[TYPO3-dev] Small font in Admin panel

[Christopher Torgalson]

Hi,

On Mon, Apr 28, 2008 at 9:40 AM, Bjoern Pedersen
<Bjoern.Pedersen at frm2.tum.de> wrote:
> "John Angel" <johnange at gmail.com> writes:
>
>  > Hi,
>  >
>  > Is it just me or admin panel font in FE preview is unreadable (Typo3 4.2)?
>  >
>  > font-size:0.6em -> font-size:0.8em
>  >
>
>  Atleast I think the font-size definition ist really strange:
>  the font size shall be 0.6 times the current width of a charakter.
>  em should only be used for horizontal spacing, not for font sizes.
>  The same would apply for ex (which is the height of an x in the
>  current font). I would plead for a size in px or pt.


There are several reasons why this is incorrect.

* An em is essentially a square of the current font size--it has no
relation to any *character* except to the extent that it will be as
wide as the tallest characters in the font.

* In CSS, font-size is relative and inherited, so .6em is a way of
specifying text size in relation to the size of the font in the user's
browser,

* Ems make sense for vertical spacing as well as horizontal (since,
i.e. you specify vertical values in terms of points, pixels etc and
ems can be converted to specific values in those other units),

* Points as units are entirely nonsensical in an electronic context
*unless the material is being prepared for print* since it is an
absolute measurement (approx 1/72 inch) that must be translated into
pixels by the useragent--and a pixel has no fixed size (find out the
size of a pixel on your cellular phone and on a 60 inch plasma TV for
confirmation...),

* When font sizes are specified in pixels, they cannot be resized on
some browsers (restricted to the ever-popular IE family).

So: the size may need to increase, but the unit does not need to change.

-- 
Christopher Torgalson
http://www.typo3apprentice.com/