adjust css to fit variable sized data in a fixed amount of space with php

frieza · 02-19-2009, 05:35 PM

the problem is as follows
i have a variable amount of data that needs to be displayed in a fixed amount of space

i know the argument style="font-size:13px;line-height:113%;" in an html output will adjust the size of the font and the line spacing and that the numbers can be replaced with variables by doing

style="font-size:".$fontsize".px;line-height:".$line_height."%;"
and i can also use an incremented variable to count the number of lines output

and i can run the function multiple times with different paramaters and return ouptut based on parameters fed to the function such as

Code:

function($mode) {
/*code goes here*/
$output['html']=$html_output;
$output['font_size']=$font_size;
$output['line_height]=$line_height;
return $output[$mode];
}

then call the function with

Code:

$html=function('html');
$fontsize=function('font_size);
$line_height=function('line_height');

to get the desired output
(or just place them inline with the html code as if they were variables)

the question is how would i calculate the values of $font_size and $line_height based on the counted number of lines and the number of pixels i have available for output?
in short, i need a forumla for doing such

TheLinuxDuck · 02-20-2009, 04:24 PM

The problem here is that every browser renders things a little differently. And, people can change the size of the fonts on the client side, which often has a detrimental effect on your layout specifics. There is nothing you can do about it, either, which makes this kind of accuracy and configuration often more of a pain in the tuchus than will ever bear fruit.

My suggestion, simply create a div with the fixed width and height you want, spec a reasonable sized font, and let the view scroll in the window.

Code:

<HTML>
<BODY>
<DIV STYLE="width: 500px; max-width: 500px; min-width: 500px; height: 200px; 
            min-height: 200px; max-height: 200px; overflow: scroll;">
#
# Network services, Internet style
#
# Note that it is presently the policy of IANA to assign a single well-known
# port number for both TCP and UDP; hence, most entries here have two entries
# even if the protocol doesn't support UDP operations.
... snipped ... this is a dump of the /etc/services file

wnn6_Cn   22289/tcp  #Wnn6 (Chinese input)
wnn6_Tw   22321/tcp  #Wnn6 (Taiwanse input)
wnn6_Kr   22305/tcp  #Wnn6 (Korean input)
wnn6_DS   26208/tcp  #Wnn6 (Dserver)
</DIV>
</BODY>
<HTML>