The default font size in Mozilla in Windows is 16px, which is way to big. It should be reduced to 14px. IE's huge default font size is one reason we can't get people (web designers) to specify font size using relative units (ems or %). They say "nobody" change the default font size in their browser (or even *know* they can do it), and their web pages would look really bad (i.e. not well designed) with such a huge font. Several people (site designers) have told me that they won't begin using relative units if not the popular browsers start having more sensible default font sizes. I use ems on my site, but am sad to see that it looks rather ugly compared to other sites *because* of the font size. 14px is a much more sensible default value. Just compare a 16px (=1em) Arial web page with almost any other page. 16px isn't a sensible default value if all sites which *do* specifiy fonts in absolute units use a much smaller font size. (And the menus and dialog boxes in Mozilla also uses a mush smaller font size!) Also, sans-serif fonts are much easier to read on monitors than serif fonts are (the opposite is the case on paper). Therefore, 'Sans Serif' should be the 'Default Type', *not* Serif. I don't know how the default font families are selected (mine shows 'Times New Roman', 'Arial' and 'Courier New' as 'Serif', 'Sans Serif' and 'Monospace'). If they are hard-coded, the default font for 'Monospace' should (on Windows, and of course only if it's available) be 'Andale Mono' (included with some versions of Win98, Win 2000, IE and Office). This looks much better than Courier New, and is specially designed to look good on screen.

Default fonts should be specified in points, not pixels. Pixels are not portable to high resolution displays.

No points, please. Portability of points is only theoretical. In practice, the logical resolutions are so broken that points cause a lot of trouble. http://www.pp.clinet.fi/~henris/en/units.html If the font is too small on a high resolution display, it is more straight-forward and understandable to set the pref to a larger pixel value. When setting the pref for on-screen display, the px unit the most sense. Of course different people will want to set the pref to a different pixel value. That's why it is a pref.

Confirming. The overly large default font size threatens to make a mockery of its intended use as a `medium' size.

Adding mozilla1.0 keyword.

If there is proper determination of screen dpi, then either point size or pixel sizing will work. The problem isn't that one or the other doesn't make sense, it is that dpi isn't a reliable, known factor on most platforms. Recent "fixes" include versions of IE on the Mac let the user choose her screen dpi. Of course, on X11 systems screen dpi can be properly set as part of the X install, but next to no one knows/does this. It seems to me the only proper determination of default font size is exactly what the *system* default font size is. If the user chooses to use the system definition for 12pt (or 6 or 72, for that matter) as the default font size, then such should be the default size of the "medium" setting in the browser. Pixel-based sizes can only be computed wrt the system dpi setting, which is likely to be incorrect for the forseeable future. Providing the user a means to set their dpi for Mozilla seems to be the right way to go to solve this particular problem. Point-based sizes only really mean something on paper publications, at least until such time as we regain Postscript (or similar) rendering on digital displays. Therefore, point-based sizing should equate to system definitions of such.

> It seems to me the only proper determination of default font > size is exactly what the *system* default font size is. If > the user chooses to use the system > definition for 12pt (or 6 or 72, for that matter) as the > default font size, then > such should be the default size of the "medium" setting in the browser. For Windows, this would be the font size used for 'Dialog' (which also is used in various places in the Classic and Modern theme). Adding mpt to CC list as I think he'll be interested in this bug (based on his earlier comment).

->mcafee

This could be related to bug 5599 "Need a dialog with a nice ruler to set the screen resolution". There is bug 69205 too.

The debate about the default font families should be moved over to bug 61883. I did not check in the patch yet; you can make suggestions about which fonts should be used on Windows and Unix. Here is what I have on Windows: serif: "Times New Roman, Times" sans-serif: "Arial, Verdana" monospace: "Courier New, Courier, Andale Mono" cursive: "Lucida Handwriting, Zapf Chancery, Chancery, Comic Sans MS" fantasy: "Matisse ITC, Comic Sans MS" Don't forget to comment on bug 61883. The current bug should be left for problems with font sizes.

