619501 - Font sizes in preference/options dialogs do not indicate what units they use

Status: NEW

(Firefox :: Settings UI, defect)

Description

[Christopher Schultz]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 Firefox/3.6.13 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET4.0C)
Build Identifier: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 6.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2.13) Gecko/20101203 Firefox/3.6.13 ( .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET4.0C)

Font size units are not displayed anywhere in the preferences/options pages. It would be nice to know what units are being used.

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
Go to Tools | Options | Content | Fonts & Colors and observe the value for "Font Size".

Actual Results:  
 Mine says "16". 16 what? Pixels? Points? Picas?

Expected Results:  
Units are clear for these numbers.

The same is true for all font size settings within the preferences (for instance, under Fonts & Colors | Advanced).

It would be nice if these settings were clear about the units being used.

Comment 1

[Chris B.]

Font sizes in Firefox / Minefield are the same units as in Microsoft Word and are called Points.

1 point = 1/72 of an inch.
12 point font is 12/72 inches high.
72-point font is 1 inch high.

Comment 2

[Chris B.]

FYI.....Microsoft Word doesn't display the unit type either.  It is just assumed to be Points as it is only stated otherwise when Points are NOT used.

Comment 3

[[e-mail]]

I have added my own bug report on this for the Macintosh version.

Seriously, 7 years to add “px” after the font size? It’s marked as trivial, but so is the fix.

BTW re the other comments:

(a) The font size is in px, not points, so it’s not obvious
(b) 96px = 72pt, or 16px = 12pt