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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

#301

Post by mcbits »

throwanem wrote: post #286
mcbits wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shifting page layout is a symptom of a broader problem, in that it's impossible to accurately predict or specify the rendered dimensions of text. Even measuring a container after the fact is unreliable because of the arbitrary amount of whitespace in different fonts. You'd have to generate a bitmap image and detect a bounding box around the pixels, which definitely won't help with loading times. This can't be don…

"Legible" is a funny way to misspell "perfectly representative of the artist's unique and precious vision".

Whatever you want to call it when text can barely be read, falls out of alignment, or disapears entirely because a font renders at a fraction or multiple of the size of the desired font, despite being the same "size" in "centimeters" or "pixels" or "ems", or when hair-thin text that looks great on an iRetina is rendered on low-density screens, etc.

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

#302

Post by bandrami »

zanny wrote: post #181
ChuckMcM wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What happens when a user makes their system font esoteric-new-age-web-sans-font-#523626263278 and your page and the system itself are using the same font?

Then the user gets the font she has instructed her system to use, and why the @(*# do you think you know better than her?

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

#303

Post by mcbits »

HelloNurse wrote: post #276
mcbits wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The shifting page layout is a symptom of a broader problem, in that it's impossible to accurately predict or specify the rendered dimensions of text. Even measuring a container after the fact is unreliable because of the arbitrary amount of whitespace in different fonts. You'd have to generate a bitmap image and detect a bounding box around the pixels, which definitely won't help with loading times. This can't be don…

Counting pixels is primitive; accepting text layout variance and making the web page look good with all variants and renderings of any reasonable font is less primitive.

Visually inspecting the output in a handful of environments and hoping it generalizes to all current and future environments, because there is no way to programmatically determine what the environment is actually doing with the content, is primitive. But it works well enough for blogs and shopping carts, so there must not be a problem.

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

#304

Post by paulddraper »

phkahler wrote: post #230
paulddraper wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

The whole point of HTML was that the layout was done by the browser to fit the users screen. If your site is fixed width, you're doing it wrong. And I realize that a lot of places are doing it wrong.

Yes, that is historically true.

Less so nowadays, where HTML is used for layouts closer to say, PDFs.

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

#305

Post by saghm »

wruza wrote: post #299
saghm wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Actually, I think he meant it literally: http://www.earthkind.com/blog/fact-or-fiction-do-mice-really...

What a great example of really bad webfont. That page almost broke my eyes, when saving island of bold fb comments came to the rescue. People lost in thin-line madness.

I guess my link was more relevant than I thought!

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

#306

Post by tvon »

joshdotsmith wrote: post #240
tvon wrote: post #17

I'm regularly annoyed by the flash when loading the Docker documentation, e.g. http://docs.docker.com/engine/reference/builder/ It's annoying enough to warrant using Stylish to override the web font.

Is this because of the web fonts or because of markdown rendering?

It is the web fonts, if I override 'body' and 'body p' then it loads quickly (the content does anyway, sidebars still flicker).

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

#307

Post by throwanem »

mcbits wrote: post #301
throwanem wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Legible" is a funny way to misspell "perfectly representative of the artist's unique and precious vision".

Whatever you want to call it when text can barely be read, falls out of alignment, or disapears entirely because a font renders at a fraction or multiple of the size of the desired font, despite being the same "size" in "centimeters" or "pixels" or "ems", or when hair-thin text that looks great on an iRetina is rendered on low-density screens, etc.

"Incompetence" is a good word.

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

#308

Post by prodigal_erik »

icebraining wrote: post #59
prodigal_erik wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Would love an attribute on script and link tags that could be conditional based on connection speeds. I can't help but think of Android's "battery saver" toggle, which leaves me wondering why there's a battery waster feature and why it's on by default.

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

If the battery lasted a week I'd agree with you, but right now my phone happily risks leaving me unable to hail a ride home after happy hour.

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

#309

Post by timboslice »

niftylettuce wrote: post #233

For web fonts in emails, look no further than my latest package `custom-fonts-in-emails` for Node.js. https://github.com/crocodilejs/custom-fonts-in-emails#custom...

pretty cool. love the fast-levenshtein addition - can't tell you how many times user error has killed me (used the wrong extension or missed a letter)

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

#310

Post by dexterdog »

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…

Is it me or did that medium article make a big stink about using system fonts, but it sits on a page that has a font specified as medium-content-sans-serif-font which isn't even a URL-ed font. It is base-64-ed into the css file so the font is not even cacheable across sites if other people bothered to use it.
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