Live data from Hacker News

Symbolset - symbol font using clever opentype ligature hack

symbolset.com

1–10 of 63 posts

Re: Symbolset - symbol font using clever opentype ligature hack

#3

Very clever. Looks like a nice symbol set too. Side note: I found the fast moving image carousels to be extremely distracting while trying to read the copy.

Agreed. I assume this is font ligature magic, like when you type "Zapfino" in Zapfino?

Re: Symbolset - symbol font using clever opentype ligature hack

#5

> On the web, Symbolsets are supported in all major browsers. ...They work in modern browsers..." Does anybody know exactly what browsers and operating systems? IE6 on XP, for example? There's no chart, which makes me hesitant.

Seems to work where font-feature works (late versions of Chrome, Firefox and Safari, IE10).

http://caniuse.com/font-feature

It includes a shim for older versions of IE. The shim seems to be able to work for Opera, but it's not loaded. It shouldn't be too difficult to add a Modernizr test for font-feature to fix support for Opera and older versions of modern browsers.

Re: Symbolset - symbol font using clever opentype ligature hack

#6
post #5

> On the web, Symbolsets are supported in all major browsers. ...They work in modern browsers..." Does anybody know exactly what browsers and operating systems? IE6 on XP, for example? There's no chart, which makes me hesitant.

Seems to work where font-feature works (late versions of Chrome, Firefox and Safari, IE10). http://caniuse.com/font-feature It includes a shim for older versions of IE. The shim seems to be able to work for Opera, but it's not loaded. It shouldn't be too difficult to add a Modernizr test for font-feature to fix support for Opera and older versions of modern browsers.

It only works for me in IE10 when Compatibility Mode is enabled.

Re: Symbolset - symbol font using clever opentype ligature hack

#7
post #6
post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems to work where font-feature works (late versions of Chrome, Firefox and Safari, IE10). http://caniuse.com/font-feature It includes a shim for older versions of IE. The shim seems to be able to work for Opera, but it's not loaded. It shouldn't be too difficult to add a Modernizr test for font-feature to fix support for Opera and older versions of modern browsers.

It only works for me in IE10 when Compatibility Mode is enabled.

That would be because the shim is kicking in in Compatibility Mode. Looking at the CSS it seems everything is set up correctly for IE10, perhaps they haven't implemented it yet in the beta?

Re: Symbolset - symbol font using clever opentype ligature hack

#9
Perhaps it should also include a non-ligature way of displaying icons. In current accessibility practices, when you place a description after its image you are supposed to include an empty alt attribute.

So say you have social icons...

  ◈ Facebook

  ◈ Twitter
You are supposed to write

   Facebook

   Twitter
As to cue screen readers to not read out loud filename or the alt attribute.

In this case Symbolset works as the alt property of images, so you would do something like...

  Facebook Facebook

  Twitter Twitter
Which wouldn't be right.

Re: Symbolset - symbol font using clever opentype ligature hack

#10
post #9

Perhaps it should also include a non-ligature way of displaying icons. In current accessibility practices, when you place a description after its image you are supposed to include an empty alt attribute. So say you have social icons... ◈ Facebook ◈ Twitter You are supposed to write Facebook Twitter As to cue screen readers to not read out loud filename or the alt attribute. In this case Symbolset works as the alt pro…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN