@joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

Excitingly, Chrome Canary recently added support for behind a flag.

What is it? It's something that we're all going to start using on our websites to improve accessibility. Here's a blog post with more info. https://www.joshtumath.uk/posts/2026-01-27-try-text-scaling-support-in-chrome-canary/

This is an exciting milestone for me, because it's something I proposed at the CSSWG over a year ago. Thanks to David Grogan in the Chrome team for working with me to make this happen!

Josh Tumath

Try text scaling support in Chrome Canary - Josh Tumath

44

36

28

1

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 7mo ago

It's time for one of the UK's most loved web conference, State of the Browser by @webstandards@mastodon.world

I'll be live posting the whole thing as usual on bluesky!

I won't be able to do alt text while posting quickly but I'll try to put as much detail as possible in the actual post. #SotB26

mastodon.social

6

0

2

0

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 6mo ago

#WebDayOut is about to begin! The beginning of a brilliant new conference. The agenda looks quality. Put on by @adactio@mastodon.social and @Clearleft@mastodon.social !

I will be live posting the conference on BlueSky.

mastodon.social

5

0

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 6mo ago

RE: @keithamus@indieweb.social

Wow, this is a pretty evil game,
@keithamus@indieweb.social. I can't believe I was fooled by the likes of 'anchor-offset'. My score was only 46/80. 😂

Give it a go! Meanwhile, I'll quit the CSSWG in shame.

https://www.keithcirkel.co.uk/css-or-bs/?r=LhT7f8A
#CSSorBS

indieweb.social

keithamus: "Rather than the same old boring internet pranks, …" - Indieweb.Social

4

0

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 7mo ago

I thought it was the paparazzi at first but got a nice photo taken by @matuzo@front-end.social at #SotB26!

mastodon.social

4

0

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 6mo ago

As nice as it was to be in Brighton for Web Day Out, it's nice to be back enjoying a nice glass of normal water.

I cannot stand the hard water they have down south. I don't know how anyone puts up with it. 😂

3

1

0

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 6mo ago

Replying to

@Lukew @keithamus Nice. Some of the made up ones are quite evil. So similar to real ones.

2

1

0

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@Lukew@toot.wales @jscholes@dragonscave.space no don't worry I don't take it as argumentative. 😅 My heart agrees with you. This has been my first real contribution to web standards. I don't know if I've given in too easily to the push back about compat concerns, but it didn't seem like it was possible to get consensus without a way to opt in. Everyone seemed like they couldn't even imagine having the correct behaviour enabled by default. Maybe after a few years if many websites change, it can be turned on by default.

2

0

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@jscholes@dragonscave.space @mahryekuh@hachyderm.io There is no text scaling on mobile at all. The only thing browsers provide is zoom. So the idea is that you should only add this text-scale meta tag if you have tested your website on mobile with scaled up text and made sure that the layout is not broken. If you'd like more info, we have an Explainer doc for the env(preferred-text-scale) variable that powers the meta tag. 😄 https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/blob/main/css-env-1/explainers/env-preferred-text-scale.md

GitHub

csswg-drafts/css-env-1/explainers/env-preferred-text-scale.md at main · w3c/csswg-drafts

CSS Working Group Editor Drafts. Contribute to w3c/csswg-drafts development by creating an account on GitHub.

2

0

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@jscholes@dragonscave.space @mahryekuh@hachyderm.io Yes, because those sites are already broken, we can't change how browsers on iOS and Android scale text by default. But the goal is: we want websites to respect the user's text size settings in their OS. But the CSSWG are always rightly concerned about doing things that will break the web. We could enable by default and shine a light on these failures, but at the detriment of users who need the text scaling.

2

4

0

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@robinwhittleton@front-end.social Ah, I don't think they've added support for macOS yet. It's only on mobile. I'm not even sure if they'll ever add support for that, since most other macOS apps also don't respond to that setting.

