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Web fonts, boy, I don't know

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

#101

Post by jajern »

WorldMaker wrote: post #71

I've been slowly adding the contents of Google Fonts into my system fonts storage as I see them used on sites that I visit often. Things like Open Sans and Roboto for instance are quite common. I think there would probably be a good case for an extension to automate that in some fashion for fonts with known open licenses (essentially anything from Google Fonts, for example) to go ahead and just install them into the…

If someone uses the Google CDN to load the font does the browser/website even look to see if the font is loaded on your local computer?

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

#102

Post by cool-RR »

esonderegger wrote: post #84
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #7

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,…

I think that designers are always trying to get the latest, coolest fonts. If you make Roboto and friends part of the OS, then you'll get a new wave of cool new fonts that aren't a part of the OS. There's always a push from people to have their website look special, and, dare I say it, pop.

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

#103

Post by ChuckMcM »

Declanomous wrote: post #28
5350-uiop-1130 wrote: post #7

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…

As much as I believe font matters, I really think people should just use system fonts in general. No content is definitely more annoying than ugly content, but I have a seething hatred for webpages who jump around as content loads. "Let's click on this link... ah, not that link, let's go back. Yes, this link... NO! STOP MOVING!" Besides, I'm used to my fonts. I know your fonts are a deliberate design choice, but I'm…

My experience has been web designers are strongly in either the "system fonts are an abomination before God" camp, or the "the user picked the system fonts, lets use those." camp. Oddly pulling them from one camp into the other seems very very difficult.

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

#104

Post by bjt »

Spivak wrote: post #79
icebraining wrote: post #59

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?

The screen would dim more aggressively and location-aware apps would be less accurate. Many users would be annoyed by this, though they might not know it was a result of the battery-saver setting.

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

#105

Post by SquareWheel »

dictum wrote: post #50
rndmize wrote: post #8

For God's sake man, don't leave a huge, fast gif infinitely looping where I can see it while trying to read your blog post. Make it activate after I scroll down to a certain point, or on hover, or anything that doesn't make me feel like I'm trying to read through a strobe light.

Honestly, gifs in blog posts instantly add 50 years to my age. Before you give me the No Fun Allowed badge, let me explain: I'm probably reading your post because I'm searching for something, in a hurry ( software: it breaks apart! ). When I see a gif or beat-up meme in a software-related post, it does the opposite of lightening the mood.

It also does the opposite of lightening the page load. The amount of bandwidth I've wasted due to silly animated gifs...

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

#106

Post by esonderegger »

jimktrains2 wrote: post #86
esonderegger wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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,…

> 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. This really seems to be a problem with marketing and design people; we're not stuck with webfonts. We're…

I tend to agree with you, but I think it's important to constantly be trying to understand where other people are coming from. They might not be so unreasonable; they just have different priorities than we do.

Our idea of what a webpage is might be a text document where the presentation is less important than the content. To others, the presentation IS the content. For some people, it might depend on what message the page is trying to convey.

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

#107

Post by niftich »

The gripes are valid and some of the links about fixing it are good content.

I'm starting to sound old, but "back in my day" people would use the 'media' parameter in link tags to load mobile-specific stylesheets. Has this practice died out? If so, why?

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

#108

Post by acdha »

heywire wrote: post #92
acdha wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It'd be something else to manage updates for and the base OS support is pretty good on modern releases. These days, the gaps I see are for fairly obscure languages and since webfonts solve that problem and can do conditional downloads, I doubt it's worth the trouble.

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

#110

Post by marblar »

eterm wrote: post #98
theandrewbailey wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

So users reaching a site through google have a better experience than users accessing it through some other method? This seems like a pretty good thing from Google's perspective...
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