3 ms·

I agree with pushing all aside to size by "Cap height" and "distance between baselines", but like you: totally disagree with using pixels. Font size is a ridic

I agree with pushing all aside to size by "Cap height" and "distance between baselines", but like you: totally disagree with using pixels. Font size is a ridiculous nonsense land with so many gotchas that it deserves it's own University semester, but pixels are a clear, specific, and-tangible thing. It would simply cause more issues as a certain number of designers would forget or not even be aware of physical pixels, and further cloud the space as they communicate with peers, bosses, subordinates, and the public. We could probably get to exactly where the author (and I) want to be by changing `em` and `rem` to use cap height and distance between baselines, or by using a new measurement altogether (although: https://xkcd.com/927/ https://xkcd.com/927/)

danShumway 6y ago
Agreed, I would have no objection to having more typographic tools on the web around stuff like line height. I don't want to get rid of `em` units, because they represent the font designer's vision of how the characters are best sized and positioned. I regularly do want to defer to that in my interfaces. But yeah, lining up fonts is a pain in the neck. The author is right, it would be nice to allow line-height to be defined more consistently. It would be nice to allow me to somewhat size two fonts to be the same height or width as each other without eyeballing things. So no, not pixels, but sure, have more ways of talking about font size based on concepts like baseline and cap height.
- joshspankit 6y ago
  Agreed with only a single sticking point: If the font designer's vision is for the character baseline to be above or below other font's baselines 'within the em', I want to override that vision. As well: I feel like this type of standardization could actually free designers to make more interesting typographical layouts as they could freely mix fonts and sizes without cascade effects on the rest of the text.
  - danShumway 6y ago
    Right. In a lot of ways it's the same principle we're talking about on the web with using `em` units. Give users control (except in this case the layout designer is the user). I want font designers to be able to define a basic box and baseline for their font, and I want to be able to respect that if I'm just throwing the font onto a page without thinking about it. But I also want to be able to easily override it if I'm mixing fonts, and to be able to override it without manually adjusting a bunch of margins by trial and error that are specific to that font -- margins that will then immediately break if my users sub out their own fonts again. It's good that we have controls in CSS for stuff like line height, ligatures, character spacing. Having more of those controls would be useful, and having quick options for them that can kind of "standardize" different fonts to all act the same would be very useful.
    - joshspankit 6y ago
      I feel like combined with https://tonsky.me/blog/font-size/ https://tonsky.me/blog/font-size/ that these comment threads are fleshed out enough to go the HTML and CSS groups for discussion, refinement, and eventual implementation. Clear, useful, reasonable, game-changing, and able to be opt-in.

danShumway 6y ago

Agreed, I would have no objection to having more typographic tools on the web around stuff like line height. I don't want to get rid of `em` units, because they represent the font designer's vision of how the characters are best sized and positioned. I regularly do want to defer to that in my interfaces. But yeah, lining up fonts is a pain in the neck. The author is right, it would be nice to allow line-height to be defined more consistently. It would be nice to allow me to somewhat size two fonts to be the same height or width as each other without eyeballing things. So no, not pixels, but sure, have more ways of talking about font size based on concepts like baseline and cap height.

joshspankit 6y ago
Agreed with only a single sticking point: If the font designer's vision is for the character baseline to be above or below other font's baselines 'within the em', I want to override that vision. As well: I feel like this type of standardization could actually free designers to make more interesting typographical layouts as they could freely mix fonts and sizes without cascade effects on the rest of the text.
- danShumway 6y ago
  Right. In a lot of ways it's the same principle we're talking about on the web with using `em` units. Give users control (except in this case the layout designer is the user). I want font designers to be able to define a basic box and baseline for their font, and I want to be able to respect that if I'm just throwing the font onto a page without thinking about it. But I also want to be able to easily override it if I'm mixing fonts, and to be able to override it without manually adjusting a bunch of margins by trial and error that are specific to that font -- margins that will then immediately break if my users sub out their own fonts again. It's good that we have controls in CSS for stuff like line height, ligatures, character spacing. Having more of those controls would be useful, and having quick options for them that can kind of "standardize" different fonts to all act the same would be very useful.
  - joshspankit 6y ago
    I feel like combined with https://tonsky.me/blog/font-size/ https://tonsky.me/blog/font-size/ that these comment threads are fleshed out enough to go the HTML and CSS groups for discussion, refinement, and eventual implementation. Clear, useful, reasonable, game-changing, and able to be opt-in.