Re^3: revise font?

[halley]

The point is, you cannot specify both font-family: monospace and font-family: sans-serif; they are mutually exclusive options thanks to the way the CSS specification has been written.

As for whether or not it's a design issue, I would say the flaw of the design is in the font itself, not in whether or not it has serifs. To wit, my monospace fonts make it clear that 1 is one but l is ell. This may vary from system to system, as the fonts included on a user's computer are not something over which a website has much control.

[ww]

Update, 01 Jul after rereading parent: Agree: no, you cannot use both "serif" and "monospace" as the DEFAULT style (last) in a stylesheet, but there is nothing in the css spec to prevent you from including, by name, a monospace, sans-serif font, as the original code below was intended to illustrate
HOWEVER, membership in the "monospace" class has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with whether a font has or lacks serifs. Membership in "monospace" indicates ONLY that it is one of a class of fonts in which each character occupies the same amount of horizontal space.
</update #2>

/* I believe PM uses both <code> and .c   demerphq corrects me below*/


<style type="text/css">
<!--
code, .c {    
font-family: "unix_sans_serif_monospace choice here",
             and_another_if_desired,
             MAC_choice(s),
             windoze_choice(s),
             monospace;
}
-->

The w3c spec calls for the browser to use the first font it recognizes/has available. If neither specified font (pseudo-coded here as unix_font(s)) is available, try MAC, then windows... and only if no suitable font is avail, default to the system's default monospace. NB: This is NOT doing OS recognition -- it simply causes a compliant browser (today: most of 'em for the purpose of this discussion)to walk thru the list of faces specified by the designer (unless the user has overidden with a personal stylesheet). If a given font is available on a windows box with the name spec'ed in the first alt above, so be it: it's probably gonna' be acceptable.

Update #1 Reformatted code for easier readability, emended some language in previous paragraph for precision, 01 Jul

[demerphq]

code, .c { /* I believe PM uses both */

Actually I dont think so. CODE and C tags are pseudo tags that get transformed by the PM rendering engine. The class code however has meaning. If you find any examples of CODE tags leaking out please report them.