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Web fonts, boy, I don't know

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

#321

Post by colejohnson66 »

esonderegger wrote: post #131
cool-RR wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 willi…

But what about Arial versus Helvetica Neue? /s

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

#322

Post by colejohnson66 »

et-al wrote: post #20
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…

I was just going to say that Medium post about the system fonts was a great read and deserves a thread of its own, but it looks there there was one a year ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10437485 > Would love an attribute on script and link tags that could be conditional based on connection speeds. Takes me back to the days when you would choose between an HTML version of a site, or a heavy Flash version. :…

> > Would love an attribute on script and link tags that could be conditional based on connection speeds.

> Takes me back to the days when you would choose between an HTML version of a site, or a heavy Flash version. :)

Just use a lightweight Flash app to detect their connection speed, then load the appropriate site from there ;)

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

#323

Post by colejohnson66 »

amelius wrote: post #288
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…

Why can't we share fonts between websites? I.e., put fonts on some shared CDN, and link to them directly. It could be similar to how different programs share code through shared-object files :) A similar effect will probably be achieved with IPFS, where objects are stored by their hashes.

It's called Google Webfonts https://fonts.google.com/

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

#324

Post by colejohnson66 »

dexterdog wrote: post #310
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.

Probably because the web designer and post author aren't the same person?

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

#325

Post by colejohnson66 »

glandium wrote: post #189
heywire wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

A font that supports all Unicode is larger than a browser installer.

Citation? All the DejaVu fonts total about 5 megabytes[0] and they have pretty impressive coverage[1]. What are they missing?

[0]: http://dejavu-fonts.org/wiki/Download [1]: http://dejavu-fonts.org/wiki/PDF_samples

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

#326

Post by tracker1 »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #103
Declanomous wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I generally prefer a specific font, but will fallback to sans-serif, serif or monospace depending on what I'm styling... I also tend not to have a bunch of fallthrough fonts... ex: specifying helvetica and/or arial should be an offense punishable by a mild beating.

Another thing I hate is when people don't specify the weight for black/bold fonts... which makes the fallback even more hideous.

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

#327

Post by tracker1 »

lomnakkus wrote: post #58
smacktoward wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I know your fonts are a deliberate design choice, but I'm here for content. Categorizing type as "a design choice" dismisses it as fashion rather than function, which I don't think is the case. Type can put fashion over function, but it can also enhance function by making text more readable, or perform a mix of both functions by expressing a point visually that reinforces the point the page is making textually. It…

> Categorizing type as "a design choice" dismisses it as fashion rather than function, which I don't think is the case. I think it's a question of how often it's one vs. the other. There are precious few good examples of web font usage -- so few, in fact, that I can't even think of one off the top of my head. > Type can put fashion over function, but it can also enhance function by making text more readable, How so?…

Most people don't adjust their system fonts.. then again, most defaults are reasonable.

And to anyone who reads this, for the love of $deity, stop specifying Arial or Helvetica before sans-serif. It's one thing if you want a specific default, but the fallback should be whatever system's sane choice.

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

#328

Post by scholia »

Nadya wrote: post #180
scholia wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would it be feasible to have an "enhancement pack" website where less talented people (ie me) could get fixes like this. I remember doing stuff like this with Proxomitron in the good old days....

>Would it be feasible to have an "enhancement pack" website where less talented people (ie me) could get fixes like this. Sort of? At least if I'm understanding you properly. :) It used to be that userscripts.org was a thing. Now I think you need to use a mirror [0]. There is also a subreddit for them [1]. Stylish should have a similar site for themes - although not all userscripts will work properly with Stylish (st…

Many thanks. Some good pointers there....

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

#329

Post by simooooo »

fontsthrowawya wrote: post #114
Declanomous wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I always set browser.display.use_document_fonts = 0 in Firefox. Surfing the web is a more pleasant experience without WebFonts.

What about icon sets? Never find empty buttons?

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

#330

Post by glandium »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #325
glandium wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A font that supports all Unicode is larger than a browser installer.

Citation? All the DejaVu fonts total about 5 megabytes[0] and they have pretty impressive coverage[1]. What are they missing? [0]: http://dejavu-fonts.org/wiki/Download [1]: http://dejavu-fonts.org/wiki/PDF_samples

DejaVu fonts are far from covering Unicode. They don't have any Chinese, Japanese or Korean characters, for a starter.
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