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Web fonts, boy, I don't know

meowni.ca

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Re: Web fonts, boy, I don't know

#91
I despise icon fonts with a raging passion. It feels like we're back in 8 bit time where we're using sprites for things that Man Wasn't Meant To Do with them.

Web fonts as real world fonts are kinda-sorta okay. Although it's yet another area where "All the world's a VAX" can proliferate, when designers think everyone's got the Windows font engine or their MacBook/iPhone's Hippidippi display.

Re: Web fonts, boy, I don't know

#92
post #74

My feeling on web fonts is that that they can sometimes look nice but aren't worth the page weight. My approach is to pick two fonts I expect MacOS and Windows to have, then fall back to generic. Other times, I'm more lazy and just use the generic. To put it more bluntly: https://bestmotherfucking.website/#remote-fonts

One problem with this approach is when you're relying on web fonts for Unicode character ranges which aren't universally supported by your visitors’ OS. A compromise approach which can work nicely is declaring @font-face values using unicode-range to target specific language blocks and then having your font-family be something like 'sans-serif, noto-sans-whatever` so it'll default to a similar system font but load th…

I'm surprised that browser vendors aren't including the more popular fonts.

Re: Web fonts, boy, I don't know

#93

I have had the exact experience in the last month. Being on a slow connection, I've come to loath web fonts. There is nothing wrong with them in general but it's just that they've come to symbolise over-indulgence and a myopia towards the users actual task-focused needs as opposed to aesthetics. Part of the issue is dealing with progressive enhancement as far as slow internet connections go. How do you solve that pro…

Have none of you ever worked for a designer or marketing person who was unwilling to accept that a bit of text might wrap on Windows (Arial), but fit on one line on a Mac (Helvetica)? Until we can get the major operating systems to include some of the most popular open-source fonts, we're stuck with web fonts. If macOS, Windows, Debian, iOS, and Android all came with Roboto, Source Sans, Lato, Merriweather, Raleway,…

Why can't we just deal with the fact that different devices will display your content differently? The world doesn't need better fonts, the world needs better designers.

Re: Web fonts, boy, I don't know

#94
post #91

I despise icon fonts with a raging passion. It feels like we're back in 8 bit time where we're using sprites for things that Man Wasn't Meant To Do with them. Web fonts as real world fonts are kinda-sorta okay. Although it's yet another area where "All the world's a VAX" can proliferate, when designers think everyone's got the Windows font engine or their MacBook/iPhone's Hippidippi display.

[deleted]

Re: Web fonts, boy, I don't know

#95
post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh gezz, even google.com weighs 976 kB. Coming in at 1.2 MB isn't bad at all. Strip the two GIFs out (which are good content and behind links now anyway) and you've got ~500 kB. Perfectly reasonable.

Google.com is 366KB transferred for me. I wasn't trying to suggest all web pages should be svelte. I was suggesting that a page complaining about bloat should probably be optimized. Especially when we're talking about web fonts that are typically 50 to 150KB. I'd also call out a blog post that, for example, called out jQuery as being unneeded bloat, if the blog post itself used jQuery. Assuming the blog was itself ru…

http://imgur.com/a/zDVVN

Also, the post isn't about bloat anyway; it's about FOIC vs FOUC and lazily loading fonts. Complaining that the page is "bloated" at 500kb (Edit: Fine, 1.2MB, whatever) is a shitty nitpick.

Re: Web fonts, boy, I don't know

#96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Let's click on this link... ah, not that link, let's go back. Yes, this link... NO! STOP MOVING!" This is my #1 complaint about reddit. Not due to fonts; but rather when I load reddit on my phone, a "get the reddit app" banner appears... timed perfectly so that my attempt to view my messages sends me off to the app store.

I'm starting to suspect that behavior is intentional. I see this all the time with mobile ads... a site slowly loads as I read content, then an ad pops up right when I try to navigate. Incredibly frustrating. It's like advertisers want me to install adblock... so I will, I'll root my device and adblock all their bullshit forever.

That's so annoying. Worst thing is that adblocks are not as easily available as in desktops. I'm on windows phone 10, my only browser is Edge, so I'm really fucked.

Re: Web fonts, boy, I don't know

#97

I have had the exact experience in the last month. Being on a slow connection, I've come to loath web fonts. There is nothing wrong with them in general but it's just that they've come to symbolise over-indulgence and a myopia towards the users actual task-focused needs as opposed to aesthetics. Part of the issue is dealing with progressive enhancement as far as slow internet connections go. How do you solve that pro…

I was using a metered connection a few years back and made this plugin to disable all web-fonts: https://chrome.google.com/webstore/detail/disable-web-fonts/...

Source: https://github.com/captn3m0/disable-web-fonts

Helped me save lots of bandwidth.

Re: Web fonts, boy, I don't know

#98
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Heck, this is my #1 complaint of almost anything on a mobile browser. It's easily the worst offender when it comes to mobile in general; I wish browser vendors put a bigger focus on fixing this, somehow.

Google is fixing it, but it's punishing them in search, not Chrome. http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/08/google-to-punish-sit...

Which will lead to the same hack as paywalled news sites, the ads won't load when referred from google meanwhile the rest will suffer.

Re: Web fonts, boy, I don't know

#99

Are there actually font blockers like ad blockers? That would solve the problem pretty easily for everybody who's annoyed. Although they probably won't be available for mobile browsers, where it's the most painful.

In Firefox, >Options >Content >Fonts >Advanced Unchecking "Allow pages to choose their own fonts..", blocks Webfonts and System fonts which configured User fonts have the necessary characters to render. In about:config gfx.downloadable_fonts.enable > false ,will block all webfonts, but this breaks many sites like imgur & g̶i̶t̶h̶u̶b̶ which use webfonts to display navigation icons.

More sites should switch from webfonts to svg for navigation https://github.com/blog/2112-delivering-octicons-with-svg / https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11154834

Re: Web fonts, boy, I don't know

#100
post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposite of saving is not wasting, it's spending . It's only a waste if you spend it badly.

Sure, but if they made 'battery saver' the default and gave you a 'power boost' toggle would you even notice? When would you turn it on?

I think apps would just prompt you with "you need Power Boost mode for optimal experience with this app"
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