Font that creates charts • Hacker News Board

Re: Font that creates charts

#21

Post by uncoder0 » Thu, Aug 16, 2012, 3:04 PM UTC

brador wrote: post #14

uncoder0 wrote: post #2

Why do people still insist on doing this? I prefer to remap all fonts to two (a serif and a sans) that are much easier for me to read. When people use these silly font+glyph combos I never use their software. The one rare exception is GitHub. I still wish people would just use SVG. Edit: Why was this down-voted? Is this not a legitimate concern? It is worth mentioning that I remap my fonts to help my dyslexic brain k…

Should we stop using green because some people are color blind?

That is a false analogy. There are no other ways to represent green that works for color blind people and is still green for everyone else. Using SVG for a button and using a Font for that button are completely interchangeable, visually.

Re: Font that creates charts

#22

Post by uncoder0 » Thu, Aug 16, 2012, 3:05 PM UTC

ZoFreX wrote: post #17

uncoder0 wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are aware it breaks accessibility, right?

I'd argue it's one of the better options from an accessibility viewpoint - from a screen reader perspective, you'll get the raw numbers. If the chart was an image, you'd get nothing.

That is a good point. This font does degrade gracefully.

Re: Font that creates charts

#23

Post by ta12121 » Thu, Aug 16, 2012, 3:12 PM UTC

Is there any particular reason the link is HTTPS, especially considering that the page contains no sensitive content, and a warning about non-SSL content when it's loaded?

Re: Font that creates charts

#24

Post by stephencanon » Thu, Aug 16, 2012, 3:16 PM UTC

tptacek wrote: post #13

stephencanon wrote: post #10

This is a really cute hack. That said, the pricing is absurd. There are numerous data analysis and graphing programs that produce better looking, more customizable charts and graphs with a simpler UI, most of which cost significantly less than $129 despite being much more powerful.

The pricing is completely in line with what professional typefaces cost.

I agree. I never said that it wasn't.

This isn't a typical font, however. This is a font that serves a single specialized purpose, which is better served by existing non-font tools that are also cheaper. An exceptionally difficult sales proposition if one wants to get beyond font geeks who buy it simply because it's cool (not that there's anything wrong with that; I certainly considered buying it simply because it was a cool hack).

The value of a product isn't based on what it is, it's based on how it's used.

Re: Font that creates charts

#25

Post by stephencanon » Thu, Aug 16, 2012, 3:17 PM UTC

sp332 wrote: post #16

stephencanon wrote: post #10

This is a really cute hack. That said, the pricing is absurd. There are numerous data analysis and graphing programs that produce better looking, more customizable charts and graphs with a simpler UI, most of which cost significantly less than $129 despite being much more powerful.

It's not really about producing charts, it's about putting charts where you normally couldn't. World primary energy use by %: Oil 34.77, Coal 29.36, NG 23.76, Nuke 5.47, Hydro 6.63 █▇▅▁▂

There isn't anywhere this lets me put a chart that I can't today. Computers are capable of rendering non-font content, even if it sometimes seems otherwise.

Re: Font that creates charts

#26

Post by tptacek » Thu, Aug 16, 2012, 3:40 PM UTC

stephencanon wrote: post #24

tptacek wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The pricing is completely in line with what professional typefaces cost.

I agree. I never said that it wasn't. This isn't a typical font, however. This is a font that serves a single specialized purpose, which is better served by existing non-font tools that are also cheaper. An exceptionally difficult sales proposition if one wants to get beyond font geeks who buy it simply because it's cool (not that there's anything wrong with that; I certainly considered buying it simply because it wa…

FontFont is going to have no trouble selling this to the market they normally sell things to: independent and corporate professional design shops that have no qualms at all spending (relatively) trivial amounts of money for typefaces.

Re: Font that creates charts

#27

Post by mobweb » Thu, Aug 16, 2012, 3:43 PM UTC

uncoder0 wrote: post #2

Why do people still insist on doing this? I prefer to remap all fonts to two (a serif and a sans) that are much easier for me to read. When people use these silly font+glyph combos I never use their software. The one rare exception is GitHub. I still wish people would just use SVG. Edit: Why was this down-voted? Is this not a legitimate concern? It is worth mentioning that I remap my fonts to help my dyslexic brain k…

I totally agree. It's a cool proof-of-concept but shouldn't be used beyond that IMHO. I think that just as CSS should only be used for presentation, fonts should only be used to render text.

Not only does it create accessibility and cross-platform issues but there are already dozens of other and cheaper ways to create nice looking graphs.

Re: Font that creates charts

#28

Post by samstave » Thu, Aug 16, 2012, 3:48 PM UTC

TorbjornLunde wrote: post #6

uncoder0 wrote: post #2

Why do people still insist on doing this? I prefer to remap all fonts to two (a serif and a sans) that are much easier for me to read. When people use these silly font+glyph combos I never use their software. The one rare exception is GitHub. I still wish people would just use SVG. Edit: Why was this down-voted? Is this not a legitimate concern? It is worth mentioning that I remap my fonts to help my dyslexic brain k…

I imagine this is primarily meant for creating static content such as print posters. (I see that they are working on a web version, and regarding that I have to say I agree.)

Yeah I saw this Asa tool for those interested in doing infographic type art.

Re: Font that creates charts

#29

Post by neonkiwi » Thu, Aug 16, 2012, 4:07 PM UTC

vessenes wrote: post #20

What is the license like? It looked like per-user. Does this mean they do not wish it to be embedded on a web page? Can web browsers parse these OTF ligatures? Anybody have any experience here?

I'm not sure about embedding per their license, but I was also curious about whether or not ligatures will render in browsers. Apparently it's hit-and-miss:

Firefox has supported this since version 4, and but until recently it was the only browser do so. Now Microsoft has joined the party by announcing OpenType support in Internet Explorer 10, along with Chrome on Windows (not Mac yet).

(per http://blog.fontdeck.com/post/15777165734/opentype-1 with Chrome 16+ mentioned for Windows support. I haven't verified this.)

Re: Font that creates charts

#30

Post by tptacek » Thu, Aug 16, 2012, 4:08 PM UTC

vessenes wrote: post #20

What is the license like? It looked like per-user. Does this mean they do not wish it to be embedded on a web page? Can web browsers parse these OTF ligatures? Anybody have any experience here?

It would probably be a bad idea to embed this in a web page just for technical reasons, but for avoidance of doubt: fonts that you have to buy licenses for are virtually never embeddable directly. As a rule of thumb, if a technically capable person could in a short amount of time recover the original font from your web page and use it in their own work, you're materially violating the font's license.

This isn't just how this graphing font works; it's how virtually all professional typefaces work.