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World champion Payne aims to boost sidecar profile

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Tributes paid to Wolverhampton's Liam Payne

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Birmingham residents face 'cruel' price rises

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BBC Sounds: 'Gig Buddies means I can see Iron Maiden again'

Gig Buddies partnered Lee up with Steve as they share similar musical tastes.




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Hereford's global grilling megastars go stateside

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Worcester confirm bid to return to professional rugby

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Cumbria Black Friday scams warning

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Damaged bridge to close for essential repairs

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Remembrance poppy fundraisers bridge generations

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West Midlands postcodes top uninsured drivers list

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Care home residents pose for fundraising calendar

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Smart meters in north/south divide, Bitcoin breaks through $82,000 barrier

The way smart energy meters work in northern England and Scotland is causing issues for customers, BBC Panorama has been told. The body that represents energy companies, Energy UK, has […]

The post Smart meters in north/south divide, Bitcoin breaks through $82,000 barrier appeared first on Tech Digest.




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The ultimate guide for using behavioural analytics and A/B testing to optimise website conversions

Content may be king, but data sits behind the throne and has the king’s ear. 

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Use of ch unit considered inappropriate (in certain circumstances)

Update: The title of this post was originally a knowing nod to the considered harmful cliché. I thought it might be amusing and get a bit of attention. However it was brought to my attention by a few people I respect that the title as written might be harmful in itself, so I changed it. However I believe that the subtle point I’m trying to make still stands:

When did we start using the ch unit to specify the maximum length for a line of text? Many places you look nowadays you'll see a variation on:

.prose {
  max-inline-size: 60ch;
}

Is it because of a direct reading of Bringhurst and people (like me) who’ve quoted him:

Anything from 45 to 75 characters is widely regarded as a satisfactory length of line for a single-column page set in a serifed text face in a text size. The 66-character line (counting both letters and spaces) is widely regarded as ideal. For multiple column work, a better average is 40 to 50 characters.

I get it: there’s all that talk of ’characters’. But that’s not what Bringhurst means literally. I’ll come back to that shortly.

Firstly let’s remind ourselves about the CSS ch unit. While ch sounds like it should equate to a number of characters or a character width, that’s not strictly the case. The ch unit specifically refers to the width of the zero ’0’ character within the selected font, or 0.5em if no ’0’ is present. So unless you have a line made up entirely of zeroes, or are using a monospaced font, a width of 66ch will probably not give you a line containing 66 characters. What’s more, the rendered width of that line will vary with the font design, sometimes significantly.

Two text blocks are set to 34 ch wide, but the use of a condensed font (top) and an expanded font (bottom) makes the rendered width narrower and wider respectively.

The important part of Bringhurst’s guideline is not the ’66-characters’ but the ’satisfactory length’. This is about readability, and readability is affected by the length of a line more so than the number of characters in it.

A consistent finding is that long line lengths on screen are least preferred or judged as least easy to read [my emphasis]

With that in mind, restricting your line length using rem would be a far more appropriate unit to use:

.prose {
  max-inline-size: 30rem;
}

This would give you a line length accessibly tied to text size, but independent of font design.

But is using ch harmful?

Bringhurst’s guideline includes this little caveat: a page set in a serifed text face in a text size. This enables him to equate the number of characters in a line with its length. So if you are using a fairly standard typeface for your text then you’ll probably be fine. However that ’standard typeface’ assumption is implicit anytime you use ch to set the width of a column of text. Using rem removes that assumption and gives you what you are probably really after – a consistent, predictable limit on line length.

It didn’t surprise me to find that Eric Meyer had written about this six years ago. I’ll leave you with an important observation from his post:

If you’re working with multiple typefaces, say one for headlines and another for body copy, be careful about setting ch measures and thinking they’ll be equivalent between the two fonts. The odds are very, very high they won’t be.

So is using ch harmful? At the risk of saying it depends, it might not be harmful, but it could be, and there is a far more reliable and appropriate unit to use by way of the rem when it comes to limiting line length in a column of text.

Read or add comments




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Earthy earns maiden England U21 call-up

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Bears have 'kids to watch for future' - Lam

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‘He said goodbye’ Clevedon woman’s husband in Spain flood

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Pete Davidson and Kate Beckinsale are a Legit Thing

While Ariana Grande is maybe fucking Big Sean again, Pete Davidson continues his ascension to legend status by locking down babe of all babes, Kate Beckinsale. It’s one thing to be seen flirting at a Golden Globes after-party or leaving a club at all hours hand-in-hand, it’s a whole other thing to be spotted laying […]

The post Pete Davidson and Kate Beckinsale are a Legit Thing appeared first on HecklerSpray.







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Why Does The City Of London Cross Some Bridges And Not Others?

Boundary anomalies, ahoy!





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Hyde Park Winter Wonderland 2024: A Guide To Visiting London's Huge Christmas Festival

When to go, what to see and how to save money.



  • London
  • Christmas in London
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  • christmas in London
  • HYDE PARK WINTER WONDERLAND
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Is Nintendo Switch 2 about to be announced? Instagram lowers quality of less popular videos

The internet is still convinced a Nintendo Switch 2 announcement is going to happen this month, as a part of a major third-party open world game is also rumoured. It’ll […]

The post Is Nintendo Switch 2 about to be announced? Instagram lowers quality of less popular videos appeared first on ShinyShiny.





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News roundup: Chrome for Android, ASCII Fluid Dynamics, Node.js: doing life wrong?

(no podcast this week - Boo! Check back next week) Chrome for Android Google has just released a beta of Chrome for Android, which is available for those running Android Ice Cream Sandwich (aka "the 1%"). This isn't JavaScript-specific news per se, but it is HUGE news for web devs ...




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Did the change of start time affect your ability to watch the Brazilian GP? | Debates and Polls

F1 did something it has never done before last weekend and moved a race start time earlier. But did that affect your ability to watch?



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Bortoleto pushed for 2025 F1 debut to avoid missing a year of racing | Formula 1

Gabriel Bortoleto said he was determined not to sit out a year of racing in 2025 after Sauber confirmed he will make his debut for them in Formula 1 next year.




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Michigan needs new ideas for high absenteeism and falling student scores

Education choice is succeeding in other states




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Know before you vote




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Biden followed FDR's lead in tampering with SCOTUS

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Protect Michigan's Presidential Votes

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The SEO Starter Guide got a makeover

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Lenguaje policial estadounidense

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Congreso X ANIVERSARIO DE APTIJ – Madrid, 3 y 4 de noviembre de 2017

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Hide ribbon in SDL Trados Studio 2014

I am not one of those who criticize the ribbon in Microsoft and other software. On the other hand, while the large monitor of my desktop PC offers a plenty of working space, I cannot say the same about my … Continue reading