Sent by Arlen P Walker on 19 November 2002 14:02
>from whatis.com another way to describe the pixel beast
It's not clear from what you posted there: You *do* realize that what the
W3C designated as the "pixel" measuremnt unit in the CSS spec is *not* the
pixel that your reference from techtarget was talking about, don't you? (To
me, that's the worst thing the CSS crew did; they took a well-understood
term and redefined it, thereby making murky one of the few clear areas we
had.)
True, most UAs implemented px as 1px = 1 physical dot on the screen, but
the spec actually says:
"It is recommended that the reference pixel be the visual angle of one
pixel on a device with a pixel density of 90dpi and a distance from the
reader of an arm's length. For a nominal arm's length of 28 inches, the
visual angle is therefore about 0.0227 degrees."
So the CSS spec actually defines a pixel as 1/90th of an inch, and browsers
which use 1px = 1 screen dot can get away with it because the spec also
uses the phrase "if the pixel density of the output device is very
different from a typical computer display." Since there is no definition
for "typical" or "very different", UAs can make their 1px vary from the
reference 1px by as much as 50% (and probably more, for that matter) and
still be compliant. This was *such* a Bad Idea that I wish they'd left px
out of the spec entirely.
Have fun,
Arlen
Chief Managing Director In Charge, Department of Redundancy Department
DNRC 224
[EMAIL-REMOVED]
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Opinions expressed are mine and mine alone.
If JCI had an opinion on this, they'd hire someone else to deliver it.
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