I'm trying to position individual characters precisely in HTML5 using position: absolute.
I've tried specifying the position in % and em, but every browser handles the decimals differently, and depending on the zoom level, the output doesn't look great.
e.g. 12.005% and 3.003em may or may not use the decimal portion, depending on the zoom level and size relative the parent.
Does anyone have any ideas on how to solve this problem across chrome/firefox? IE 9 would be nice as well.
I think the problem is that you are using fluid measurements (% and em) to handle positioning.
If you want your position to be the same (mostly) across browsers and screen sizes, then you need to use pixels.
BTW: you should design for the standard 100% zoom level. Everything else is too unpredictable.
Related
One of the specs for Web accessibility level AA that is text can be resized to 200% without loss of content or function.
So if I zoom up to 200%, everything needs to look right.
How can I achieve that regarding the font size?
The issue is not so much a matter of font size or font size units, since most common browsers have a built-in zoom function that will zoom any text, regardless of the font size unit. The issue is that resizing may result in text containers that start to overlap, which then causes some content or functionality to become invisible (because it ends up behind something else). Success criterion 1.4.4 was written when zooming functionality was not yet as widespread as today. (In 2008, there were several browsers that supported zooming, but many people were still using older browsers that didn't support zooming, and text resizing—which is not quite the same as zooming—could cause overlap in web content.)
So, while using units such as em, %, rem etc. is a good idea, you need to make sure that text containers (such as section elements, nav, etc.) that are displayed next to each other don't overlap when you zoom in to 200% or resize text up to 200%. For example, you can describe column width using units such as % or em, or you can make sure that text containers that are next to each other at the default size end up below each other when zoomed in. If you use responsive design to make your web pages adapt to different screen sizes, you should also be able to handle zooming in desktop browsers.
You should try using em instead of px..
For example if you have div inside yourbody - suppose the font-size of the body of the page is set to 16px.
If the font-size you want in div section is 12px, then you should specify 0.75em (because 12/16 = 0.75).
You should try use "rem" (support most of the browsers).
Then you set the font-size of the root ( the html).and all the page reasize for example if you want the "h1" be always 2 times the body ,set it to 2rem;
I've been using px for almost all the measurement related styling, but I wanted to know the best places for the use of pixels (px), percentage (%), points (pt) and em.
I've seen the use of em and (I believe) points in typography, but I don't know the best way to use them.
Where should either be used, and why?
pt or cm, in, mm etc. are most used for print stylesheets, as they're most fit for measurements on the physical properties of paper sheets, and the render of printers.
em and en (and the new rem, and more interesting units such as ch) are glyph relative units, and as such are suitable for text styling, in correspondence with absolute units at the root element (e.g. px units at the body).
another interesting uses: ex units (the height of the 'x' glyph in the font) to set vertical measures in relation to text, ch to indent lines.
px are absolutely rendered so one can design a pixel-perfect (or fixed) layout based on these units, applied for containers, or on various widgets demanding fixed size (buttons and the like). disclaimer: absolutely is an over-statement, as pixels are rarely absolute, and has many factors affecting the rendered outcome - see this article about px as an angular measure.
% are mostly used in conjunction with an absolute unit at the top container, and are applied in various CSS techniques, such as the faux centered container. these units are also very handy for layouts that are fluid by nature. others, like the viewport relative vh, vw and vmin, may be used regardless of the parent's units.
all of the above is based on my personal views, as this subject is open for debate, and CSS techniques will keep evolve and we'll see more uses of the specifications and capabilities we had never thought of. it's mostly the creative use of those tools that scopes or favors the use of one unit over another.
It used to be that these distinctions mattered: for example, back in the IE6 days, you should never set your text using px, because then it couldn't be zoomed. That is, back in the day, browsers actually treated px as a number of pixels.
These days, browsers have conformed to web reality: most people use px everywhere, for almost everything. Thus px is now defined as an angular measurement, which essentially means that px behaves just fine in any zoom setting and on any size or DPI device.
Similarly, as part of conforming to web reality, all other units are defined in terms of px, so there is really no reason to use them unless it happens to be more convenient for your case. The only exception is, of course, percentages, since they allow you to specify values in relation to parents' measurements.
Details from the spec:
in, cm, mm, pt, and pc are all defined relative to px, since in practice all devices follow "For a CSS device, these dimensions are ... anchored ... (ii) by relating the pixel unit to the reference pixel." And as discussed, the "reference pixel" is an angular measurement that varies depending on DPI settings, screen size, zoom level, device type and so on.
1em equals the computed font-size of an element, which is usually defined in px. If that size itself is defined in ems or exs, the browser then looks upward until it finds a px to be relative to, eventually falling back to the default font-size (usually 12px).
1ex equals the height of the letter "x" in the defined font-size if possible, but usually (?) falls back to 0.5em.
Use px for elements that are of a set size.
Use percentage when you need the element to be in proportion to the window size or parent element size.
em is the standard for text, it adjust according to screen size on a mac. Make it a habit, there's plenty of good blogs on why to use em, em is not just for font properties it also comes in handy with other elements like div, inputs etc. There may be consequences when using px for font size, there's also situations where px and % will be more ideal, it' takes trial & error to understand fully.
There are no real rule on what to use it's all according to the desired effect. As you create you will test your site in different resolutions and adjust the browser size to see how it appears from a variety of users points of view.
Consider cross browser compatibility & resolution with em,
Consider resolution with percentages,
Disclosure: I am a sysadmin, not a web designer.
I generally use em for padding around images, so as to keep the padding sized according to the text it keeps away from the image.
