Recent Keyhole Thoughts

At 09:22 PM 10/11/2003, White Wolf wrote:
>Scott Meyers wrote:
>> didn't think that users should have any control over font size.  The
>> underlying conceptual problem is that of a missing feature, not
>> imposition of a keyhole-like constraint. So though it's possible to
>> cast fixed-size fonts on web pages into the mold of a keyhole, I
>> think it dilutes the meaning of a keyhole, hence its usefulness.
>
>I think this thinking is not exactly right.  Why?  Because unless one fixes
>the font size of a Web page the browser agents are able to change the font
>size!  So it is not the case of "I would need to work a lot to enable it".

Though I haven't written much lately, I've been continuing to think about
keyholes, in part because of the talk I recently gave on the topic.  I've
revised my views in two ways:

  - I no longer think that I can restrict my discussion to gratuitous
    keyholes.  I am beginning to believe that eliminating listbox keyholes
    is a nontrivial undertaking for most developers, because the GUI
    toolkits they use don't offer an easy way to do it.  Yet I still want
    to talk about such keyholes.  So the focus of the book will likely
    widen somewhat to include keyholes that are not gratuitous, though I
    will continue to offer the same fundamental advice: consider keyholes
    all the time during design and implementation, try to eliminate or at
    least enlarge them, and, by default, avoid the introduction of
    gratuitous keyholes.

  - White Wolf's comments above got me to realize that there really isn't
    much of a conceptual difference between fixing the width of a web page
    and fixing its font size, because both override default browser
    behavior.  Practically speaking, there is a difference, however, in
    that the fixed size fonts chosen for web sites are generally too small
    rather than too large, and fonts that are too small show MORE of the
    web page than the viewer wants to see.  So the conceptual flaw (fixing
    the font size) tends to not result in a keyhole.  Still, this is an
    example of a gratuitous constraint that could, in principle, lead to a
    keyhole, so I should probably treat it as such.  As I wrote before, I'd
    been planning to address fixed-size web page fonts in the book, anyway,
    so the primary change here is my willingness to view fixing the size of
    such fonts as a true keyhole rather than as a closely-related
    gratuitous constraint. 

Scott

PS - I just noticed that the Call for Papers for WWW 2004 (www2004.org)
expires on November 14.  I'm toying with the idea of taking the fixed-size
web page keyhole chapter and turning it into a submission.  I know nothing
about this conference.  Advice pro or con would be most welcome.  Thanks.