*** Bug 76074 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***

over to pierre

reassigned to rbs, like bug 61883 and bug 30910

Not sure what to do with this bug. Being a 'topembed', this bug needs to be dealt with pretty soon. The current default values, 16px for the variable-width font and 13px for the fixed-width font, have been purposely choosen so as to match earlier values from Nav4.x >Additional Comments From Huftis >For Windows, this would be the font size used for 'Dialog' (which also is used >in various places in the Classic and Modern theme)." BTW, this is an interesting suggestion, but it will break continuity with Nav4.x and will affect the many pages that use <font size="-1"> on the _whole_ page because they have come to rely on the fact that the default size is 16px.

I did a little experiment and tried getting the default size from either of the CSS fonts ('Dialog', 'Document', ...). The default size returned by the system is too small, and that caused Mozilla to render web pages too small. Should resolve as wontfix? Re-assigning back to pierre as this is a hot potato.

I would suggest this is a WONTFIX, yeah. We're doing the same as IE on Windows, and really we probably can't afford to change that. roberts: Why is this topembed? (Feel free to mail me directly ian@hixie.ch if the reasons are Netscape Confidential.)

rbs: sorry, I overlooked the topembed nomination before I reasigned this to you. This bug could have been closed as dup of bug 61883 but I did not do so in order to cover problems with font sizes that may arise if some of the default fonts are not installed. For instance, if monospace is defined as "Courier New, Courier, Andale Mono" and none of the Courier fonts is installed, Andale may look too big or too small. I imagine the issue will be addressed by rbs and his work on font- size-adjust. That's why I reassigned the bug to him in order to make the call: leave it open just in case, or close it because the entire issue will be moot. Either way, I don't understand why Cindy Roberts marked it topembed. If something related to font sizes is so important that it deserves to be topembed, it probably should be part of a separate, more specific, bug report.

Putting off the topembed list and reassigning back to rbs, based on my comments above. Kat Momoi is going to open a separate bug report for problems with Japanese fonts that triggered putting this bug on the topembed list.

