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Originally Posted by
Xian Zhu Xuande 
Sadly, many sites which don't even deploy for an OS X userbase do a much better job. Macworld's poor approach to this matter should not be considered representative of the whole.
Unfortunately, Macworld is far from being the only offender. If it were, I wouldn't even bother to mention it.
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It has nothing to do with how much work they put in. It has to do with quality of product. You, the user, do care about how fast your browser is, and you will care when patchwork breaks another of your favorite sites.
We've all had our quality of product woes over the years with Safari. It seems stable now, but it isn't the only stable browser out there.
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1) You're talking about two different meanings of the word here. A standard is presented and people may choose to adhere to it, but simply because one group choses to ignore it (frequently Microsoft), that doesn't mean it isn't a standard.
2) You can ask all you want for people to do this sort of thing, but unless you are willing to educate yourself in the mechanics behind what is happening here -- and admittedly, it takes more than an evening of study to understand CSS2 -- you're not going to be in a good position to dictate terms to experienced engineers. This is like telling Apple to patch OS X to expect certain major bugs because a software developer can't be bothered to update their software. It just doesn't work that way.
I understand two things.
1 What a "standard" is. But, you have to understand that if a standard isn't being applied across most systems, it isn't really a standard. It doesn't matter how many bodies give their approval. Like it or not, IE's "standards" have been the web's standards as well, as most sites hewed to them. When something is not defined as a standard, but is used as such, then it is the defacto standard, like it or not.
2 I understand what is happening here. That doesn't mean that I either like it, or agree with it.
Sometimes, in the course of events, decisions must be made that lead to a non "pure" system, because of factors that are beyond your control. This is one of those cases. It rarely pays to be alone, wandering in the dark, simply because you think you are right, as Apple often does.
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I want Macworld to work great too. It doesn't, though, and it is because they can't be bothered to put some small effort into correcting their site. That content has to go somewhere, though, and the choices are:
1) Don't resize the text.
2) Overlap horizontally (good luck).
3) Overlap based on standards (what is happening here).
4) Override style sheet instructions and move static elements (bad idea).
5) Let people mess up their own web pages (also something that is happening here).
Unfortunately, some of that only works for some elements, and others aren't under our control at all.
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Firefox doesn't come out much better, looking at it now. It survives the first font size increase but things get ugly after two. The spacing is inconsistent and it is tough to identify the source of a problem like that. The code would have to be studied. At least the overlap isn't anywhere near as bad.
Yes, you have go to more extreme settings before the problem sets in. That means that it rarely does set in.
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What it boils down to, though, is that you are asking the webkit developers to address an obscure issue which relies primarily on the site designer(s). If this particular problem was widespread they should indeed consider their approach, but if it is not we should not expect much from them.
If this really bothers you and you must have your font size increased at Macworld you might consider getting members here to write them or starting a petition. Or, everyone bothered by this can start going to that page, duplicating the problem, and clicking on the bug report button in Safari to send a screenshot and description to the developers behind Webkit/Safari. If they identify a solution relative to their own code which does not require breaking standards they'll likely fix it up. But they're probably not going to give it much thought if it isn't reported to them. I'll submit my report to them now to do my part.
Are there thousands of sites breaking like this in Safari when font sizes are increased but not breaking in other browsers? That is the question to ask here. There are thousands of sites out there breaking when font sizes are increased but this is due to the difficulties of designing a complicated commercial site with support for universal font size increases. The only sure-fire solution to this is page zooming (as done on the iPhone and in Opera).
It's a widespread issue. Not every site has the problem, but many do. As I said, if it were only Macworld, I would only bother them.
But, as I also said, that's an annoyance, but not a major problem. It's the problem with the columns that constitutes the real problem, as nothing I have ever done has been able to correct it, other than to go to Firefox.
I can't thing of a single way to make Safari copy the styles, but not the formatting.