I use % to handle liquid/fluid layouts sometimes, though most often a fluid layout will just be 100% of the browser but with fixed width (px) columns.
I use px to handle column widths, headers, etc. The height and width attributes of an <img> tag are of course in pixels by default, and an image will render best if you don't ask the browser to resize it from its native/original resolution. In some cases, you need to use px on fonts, when the font has to work with an image (i.e. a spanner icon next to the word "Tools"). If possible, I always use UTF-8 fonts instead of images.
I had to redo a website from flash to html/jquery.
Everything looked great. Until I tested the site on a netbook where the screen resolution is much smaller. All the elements were misaligned or didn't stretch as I wanted it to. Or there were scroll bars everywhere.
So, How would do I make it stretch or resize properly,
Is there a property which I can set somewhere that would resize everything proportionately?
You should use heigh / width in percentage(%) rather px / em. change the css file.
Is there a property which I can set somewhere that would resize everything proportionately?
No, I wish :P You'll need to redo the layout to make it liquid or use media queries to make it responsive to different resolutions. I'm afraid both solutions could be pretty complex.
Is there a property which I can set somewhere that would resize everything proportionately?
Everything? No. Font sizes won't adjust based on window size (at least not without JS).
You can set the widths of most things using percentage units in your stylesheets, but even then there will be a point where things will break down.
The current buzzword is responsive web design (I can't comment on the quality of the links from that page) in which media queries are used to provide different designs for different sized browsers.
The property called Media Query we mostly use this property with Responsible Web Design. In which we tell browsers change the specific css property at that particular screen size.
Check this article for more http://css-tricks.com/6206-resolution-specific-stylesheets/
& for Responsible Web Design mostly use value in Percentage instead of Pixels .
Check THIS website for more reference.
unfortunately there is no "magic" which scales things up/down. i can think of some guidelines:
Use relative widths for things (percentages) instead of absolute value
no hardwired sizes, keep them in separate CSS documents
work your way up: choose a minimum resolution, work upwards from it. it makes sizing things much easier.
The question was to RESIZE not to REALIGN. Using percentiles will only change WHERE the HTML elements show up on the page. It will not change their SIZE.
you can use with and height in percentage to set your screen for all resoulation..Give the 100% width to the body and the div you want give 100% width.
All major browsers today use page zoom by default, as opposed to "text size". "text size" options are still there, but they are a bit more hidden [especially in Chrome and Firefox]. Given this fact, is there still a reason why EMs are advantageous over PX or %? Why?
Most browsers indeed are capable of sizing pixels, and Zoom is now the more popular way which works well across browser - there is even a very simple fix the old IE6 behaviour of not being able to 'text size' (declare the original body size as a percentage - 100% will do - then fire away with pixels)
Remember too that if a user so desires, or needs to, they can set their own minimum pixel size so if they're basing their defaults on pixels why go through the nightmare of calculations..
IMHO pixels are perfect for text and borders (who needs to size a border lol..), always have been really.
em and percentage really are the same thing well they work identically, and their inheritance can be an absolute nightmare.. em's are great for widths and heights for a bit of fluidity
So no, I don't think we should still use them for text.. not that I ever did ;)
Even with the page-zoom feature turned off, most major browsers these days are capable of resizing text in px units. I think it was IE6 and under that was not capable of resizing px-based text.
I prefer specifying sizes in px just because I think it's easier than working off "relative" sizes.
I'm displaying some tabular data on my website so I decided to use some tables. Is it a best practice to use fixed width for your table columns (i.e., 100px) or to use percentage based widths?
I would not recomment fixed widths, as the browsers text size may be different.
The correct thing is to do nothing at all! Leave the table to size itself. Forcing the table to be 100% wide is an option, but can leave alot of whitespace.
How big will the table be on my mobile phone, TV set or desktop PC? The more you force a layout the worse it looks on unexpected platforms.
I agree with Quigley, however the "right" approach depends very much on your specific context. If you have to just display plain data on a website, basically just printing out HTML formatted data, I would also leave the table as it is. What you should do is to set it's width to 100% s.t. it expands on the whole width of the page. If it resides inside another container (such as div or other tag), it will expand to the width of that container.
If however you want to have your table just expand to a certain width, I would go for percent values instead of fixed tables, mainly because of the fact that your users will have different display sizes and resolution and therefore the according browser window with may vary. In such a case I would however consider attributes such as min-width that specifies the minimum width that your table will get. The attribute works perfectly on Firefox, Safari etc.. however on IE (as usual) you have to do a trick to achieve min-width by adding something like the following to your CSS class (which you add to the enclosing container of your HTML table or to the table itself):
width: expression( this.scrollWidth < 70 ? "70px" : "auto" );
This is just an example that specifies a minimum width of 70px, otherwise it doesn't set any width. You can customize it to your needs.
Fixed pixel widths are definitely the worst option. Percentages are much better. If you want to define column widths relative to other elements on your page, the best option is to use CSS and a unit like em that is relative to the text size.
For tabular data, I think relative (percentage) should be good.
But if u feel screen size may screw up your tables, go for the fixed approach.
I use(d) proportional widths extensively with HTML that has to work in browsers and CSS2XSLFO.
However Firefox 3.x has removed support for PCW widths in table columns.
See https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=333352
So you'll have to use % widths.
I never use fixed widths (such as 50px), however I do use em or ex units in addition to pcw or percentage widths.
In regards to DeadAccount's answer, don't use W3Schools, they have a habit of having half-correct information.
http://w3fools.com/
Also, I'm pretty sure best practice is making a percentage instead of a fixed width, because as others said fixed will mess up in other browsers if they're using different settings than yours. Best practice could just be to leave it alone, however.