Re: A proposal for units in GTK+

[Soeren Sandmann <sandmann daimi au dk>]

Noah Levitt <nlevitt columbia edu> writes:

> Could you explain why "em may not be suitable as a vertical
> unit if the the x-height of the font is big"? I'm not
> disagreeing with your conclusion, I think it's probably a
> good idea to have both em and ex. I just don't understand
> this sentence and am curious.

The ex height of a font is the height of the lower-case x. If you have
a very condensed font, the height of the lower-case x will be big
compared to the width of the font. By using the ex height as vertical
unit, and the em width as horizontal unit, your design is more likely
to match the font you are using