[Sussex] A new look to our web site

[Steve Dobson]

Hi Gareth

On Fri, Jul 30, 2004 at 01:47:00PM +0100, Gareth Ablett wrote:
> From: Steve Dobson
> > Can I just replace the HTML in my PHP files with XHTML?  If so that
> > I'll take the hit and learn it now.
> Yes, its no different then html except a little stricter.
> 
> (don't forget you will need to use css for design)

Ta - Time to hit the websites again :-)

> > 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.
> 
> Just above the menu and just next to the penguin(lower part)

Not sure exactly what the problem is here.  Can you send me another 
pic please - ta.
  
> > 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.
> 
> useful to know although I normally have a fixed width site there for I
> know how many words are going to get in a line. Although for my blog
> site I just checked and the average is 15 words a line
>  
> > 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.
>
> I'm from the school that says that you shouldn't define the font height
> in html it should be in css.
 
You should never set the hight of the font absolutly (either in a 
<FONT> tag or in the CSS) because you do not know the view configuration
of your visitor.  How do you know that the view is not long sighted, 
sits far from the display and has configured a bigger font.  Setting
the width of your text area to 1000 pixels wide will look find on your
1600 pixel wide monitor, but me on my 720 pixel wide MythTV display 
(my TV) it is a pain to keep scrolling a page to the left and right.

Steve