Posted by Andy Dingley on 02/16/07 16:31

On 16 Feb, 15:56, TaliesinSoft <taliesins...@mac.com> wrote:

> Actually, I think the long term answer lies in the presentation device,
> computer, cellphone, television, etc., having the capability of arbitrarily
> magnifying, reducing, and navigating the image.

Not at all. For one thing, a simple form of this is just scrolling,
moving an small viewport around a larger virtual canvas. This needs
manual intervention and it's annoying.

My trivial web design problem is "Show an icon of a coloured rectangle
slightly bigger than a word of text". By sizing the rectangle in ems I
can do this. Even better I might not size the rectangle at all, simply
set some internal padding on it (in ems). This works on my destop and
my phone and it looks proportionately similar on both.

My phone differs from my desktop in having characters with fewer
pixels to them. This goes with the territory and isn't changing any
time soon. By using a relative size unit, I easily produce a page that
looks proportionately similar on both devices.

By pixel-sizing and absolutely controlling the box, the wrong-headed
attempt to control _everything_ to the last pixel has produced a
visual result that's grossly different and inappropriate.

[Back to original message]