Re: Multi column layout question.

Walter Ian Kaye (boo@primenet.com)
Sat, 24 Jun 1995 20:03:54 -0700


At 03:45p 06/23/95, lilley wrote:
>You see that as a problem because your lower resolution screen uses less
>pixels to make the same point size of text.

I wonder if any cross-platform solution exists for that, or if it's just
something people with those configurations must simply deal with
themselves.
BTW, that should be "fewer", not "less" <duck>. ;)

>Of course, I see the converse problem with image horizontal rules that are 500
>or whatever pixels across, and tiny (from my perspective) inline images.

At least Netscape added a WIDTH attribute for the IMG element, so these
could be stretched to whatever... 1280 pixels? 1600 perhaps? :)

>The problem is not with the text, which is nice and independent of platform and
>browser. It is the images. All existing browsers that I know of use a 1:1
>mapping between image pixels and device pixels. So the image looks small on a
>high resolution screen and large on a low resolution screen.

I really believe this is an individual system configuration issue. If a
user chooses to set his/her resolution to 91dpi instead of 72dpi, HTML is
not responsible for that user preference, and should not be held hostage to
it.

>This problem is particularly acute with the partially sighted, who may be
>reading text set to like an inch or so high. The images do not scale with
>the text so they cannot see them.

They should get a multiscan monitor (maybe a doctor's note can get them a
hardware discount? <g>) and set their resolutions to 50dpi or less.

>This problem is being adressed in the following areas:
>
>- HTML 3.0 FIG which take width and height in real world units
>- stylesheets, which can magnify everything with a lens mapping

On the Macintosh, pixels=points (72dpi). For "real world units", will we
need some kind of device description files (like PPD's or ColorSync
Profiles) to define these things?
Also, can the author specify "no scaling" for images that won't scale well?

-Walter

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