainly wrong. The "em" (or percentage if you prefer) is a relative
> font size, so that if you scale the font, every font should be scaled in the
> same proportion.

I didn't say "em" was *not* scaled, I said `px' and page scaling is in my
opinion *much* more readable. Why? Scaling fonts does not scale the layout
elements that contain the fonts, often resulting in overlapping text that is
unreadable. On device with small screens you need to scale the entire rendered
view and pan to read (or detect the device and rendering a completely different
page).

> > We don't plan to change this any time soon, but if you still have problems
> > reading the page I'd be more than happy to work with you on the problem e.g.
> > configuring your browser or other technology.
> 
> Actually the current settings now appear to be OK (at least consistent with my
> default choices).

I'm glad that things have gotten better! If they ever get worse, please file
another issue.

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[Bug admin|web|git/11934] web pages: small fonts in CSS

[vincent-srcware at vinc17 dot net]

http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=11934

--- Comment #4 from Vincent Lefèvre <vincent-srcware at vinc17 dot net> 2012-02-10 09:30:08 UTC ---
(In reply to comment #3)
> Scaling pages is the best way to get consistently readable text, you need to
> scale the layout elements along with the text size to maintain readability. 

No, having the pages always in a readable font size is the best way to get
readable text.

> I didn't say "em" was *not* scaled, I said `px' and page scaling is in my
> opinion *much* more readable. Why? Scaling fonts does not scale the layout
> elements that contain the fonts,

You're wrong! If you specify a layout element to have some width in "em" and
scale the font, the element will be scaled in the same proportion.

> often resulting in overlapping text that is unreadable.

Because the pages are not well-designed. The main text (which is particularly
important to be readable) should be allowed to be rendered in elements that do
not have a fixed size, and adapt to the window width. Element widths can also
often be determined automatically from the text they contain, thus avoiding
overlapping text.

> On device with small screens you need to scale the entire rendered
> view and pan to read (or detect the device and rendering a completely
> different page).

And that's very bad. Horizontal scrolling (at each line) makes reading very
difficult. Good web designers know to handle small screens in the same way as
large screens. Contrary to formats with a fixed rendering such as PDF, HTML/CSS
has been designed to allow the document to be rendered on various media (not
necessarily graphic BTW).

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[Bug admin|web|git/11934] web pages: small fonts in CSS

[carlos at systemhalted dot org]

http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=11934

--- Comment #5 from Carlos O'Donell <carlos at systemhalted dot org> 2012-02-10 21:39:10 UTC ---
(In reply to comment #4)
> (In reply to comment #3)
> > Scaling pages is the best way to get consistently readable text, you need to
> > scale the layout elements along with the text size to maintain readability. 
> 
> No, having the pages always in a readable font size is the best way to get
> readable text.

Good point.

> > I didn't say "em" was *not* scaled, I said `px' and page scaling is in my
> > opinion *much* more readable. Why? Scaling fonts does not scale the layout
> > elements that contain the fonts,
> 
> You're wrong! If you specify a layout element to have some width in "em" and
> scale the font, the element will be scaled in the same proportion.

You are correct.

> > often resulting in overlapping text that is unreadable.
> 
> Because the pages are not well-designed. The main text (which is particularly
> important to be readable) should be allowed to be rendered in elements that do
> not have a fixed size, and adapt to the window width. Element widths can also
> often be determined automatically from the text they contain, thus avoiding
> overlapping text.

Good point.

This is in fact the way the main text on the new glibc website is laid out. The
central column does not have a fixed size and adapts to the window width.
Though below a minimum width it begins to wrap oddly.

> > On device with small screens you need to scale the entire rendered
> > view and pan to read (or detect the device and rendering a completely
> > different page).
> 
> And that's very bad. Horizontal scrolling (at each line) makes reading very
> difficult. Good web designers know to handle small screens in the same way as
> large screens. Contrary to formats with a fixed rendering such as PDF, HTML/CSS
> has been designed to allow the document to be rendered on various media (not
> necessarily graphic BTW).

I agree that it's bad.

Thank you for your feedback!

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[Bug admin|web|git/11934] web pages: small fonts in CSS

[vincent-srcware at vinc17 dot net]

http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=11934

--- Comment #6 from Vincent Lefèvre <vincent-srcware at vinc17 dot net> 2012-02-11 02:12:31 UTC ---
(In reply to comment #5)
> This is in fact the way the main text on the new glibc website is laid out. The
> central column does not have a fixed size and adapts to the window width.
> Though below a minimum width it begins to wrap oddly.

Yes, I can see that on my Nokia N900 with "Very large fonts" in the settings.
However it is still very readable (there's just a minor text overlap).

Now, text overlap can partly be fixed. First, there's a bug in the CSS: for
#banner, "height:" is provided twice. One of them should be removed. Then
"height" could be replaced by "min-height". This would avoid the overlap of the
title.

The overlap of menu items is due to the padding: With Firefox, the background
of some item can partly hide the text of another item. But I don't get this
problem with Chromium. So, it may be a bug in Gecko. If need be, the problem
can be avoided by using a line-height in ul.menu (though this may slightly
change the layout in the normal case).

BTW, I wonder whether the 51px margins (in addition to the 10px margins of the
body) are really useful. They seem to me more a waste of space (in particular
on a small screen) than anything else.

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[Bug admin|web|git/11934] web pages: small fonts in CSS

[carlos at systemhalted dot org]

http://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=11934

--- Comment #7 from Carlos O'Donell <carlos at systemhalted dot org> 2012-02-11 23:21:02 UTC ---
(In reply to comment #6)
> (In reply to comment #5)
> > This is in fact the way the main text on the new glibc website is laid out. The
> > central column does not have a fixed size and adapts to the window width.
> > Though below a minimum width it begins to wrap oddly.
> 
> Yes, I can see that on my Nokia N900 with "Very large fonts" in the settings.
> However it is still very readable (there's just a minor text overlap).
> 
> Now, text overlap can partly be fixed. First, there's a bug in the CSS: for
> #banner, "height:" is provided twice. One of them should be removed. Then
> "height" could be replaced by "min-height". This would avoid the overlap of the
> title.

I removed the #banner->height:60px and switched both #banner and #footer to
min-height. Thanks!

> The overlap of menu items is due to the padding: With Firefox, the background
> of some item can partly hide the text of another item. But I don't get this
> problem with Chromium. So, it may be a bug in Gecko. If need be, the problem
> can be avoided by using a line-height in ul.menu (though this may slightly
> change the layout in the normal case).
> 
> BTW, I wonder whether the 51px margins (in addition to the 10px margins of the
> body) are really useful. They seem to me more a waste of space (in particular
> on a small screen) than anything else.

I would be more than happy to take patches against the current website if you
want to cook something up that is better for accessibility? File a new issue
with a patch and I'll review it.

http://sourceware.org/glibc/wiki/Website%20Maintenance

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[Bug admin/11934] web pages: small fonts in CSS

[fweimer at redhat dot com]

https://sourceware.org/bugzilla/show_bug.cgi?id=11934

Florian Weimer <fweimer at redhat dot com> changed:

           What    |Removed                     |Added
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
              Flags|                            |security-

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