html/css display on fedora is different than from other os ( windows, ...)

[mike lan]

Hello

why is html/css display on fedora on firefox and google chrome alike is
different than on other os ? some times the size of a font can break the
display of a site which looks right on windows and not on fedora.

is there a way to work around this issue by tweaking some settings on
firefox and google chrome ?

thanks

[Ian Malone]

On 21 October 2012 12:34, mike lan  wrote:
> Hello
>
> why is html/css display on fedora on firefox and google chrome alike is
> different than on other os ? some times the size of a font can break the
> display of a site which looks right on windows and not on fedora.
>
> is there a way to work around this issue by tweaking some settings on
> firefox and google chrome ?

Hi, the best guess I can give is the site author is using a fount
that's only available on Windows and there's no fall-back to a similar
family (Fedora has founts which should be metric compatible to the
Windows common ones). You'd need to give an example for someone to
check that's the case and it's not a bug somewhere on the Fedora side.
However the fact it affects Chrome and Firefox suggests otherwise.

[Tim]

On Sun, 2012-10-21 at 11:34 +0000, mike lan wrote:
> why is html/css display on fedora on firefox and google chrome alike
> is different than on other os ? some times the size of a font can
> break the display of a site which looks right on windows and not on
> fedora.
>
> is there a way to work around this issue by tweaking some settings on
> firefox and google chrome ?

Every browser is slightly different in how it behaves, there will be
some differences, some more obvious than others.  The fonts installed by
default are different on different OSs, so you could be missing
something that the other is not.  The rendering engines are different on
different operating systems, and graphic cards (and their drivers), so
you can see differences in absolute font sizing, aspect (horizontal
versus vertical), slightly different resolutions, and clarity of the
text.

For a meaningful appraisal, you'd need to give some specific example
sites to look at.

A common issue has been, for many years, authors specifying certain
fonts at certain sizes.  For example, a large font like Verdana, to be
drawn at a smaller than normal size, so it looks similar in size to
other common fonts.  Then, when you view the page without Verdana on
your system, the text is annoyingly too small.

A similar issue occurs when people fudge around with their DPI settings
to scale the fonts on their desktop (instead of changing the size of the
fonts).  The rendering engine starts drawing fonts at different sizes
than expected, often without other graphical objects, or page
dimensions, scaling to the same degree.  You can end up with big fonts
inside little boxes, with overlapping text.

[Mike Wright]

10/21/2012 04:34 AM, mike lan wrote:
> Hello
>
> why is html/css display on fedora on firefox and google chrome alike is
> different than on other os ? some times the size of a font can break the
> display of a site which looks right on windows and not on fedora.
>
> is there a way to work around this issue by tweaking some settings on
> firefox and google chrome ?

None of which I am aware.

I recently came across something similar where Firefox and Chrome 
rendered the same page differently.  The cause was not the browser but 
the page.

If a page does not have a valid <doctype> a browser will fall back to a 
thing called *quirks mode* which is different across browsers.  (When 
they say quirks they are not kidding.)  When I added the <doctype> both 
Firefox and Chrome rendered the page more or less similarly.

Another issue is that different browsers use different default fonts and 
font sizes.
As when using the <doctype>, specifying the desired font can help pages 
render more closely.

But again, these are changes that must be made to the page.

[Tim]

On Sun, 2012-10-21 at 08:43 -0700, Mike Wright wrote:
> I recently came across something similar where Firefox and Chrome 
> rendered the same page differently.  The cause was not the browser but
> the page.

As well as not-so-brilliantly written pages, where authors haven't
really known what they're doing, properly, there are sites with
conditional tests that deliberately give different page content to
different browsers.  They do that in the pages, the stylesheets, and
even the web server.
> If a page does not have a valid <doctype> a browser will fall back to
> a thing called *quirks mode* which is different across browsers.
> (When they say quirks they are not kidding.)

Yeah... ;-/  So called quirks modes being the original way the browsers
behaved, as the browser authors thought they ought to work, plus all
their errors.  As opposed to when they started paying attention to the
HTML/CSS/scripting specifications, to produce standard results.

Some effects are subtle, like a slightly different margin around the
page in one mode versus the other, that's barely noticeable.  To
noticeable, and annoying, differences in every element on the page.

I gave up trying to pander to MSIE's (pronounced misery) foibles, years
ago.  These days, I just write according to HTML specifications, check I
haven't overlooked something stupid in normal browsers, and to hell with
how things look due to any "quirks" introduced by the misery browser.

[mike lan]

i give one example of a site made in drupal :
drupalfr.org

notice the fields login and password on the left side bar

[Alan Cox]

On Fri, 2 Nov 2012 20:03:36 +0000
mike lan  wrote:
> i give one example of a site made in drupal :
> drupalfr.org
>
> notice the fields login and password on the left side bar

It will depend on the exact fonts you have on each system. You should
size by font anyway because the user may have large fonts set for
accessibility purposes.

It's a case of making your css robust.

Alan

[Tim]

On Fri, 2012-11-02 at 20:03 +0000, mike lan wrote:
> i give one example of a site made in drupal :
> drupalfr.org
>
> notice the fields login and password on the left side bar

What I notice is that the text fits in the field boxes, heightwise, at
least, but the boxes extend past the border of the column, and over the
top of the text in the middle of the page.

The author has made an assumption about the size of the text on the
screen, that doesn't hold true.  Most likely, they have a tiny font and
a huge screen, and the whole thing looks nice for them.

The www.jaycar.com.au website does text gadget failures, for me.  They
had text fields with absolute fixed sizes, and my text was taller than
would fit in the box.

[SternData]

On 10/21/2012 06:34 AM, mike lan wrote:
> Hello
>
> why is html/css display on fedora on firefox and google chrome alike is
> different than on other os ? some times the size of a font can break the
> display of a site which looks right on windows and not on fedora.
>
> is there a way to work around this issue by tweaking some settings on
> firefox and google chrome ?
>
> thanks

I've seen the same thing, using Google fonts and standard fonts like
arial. It makes my life as a web builder interesting.

[Roger]

On 11/03/2012 07:07 AM, Steven Stern wrote:
> On 10/21/2012 06:34 AM, mike lan wrote:
> > Hello
> >
> > why is html/css display on fedora on firefox and google chrome alike is
> > different than on other os ? some times the size of a font can break the
> > display of a site which looks right on windows and not on fedora.
> >
> > is there a way to work around this issue by tweaking some settings on
> > firefox and google chrome ?
> >
> > thanks
>
> I've seen the same thing, using Google fonts and standard fonts like
> arial. It makes my life as a web builder interesting.

Dont' know but it's bee a problem for some time now.
Roger