289848 - Mail from a specific user is in a VERY small font.

Status: RESOLVED INVALID

(SeaMonkey :: General, defect)

Description

[Steve Reynolds]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b2) Gecko/20050410
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.8b2) Gecko/20050410

This issue only happens from users that send email to me from our Boy Scout
troops Yahoo Group. Any email from one of the two users of that group is very
small. I will be happy to forward the emails to give examples. I've tried this
in IE. I also updated Mozilla to this version. Previous build I was using also
has this issue. That build is 2005020706. 

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. open the mail sent from specific users
2.
3.

Actual Results:  
font was very small, like 6pt or smaller.

Expected Results:  
Displayed the page in default font.

Comment 1

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

If you can save the HTML page in question as "web page, complete", edit out the
names and such from the page, zip it up, and attach it to this bug using
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?bugid=289848&action=enter><, that
would be great.

Comment 2

[irongut]

Don't have any problems with the Yahoo! Groups I use.

Reporter, could you invite me to become a memeber of your Yahoo! Group and tell
me a couple of messages in the archive that you get this problem with? Please
invite this address: [e-mail]

Comment 3

[andré]

Same problem with:
Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; fr-FR; rv:1.7.10) Gecko/20050716
(= Moz suite/Seamonkey)
This problem is relatively new, I don't think it existed with rv: 1.7.5.

I have noticed that emails and web pages presenting this problem all seem to
contain the code <FONT SIZE=-1> and/or <FONT SIZE=+1>, that is, use *relative*
font SIZE, instead of *absolute* size like <FONT SIZE=2>.
Also noticed:  If relative size is expressed in a page, always displays relative
to SIZE=3, not relative to the current font size.
That is

<FONT SIZE=3>some_text1<FONT SIZE=+1>plus1= displays one size bigger as it
should</FONT>resume previous size works</FONT><BR />
<FONT SIZE=5>some_text2<FONT SIZE=+1>plus2=should be bigger than some_text2 but
is same size as plus1</FONT>resume previous size works</FONT>

Additionally, the SIZE=5 produces average size text (which is SIZE=3 normally).
(That is, 2 levels SMALLER than normal.)

With relative sizes in a page, SIZE=1 produces a height of only 6 pixels with
descenders (not counting a space pixel between lines) with a (default) minimum
of 9 defined under preferences> appearance> fonts> minimal_font_size.
So it seems that the minimal size is also reduced by this problem, otherwise
that is an additional error.

*Note*
This problem is ALWAYS reproduceable with any html email or html page containing
the offending code.
Will send examples.

Comment 4

[andré]

Attachment: email showing VERY small font problem (code <FONT SIZE=-1>)

Is a html formatted email.  Open from inside Mozilla.
The very small text should only be 1 size smaller than the larger text, which
is normal size.

Comment 5

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

> always displays relative to SIZE=3, not relative to the current font size.

That's correct.  Please see the HTML spec.

Comment 6

[andré]

A good example in an html page:
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/
Almost all text appears extremely small, although apparently it should be
'normal' size.  The only font size reference I see is in global_002.css, which
defines 4 font-sizes:
#banner-name as 255%, p#banner-name as 300%, #banner-version as 75%,
p#banner-version as 85%.
The first text displayed is defined as 75%, but of what?
It displays at the minimum size, which is barely readable.
Maybe this sets the default size for the page?
Only the text specifically defined as larger is displayed larger.
On older versions of Mozilla there was a lot more larger text.

Comment 7

[Boris Zbarsky [:bzbarsky]]

75% of your default font size as set in the preferences...

Comment 8

[andré]

another example of a web page showing the problem:

http://fr.greetings.yahoo.com/

The small text is defined as <FONT SIZE=-1>, which appears as minimum size under
Moz suite 1.7.10.
It appeared ok under 1.7.5 (I think that's the version) and earlier.
The text defined as headings, and text defined with absolute font sizes appears
ok.  Many Yahoo emails also show this tiny text size, for the same reason. 

Comment 9

[andré]

Attn: Boris
1) re: SIZE-1 and Moz 1.7.10
You might be interested in W3C's page on fonts, especially section 15.7 font-size.
 <http://www.w3.org/TR/2004/CR-CSS21-20040225/fonts.html>

It says that 'A <relative-size> keyword is interpreted relative to the table of
font sizes and the font size of the parent element.'
 Even if it were supposed to be relative to SIZE=3/medium, SIZE-1 shouldn't give
the minimum size -- which is what is happening now.  (It wasn't nearly so small
before.)
This problem now appears in many emails and web pages.  It didn't in Moz 1.7.5.
It requires enlarging the font with ctrl-+ (twice) so as to be readable, then
reducing it for the next email without the problem code.  Never had to do this
before.

2) re: bugzilla page
OK, a font-size of 75% is supposed to be of the default preferences (which is
small or SIZE=2, it is actually about half the default size -- as is almost all
the text on the page.  Much, if not most of this text should be normal size.

Exceptions:
The button text is normal sized (as it should be), and a heading (defined as H2)
seems a bit larger than normal size.  (It should be 50% larger, according to
W3C.  It is on most html pages.)
The bugzilla page contained much less small text with previous versions of
Mozilla.   (I think Moz 1.7.5 was OK.  The problem started with an upgrade to a
newer version of Moz.)

Comment 10

[Arun Prasannan (polar)]

1.7.x is out of date and unmaintained. Could you try a recent version of
SeaMonkey (http://www.seamonkey-project.org/releases/) please?