1

2

0

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@Lukew@toot.wales @jscholes@dragonscave.space I'm hoping the current state of affairs will be seen as a quirks mode for text scaling and we'll move on to a standard way of doing it. If we fix it by default, so many websites break (which you see by scaling up text on a desktop browser and simulating a mobile viewport). And if that's people's experience browsing the web, I worry they're going to stop using text scaling and see it as a broken and unreliable accessibility feature.

1

2

0

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@Lukew@toot.wales @jscholes@dragonscave.space yeah I know what you mean. But I think I've come to the conclusion that there's no other way. It's making consistent all the different ways platforms do text scaling which have created the compat issues. MacOS ignores it's own OS text scaling setting. On Windows, browsers zoom everything based on OS text scale - even the browser chrome. All desktop UAs also have in-app text scaling. Android WebViews do their own weird text scaling unrelated to CSS. Etc...

1

2

0

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@cwilcox808@c.im Yeah that's a very good point. It's my hope that authors will think about it more by using the meta tag. I just think it would suck for you if you've increased the font size in your OS settings and then every website you go on is making you scroll horizontally. Sometimes it will be unavoidable, but I think general browsing should be possible without horizontal scroll.

1

0

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@cwilcox808@c.im @jscholes@dragonscave.space @mahryekuh@hachyderm.io Yes and nor should anyone use it, really. The WebKit team aren't actively maintaining it and its default size is smaller than 16px.

1

0

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@cwilcox808@c.im @jscholes@dragonscave.space @mahryekuh@hachyderm.io That was considered, adding a property like font-size: system. But the problem with that is it doesn't affect rem/em units in media queries. However we did create the environment variable env(preferred-text-scale).

1

2

0

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@jscholes@dragonscave.space Right, I understand now. Sorry that I didn't understand the first time. Thanks, @Lukew@toot.wales I agree with you that it is a fundamental failing of browser vendors. And now no web authors have been able to test for it. When I originally brought this issue up with the CSSWG, I was making that point. I was originally trying to get the CSS fonts spec changed so that the default font size is 16px by default but respects the OS font size accessibility setting. (1/2)

1

2

0

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@jscholes@dragonscave.space @mahryekuh@hachyderm.io I sensed I wasn't fully understanding your question, so I was clarifying things just in case it was helpful. But do ask if you have any more questions. Thanks for your feedback!

1

2

0

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@mahryekuh@hachyderm.io Yep those are all the same. They would be fine!

1

0

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@Lukew@toot.wales Yesss!! I find if you use em/rem units in your media queries, you don't really get any layout issues. The real problem is when you test at 320px viewport and any two column layouts just break.

1

0

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 8mo ago

Replying to

@jscholes@dragonscave.space @Lukew@toot.wales But after doing that, it became clear everyone in the group was confused by exactly how browsers do text scaling. David Grogan and I did a large investigation and we found it was so inconsistent between browsers and OSs. And as a result of historical issues with text scaling support, the web's support for it is a mess. And now sadly authors need to opt in to a new mode that fixes this disaster. See comparison table in explainer. https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/blob/main/css-env-1/explainers/meta-text-scale.md#comparison-of-legacy-and-scale (2/2)

GitHub

csswg-drafts/css-env-1/explainers/meta-text-scale.md at main · w3c/csswg-drafts

CSS Working Group Editor Drafts. Contribute to w3c/csswg-drafts development by creating an account on GitHub.

0

2

0

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 7mo ago

Well I managed to get quite severe back pain yesterday, but thankfully it looks like I'll recover enough in time to travel down tomorrow to Brighton for the first #WebDayOut conference by @Clearleft@mastodon.social!

The talks and lineup look fantastic.

Is anyone around the evening before?

mastodon.social

0

1

0

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 7mo ago

I've been learning about terrazzo.app, today - the design tokens tool.

@drwpow@mstdn.social and Nick Tassone, your documentation is an absolute delight to read!! It's just telling you bluntly how to use all of the features; it puts them all in context and has a really nice tone-of-voice.

And I love your implementation of DTCG Resolvers!

0

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 7mo ago

Replying to

@dletorey @matuzo brilliant!

0

Josh Tumath @joshtumath@mastodon.social

· 13mo ago

Replying to

@djmarland@mastodon.social Welcome!

0