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Web fonts, boy, I don't know

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

#131

Post by esonderegger »

cool-RR wrote: post #102
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,…

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.

There are definitely designers who are going for pop by looking for a new font, but I've worked on a lot of projects where the designer just wanted a good, legible, sans-serif that looks the same everywhere.

Who am I kidding, what they want is Helvetica and for the website to look exactly like the comps they made in Photoshop. Sometimes they're willing to find the money for the license fee and sometimes they're willing to accept Source Sans as a substitute. I've never once had them say "the difference between Helvetica and Arial isn't worth the 250ms delay caused by using a web font."

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

#132

Post by paulddraper »

phkahler wrote: post #117
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…

>> they've come to symbolise over-indulgence Yes! Why should a web site specify fonts at all? The user should set their browser to a default that they like and most sites should be happy with that. People just use web fonts because they can. If there's a particular reason you need to override the users preference then fine.

Usually, it's done for consistent layout.

(Many people in this thread have said they do not value consistent layout. Nor do I, but that is the usual reason.)

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

#133

Post by initram »

I find web fonts so annoying, along with images that don't load until you scroll to them. I usually read in Reader mode, and it takes the loaded page and re-renders it without web fonts in a normal style. But when the site doesn't load all the images, I end up missing half the article because I can't see what they're talking about. So annoying.

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

#134

Post by strainer »

mlinksva wrote: post #99
strainer wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

I hadn't noticed github switched, I thought svg might be a bit heavier but they say pageload time hasnt suffered and rendering 'jank' improved.

Github were using correct ranges for their octicons at least. iirc there is a common software named 'fontawesome' which has caused trouble by creating custom webfonts with incorrect character ranges.

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

#135

Post by colmvp »

BinaryIdiot wrote: post #33
tyingq wrote: post #10

A 1.2 MB blog post complaining about bloat.

You do realize sometimes it's okay to have a page larger than, say, 50kb. Right? The gifs were a great way to show the exact issues she was discussing and they take up the bulk of that space. So why is that a bad thing in any way? Yes web pages should, ideally , be small but that doesn't mean the media they show to the user has to be small as well.

Well webfonts, the thing she was complaining about, can often be far less than a MB, what with weights being a few hundred KB each. If I'm reading a long form article, I'd rather have them choose a nice, unique typeface for me to read (given the amount of copy on sites like Nautilus, nplusone, Intercept, Aeon, etc. which can amount to 90% of a page) and either lose the unnecessary javascript or slim down the media.

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

#136

Post by matt4077 »

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,…

> 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)?

Yeah, I have. In the 90ies. Saying that it's a reason for any designer of any website that matters today is just trying to set up a strawman.

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

#137

Post by mslev »

acchow wrote: post #23
cs2818 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

After instinctively reading the headline in a Rob Ritchie voice I am realizing I may have watched the West Wing too many times.

Currently on my fourth viewing of the series :) It's the only show I can watch over-and-over again.

Only your fourth? ;)

Definitely my favorite show.

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

#138

Post by hyperpape »

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…

Many people in our profession write code that's less that 80 characters per line because that's how much you could display on terminals in the 70s.

As a profession, we can't complain that someone might be bothered by the idea of word-wrapping.

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

#139

Post by Klathmon »

Animats wrote: post #2

Fonts ought to have Subresource Integrity checksums, and clients should cache them effectively, even cross-site. It's not like they change much.

This has been tried and failed many times in the past with other things. The biggest problems are with what a "canonical" version actually is, and security.

Browser cache sizes are already too small to effectively cache things for one origin for any significant amount of time, and when you try to introduce cross-site caching you quickly run into a few issues.

The big one for fonts is that you very rarely include a WHOLE font in your site, you generally include a subset of codes that you care about (if you are targeting english speaking users, no need to include russian characters...). But in addition to this, unless everyone everywhere agrees to load a specific version, file encoding, file format, compression format, compression settings, and more, the checksums will be so spread out as to be basically be useless. While it's less of an issue with fonts vs something like .js files, it can still be a problem.

And someone else already touched on the security issue, but to go into more detail. At the very least, caching ANYTHING cross-origin lets any page you load probe for things in your cache. To use a bit of an absurdist example, A government website could try to load fonts used on a popular "terrorist" website, and if it gets a cache hit, they can immediately be pretty sure you have been on the site recently. The size of most caches, and the propensity for people to clear their cache (or use private browsing) means that this only gets more and more accurate.

It's one of those things that sounds like a great idea on the surface, but in the end it would end up causing more issues than it solves. That being said, I believe there is a proposal somewhere for a standard along these lines, but I can't seem to find it any more.

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

#140

Post by NumberCruncher »

Tl;dr: if you are travelling in a foreign country and you think about whatever fonts... girl, you are doing it totally wrong. Buy a city guide, printed on good old fashioned paper, even if it is so 1990, and get a fuck off-line! Or just talk to the natives! In person!
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