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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

#71

Post by WorldMaker »

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 system.

There was at least one HN commenter I've seen that has claimed to just go ahead and install all of Google Fonts locally, which might be a bit extreme, but even automating that isn't necessarily a bad idea.

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

#72

Post by losteric »

cperciva wrote: post #49
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…

"Let's click on this link... ah, not that link, let's go back. Yes, this link... NO! STOP MOVING!" This is my #1 complaint about reddit. Not due to fonts; but rather when I load reddit on my phone, a "get the reddit app" banner appears... timed perfectly so that my attempt to view my messages sends me off to the app store.

I'm starting to suspect that behavior is intentional. I see this all the time with mobile ads... a site slowly loads as I read content, then an ad pops up right when I try to navigate. Incredibly frustrating.

It's like advertisers want me to install adblock... so I will, I'll root my device and adblock all their bullshit forever.

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

#73

Post by oftenwrong »

elcapitan wrote: post #27

Are there actually font blockers like ad blockers? That would solve the problem pretty easily for everybody who's annoyed. Although they probably won't be available for mobile browsers, where it's the most painful.

I use NoScript for Firefox, which can block fonts for untrusted sites. There is also a setting, in the browser itself, to universally prevent sites from from using their own font specification, so your font choices are the only ones used everywhere. I used to use that, but some sites use icon fonts (e.g. Github), so I prefer being able to whitelist specific sites with NoScript. I also set a minimum font size to maintain comfortable reading across all sites.

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

#74

Post by acdha »

discreditable wrote: post #6

My feeling on web fonts is that that they can sometimes look nice but aren't worth the page weight. My approach is to pick two fonts I expect MacOS and Windows to have, then fall back to generic. Other times, I'm more lazy and just use the generic. To put it more bluntly: https://bestmotherfucking.website/#remote-fonts

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 the webfont when the page actually has a character which isn't in the system font.

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

#75

Post by theandrewbailey »

Mahn wrote: post #57
cperciva wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Let's click on this link... ah, not that link, let's go back. Yes, this link... NO! STOP MOVING!" This is my #1 complaint about reddit. Not due to fonts; but rather when I load reddit on my phone, a "get the reddit app" banner appears... timed perfectly so that my attempt to view my messages sends me off to the app store.

Heck, this is my #1 complaint of almost anything on a mobile browser. It's easily the worst offender when it comes to mobile in general; I wish browser vendors put a bigger focus on fixing this, somehow.

Google is fixing it, but it's punishing them in search, not Chrome.

http://arstechnica.com/business/2016/08/google-to-punish-sit...

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

#76

Post by tyingq »

nulagrithom wrote: post #65
tyingq wrote: post #10

A 1.2 MB blog post complaining about bloat.

Oh gezz, even google.com weighs 976 kB. Coming in at 1.2 MB isn't bad at all. Strip the two GIFs out (which are good content and behind links now anyway) and you've got ~500 kB. Perfectly reasonable.

Google.com is 366KB transferred for me.

I wasn't trying to suggest all web pages should be svelte. I was suggesting that a page complaining about bloat should probably be optimized. Especially when we're talking about web fonts that are typically 50 to 150KB.

I'd also call out a blog post that, for example, called out jQuery as being unneeded bloat, if the blog post itself used jQuery. Assuming the blog was itself run/configured, etc, by the poster.

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

#77

Post by strainer »

metafunctor wrote: post #42
elcapitan wrote: post #27

Are there actually font blockers like ad blockers? That would solve the problem pretty easily for everybody who's annoyed. Although they probably won't be available for mobile browsers, where it's the most painful.

What about sites that use fonts for icons only?

Firefoxes 'user font' facility tries to accomodate them by fallback to Webfont if the glyphs are not included the user fonts unicode ranges. This works with sites that use icon or expansion unicode ranges to display icons, but some eg. imgur assign icons in the range for common characters, so they look dumb, but at least something gets displayed.

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

#78

Post by wruza »

nulagrithom wrote: post #65
tyingq wrote: post #10

A 1.2 MB blog post complaining about bloat.

Oh gezz, even google.com weighs 976 kB. Coming in at 1.2 MB isn't bad at all. Strip the two GIFs out (which are good content and behind links now anyway) and you've got ~500 kB. Perfectly reasonable.

Google is long-time bloated. Consider [1] russian secondary (often primary) search engine, 36kb with query completion and login info, 660kb results page for "hacker news". Search engine as it should be.

[1] http://ya.ru

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

#79

Post by Spivak »

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.

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?

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

#80

Post by [deleted] »

smacktoward wrote: post #48
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 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…

[deleted]
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