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Automatically adjust line-height based on element width for optimal readability.

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Molten Leading (plain JS version)

Manually adjusting line-height for optimum readability across a bunch of media queries is kind of a pain. With Molten Leading you can set a minimum width at which the adjustment starts, a maximum element width where it stops, and a minimum and maximum line height to adjust through.

All the work here is based on @Wilto’s Molten-Leading jQuery version of the plugin.

Features:

  • Automatically adjust line-height based on element width for optimal readability.
  • Works in all major desktop and mobile browsers, including IE 6 and up.
  • Uses requestAnimationFrame for the best possible performance.
  • Free to use in both commercial and non-commercial projects.
  • Doesn’t require external JavaScript libraries.
  • Supports "px", "em" and "rem" CSS units.
  • Weighs only 1.17Kb minified and Gzip’ed.
  • Supports multiple instances.

Demo

  • There’s a demo here, try resizing your browser window.

Usage instructions

Following the steps below you should be able to get everything up and running.

  1. Link files:
<script src="moltenleading.js"></script>
  1. Hook up the plugin:
<!-- Put this right before the </body> closing tag -->
<script>
  moltenLeading("h1");
</script>
  1. Customizable options:
moltenLeading("h1", {
  minline: 1.2,    // Integer: Minimum line-height for the element (multiplied by the element's font-size)
  maxline: 1.8,    // Integer: Maximum line-height for the element (multiplied by the element's font-size)
  minwidth: 320,   // Integer: Minimum element width where the adjustment starts
  maxwidth: 768,   // Integer: Maximum element width where the adjustment stops
  units: "px"      // String: CSS units used for the min & max widths, can be "px", "em" or "rem"
});

Public methods

There’s currently one public method, refresh(). Refresh allows you to manually call Molten Leading’s update methods that calculate and update the line-height of specified element(s). Example of the usage:

var myLeading = moltenLeading("h1", {
  minline: 1.2,
  maxline: 1.8
});

// Then somewhere later on:
myLeading.refresh();

Notes

  • Tested to be working all the way down to IE6. side note: if you need to support IE6 & 7 you’re gonna have to use simple "tag selectors," since the plugin uses getElementsByTagName as a fallback if querySelector isn’t supported.
  • Built progressive enhancement in mind, so the plugin will silently fail when a browser doesn’t support certain selector (only IE6 & 7).
  • When using em units, keep in mind that ems are relative to the currently specified font-size of the parent element, so the width might not always be what you think it is.
  • The rem units are relative to the <html> element’s font-size instead, so they are a bit easier to grasp.
  • Full credits go to both Wilto who wrote the orinal plugin and to Tim Brown for the original idea.

Possible performance bottlenecks

  • Don’t use CSS transition: all inside Molten Leading enabled containers, will make window.resize performance slower.

Running on localhost

  1. Clone this repo by running git clone [email protected]:arielsalminen/Molten-Leading.git
  2. If you’re using Mac OS X, open the "Molten-Leading" folder and run python -m SimpleHTTPServer 8000
  3. Done! Now view the project at https://localhost:8000

Tested on the following platforms

  • iOS 4.2.1+
  • Android 2.3+
  • Windows Phone 7.5+
  • Blackberry 7.0+
  • Blackberry Tablet 2.0+
  • Jolla
  • Firefox Phone
  • Kindle 3.3+
  • Symbian Belle
  • Symbian S40 Asha
  • webOS 2.0+
  • Windows XP
  • Windows 7
  • Mac OS X

Changelog

1.20 (2014-07-09) - Adds support for px, em and rem units in addition to performance optimization.

1.10 (2014-06-26) - Performance improvements. Handles debouncing of events now via requestAnimationFrame, which removes the need for the previous threshold setting. Adds also public methods.

1.03 (2014-06-24) - Fixes debouncing of events and optimizes performance (adds also an option to control the debounce timing).

1.02 (2014-06-21) - Adds minified version.

1.01 (2014-06-21) - Removes unnecessary code.

1.00 (2014-06-19) - First release.

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Automatically adjust line-height based on element width for optimal readability.

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