[Sussex] A new look to our web site

[Steve Dobson]

Gareth

On Fri, Jul 30, 2004 at 12:38:43PM +0100, Gareth Ablett wrote:
>  From: Steve Dobson 
> > I haven't got around to learning XHTML yet - It is on my ToDo list.
> 
> Its so much better plus you don't use damn table for design you only use
> tables for tabular data in XHTML.
 
Before I raise it to the top of my ToDo list a question:

Can I just replace the HTML in my PHP files with XHTML?  If so that I'll
take the hit and learn it now.
 
> > The IE problem was due to poor support in IE for transparent PNGs.  I
> > used the scaling clear pixel cheat to position some of the textual
> > components and these were being rendered as white by IE.  I've
> > replaced these with a clear pixel GIF (Damn - I didn't want to use
> > non F/OSS formats).  It should render okay now.
> 
> Better but there are sill gaps. Although it would annoy you but you
> don't get this problem with XHTML.

Where are these gaps?  I've a block of white space to the bottom of the
text area on the page.  So this should force the text area as wide as it
can get.

But the way it is a very bad idea to have very wide text as it can cause
eye strain.  The best line length has between 10-12 words per line.  This
said to be the best compromise between fitting as much text on to the page
and straining the eye as it scans back for the start of the next line.

[I hold my hand up, I'm a geek.  I read stuff on text presentation.]

I am of the school that says that in HTML I should define the font
height absolutely.  This is because people with very big displays (like
Gareth) need larger fonts (in terms of pixels) than people with much 
smaller screens.

Steve