BTW, if anyone want to change the default size in the source code. Here is the place you need to change it for window: modules/libpref/src/win/winpref.js 106 pref("font.size.variable.ar", 16); 107 pref("font.size.fixed.ar", 13); 108 109 pref("font.size.variable.el", 16); 110 pref("font.size.fixed.el", 13); 111 112 pref("font.size.variable.he", 16); 113 pref("font.size.fixed.he", 13); 114 115 pref("font.size.variable.ja", 16); 116 pref("font.size.fixed.ja", 16); 117 118 pref("font.size.variable.ko", 16); 119 pref("font.size.fixed.ko", 16); 120 121 pref("font.size.variable.th", 16); 122 pref("font.size.fixed.th", 13); 123 124 pref("font.size.variable.tr", 16); 125 pref("font.size.fixed.tr", 13); 126 127 pref("font.size.variable.x-baltic", 16); 128 pref("font.size.fixed.x-baltic", 13); 129 130 pref("font.size.variable.x-central-euro", 16); 131 pref("font.size.fixed.x-central-euro", 13); 132 133 pref("font.size.variable.x-cyrillic", 16); 134 pref("font.size.fixed.x-cyrillic", 13); 135 136 pref("font.size.variable.x-unicode", 16); 137 pref("font.size.fixed.x-unicode", 13); 138 139 pref("font.size.variable.x-western", 16); 140 pref("font.size.fixed.x-western", 13); 141 142 pref("font.size.variable.zh-CN", 16); 143 pref("font.size.fixed.zh-CN", 16); 144 145 pref("font.size.variable.zh-TW", 16); 146 pref("font.size.fixed.zh-TW", 16); For Mac: modules/libpref/src/mac/macprefs.js 125 pref("font.size.variable.ar", 16); 126 pref("font.size.fixed.ar", 13); 127 128 pref("font.size.variable.el", 16); 129 pref("font.size.fixed.el", 13); 130 131 pref("font.size.variable.he", 16); 132 pref("font.size.fixed.he", 13); 133 134 pref("font.size.variable.ja", 14); 135 pref("font.size.fixed.ja", 14); 136 137 pref("font.size.variable.ko", 16); 138 pref("font.size.fixed.ko", 16); 139 140 pref("font.size.variable.th", 16); 141 pref("font.size.fixed.th", 13); 142 143 pref("font.size.variable.tr", 16); 144 pref("font.size.fixed.tr", 13); 145 146 pref("font.size.variable.x-baltic", 16); 147 pref("font.size.fixed.x-baltic", 13); 148 149 pref("font.size.variable.x-central-euro", 16); 150 pref("font.size.fixed.x-central-euro", 13); 151 152 pref("font.size.variable.x-cyrillic", 16); 153 pref("font.size.fixed.x-cyrillic", 13); 154 155 pref("font.size.variable.x-unicode", 16); 156 pref("font.size.fixed.x-unicode", 13); 157 158 pref("font.size.variable.x-western", 16); 159 pref("font.size.fixed.x-western", 13); 160 161 pref("font.size.variable.zh-CN", 16); 162 pref("font.size.fixed.zh-CN", 16); 163 164 pref("font.size.variable.zh-TW", 16); 165 pref("font.size.fixed.zh-TW", 16); For Unix: modules/libpref/src/unix/unix.js 152 pref("font.size.variable.ar", 16); 153 pref("font.size.fixed.ar", 12); 154 155 pref("font.size.variable.el", 16); 156 pref("font.size.fixed.el", 12); 157 158 pref("font.size.variable.he", 16); 159 pref("font.size.fixed.he", 12); 160 161 pref("font.size.variable.ja", 16); 162 pref("font.size.fixed.ja", 16); 163 164 pref("font.size.variable.ko", 16); 165 pref("font.size.fixed.ko", 16); 166 167 pref("font.size.variable.th", 16); 168 pref("font.size.fixed.th", 12); 169 170 pref("font.size.variable.tr", 16); 171 pref("font.size.fixed.tr", 12); 172 173 pref("font.size.variable.x-baltic", 16); 174 pref("font.size.fixed.x-baltic", 12); 175 176 pref("font.size.variable.x-central-euro", 16); 177 pref("font.size.fixed.x-central-euro", 12); 178 179 pref("font.size.variable.x-cyrillic", 16); 180 pref("font.size.fixed.x-cyrillic", 12); 181 182 pref("font.size.variable.x-unicode", 16); 183 pref("font.size.fixed.x-unicode", 12); 184 185 pref("font.size.variable.x-western", 16); 186 pref("font.size.fixed.x-western", 12); 187 188 pref("font.size.variable.zh-CN", 16); 189 pref("font.size.fixed.zh-CN", 16); 190 191 pref("font.size.variable.zh-TW", 16); 192 pref("font.size.fixed.zh-TW", 16); Notice that the control is depend on platform and language group. Notice on Mac we alreadyd change the Japanese default size to 14 for the quality of font's issue. and on Unix some of them are 16 Please don't make any change in the cvs untill we got proper decision. Make any chnages in Window are agreed by rbs and me, changes to Mac agreed by me and changes to unix agreed by bstell and rbs. Thanks

nav triage team: rbs, can ftang take over this bug?

Sure -- re-assigning to ftang.

so... it seems all the suggestion in this bug report are purly personal suggestion and Opera5 compatable (vs IE / N4 compatble) issue. No CSS or whatever standard are related to this bug, right ? remove nsbranch+ and move to m0.9.5

move to moz 0.9.7

mark it won't fix unless there are a clear reason that we want to change it to make it uncompatable with n4 n6 n6.1 and IE

VERIFIED per my comments above.

*** Bug 99770 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***