There’s one thing that really bothers me, when it comes to design of forms. Well, more than one really, but let’s limit this discussion to just one.

Submit buttons.

I can’t stand their look, especially geek chic design of early nineties presented in Firefox and its relatives. I guess industrial look and Motif widgets were never really my taste. But even more pleasant design of buttons in Safari can look out of place with some designs.

There’s also an alternative that is often used. Image input buttons (type=image) can provide a more pleasant look, but they have one big disadvantage compared to submit buttons. They don’t scale. Not really something I’d want in an accessible interface.

I used a hardly novel idea of defining image measurements in relative units. Browsers usually don’t do this. They lay it out in original size using absolute values. Hence, when you change the size of fonts, the size of image stays the same. But if you use relative units, you get desired scaling effect. It might look like crap, but at least it can be readable for people with impaired vision.

As you can see in simple demo , experiments with em’s haven’t worked really well. There are two distinct problems. First is to find the relative size that doesn’t stretch an image in either direction. Second, to do this in a cross-browser compatible way.

My demo kind of works in Safari, but not really in Firefox and I have no idea about rest of the bunch. So, has anyone solved this problem?

Update: I managed to get a better result. You can read about it here.

I apologize in advance to anyone reading this who can’t understand Slovene, but the next announcement is of very local nature and probably of interest only to Slovene speaking people actually living in Slovenia.

Z oktobrom se ponovno odpirajo vrata Kiberpipe in jesen prinaša novost. Spletne urice, serija rednih tedenskih predavanj o spletu in spletnih tehnologijah namenjenih predvsem izkušenim razvijalcem, oblikovalcem in skrbnikom, ki bi radi poglobili svoje znanje, predstavili svoje izkušnje ali pa se preprosto sre??ali in pogovorili z drugimi spletnimi sotrpini.

V sredo, 5. oktobra, ob 19.00 bo na sporedu prvo predavanje. Jure Koren bo v predavanju z naslovom PHP v ??asu terorizma predstavil prijeme, s katerimi se izognemo temu, da bi naša PHP aplikacija bila vstopna to??ka za internetne vlomilce.

Upam, da nas bo tam ??im ve??.

Why is it that we still celebrate national sport teams as demigods and cheer a bunch of guys (or gals) only because they come from the right part of a planet?

Slovenia was caught in a basketball euphoria when it looked for a while that it might actually win a medal. Personally, I have no beef with people playing it. I haven’t done it in a while, but I used to enjoy it a lot. I don’t mind people watching basketball or any other sport either. I rarely do, but I do recognize inherent drama and sometimes amazing display of mastery.

I also don’t mind cheering in general. We’ve all encountered individuals or teams, who exemplified rare qualities we admire and wished them best luck. I do find it a bit repulsive to cheer for a person or a team just because they come from the right town or a country.

It seems rather primitive to pick a side mainly because of nationality or locality; as if our nationality is itself a quality worthy of admiration and pride. They are our lot, our tribe, and that makes them better?

Is it then a wonder that after all this time and relative progress we still have so much troubles with each other? If intimate human relationships can’t survive feelings of personal superiority, how can it ever happen with nations?

I’ve always been attached to this place where I grew up and culture that shaped me to who I am today and I can’t imagine giving it up. But long gone are days when I felt the same about my nationality and I’d be ashamed if they came back.