Re: [WSG] website fonts
matt andrews wrote: 2009/6/22 Mark Harris w...@tracs.co.nz The biggest cost I have seen in web design since 1996, when I started, is the perceived need to make the web like the printed page. That, and the desire to make it pixel-identical in multiple browsers. Let the control go to the user, focus on getting information out there. You can't control everything, just make it make sense. Absolutely. This is probably old hat (where did *that* phrase come from?) to most on this list, but if you haven't come across it before, A Dao of Web Design, a short article by John Allsopp (of Westciv and Web Directions fame) is a must-read: http://www.alistapart.com/articles/dao/ Yeah, John said it well. To me, that is the fundamental basis of web standards. ~mark *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] website fonts
At 6/22/2009 12:24 AM, matt andrews wrote:
2009/6/22 Mark Harris w...@tracs.co.nz
The biggest cost I have seen in web design since 1996, when I
started, is the perceived need to make the web like the printed
page. That, and the desire to make it pixel-identical in multiple browsers.
Let the control go to the user, focus on getting information out
there. You can't control everything, just make it make sense.
Absolutely. This is probably old hat (where did *that* phrase come
from?) to most on this list, but if you haven't come across it before,
A Dao of Web Design, a short article by John Allsopp (of Westciv
and Web Directions fame) is a must-read:
http://www.alistapart.com/articles/dao/
With respect, a few points:
- Allsop's article (which, although written in 2000 and out-dated in
some of its specific references to browser development, is completely
relevant today) primarily advises us not to try to control font-size.
With regard to font-family he writes, With CSS, you can suggest a
number of fonts, and cover as many bases as possible. But don't rely
on a font being available regardless of how common it is. So his
philosophy DOES permit font-family suggestions and advises merely
against RELYING on any particular font being available. To me this is
a far cry from avoiding font-family suggestions in the stylesheet.
- If we don't rely on the presence of particular font-families and
let go of the desire to make the web pixel-identical in multiple
browsers, then the philosophical problem goes away, does it not?
- Even if we suggest fonts in the stylesheet, they're just
suggestions. I don't consider this to be controlling the user
agent. A suggested font will display if it's on the user's computer
and otherwise default to something that is. The user has ultimate
control in installing fonts of choice and overriding all stylesheets
(including the default stylesheet the comes packaged with the
browser) with their own.
- CSS font-family suggestions are a perfect case of both graceful
degradation and progressive enhancement. The browser ensures that the
text will render if there is at least one font installed on the
client computer, then the stylesheet can suggest a series of families
that more closely approach the designer's ideal. It's a system
guaranteed not to break on even the most rudimentary system, and will
look better and better the more of the desired software (fonts) are installed.
- I submit that suggesting serif and sans-serif in the stylesheet is
exactly as controlling (that is, NOT) as suggesting Georgia or Lucida
Sans. It is 'controlling' in the sense that it's suggesting to the
user agent whether to use a serif font or not, but with no control
whatsoever in determining whether a corresponding font resides on the
user's computer. If I install even one serif font on my computer,
your CSS rule of 'font-family: serif' will invoke that font unless I
override it. If I install only sans-serif fonts on my computer, your
CSS rule will ultimately be ignored and I'll see your serif text in
my Helvetica or Univers.
- There is no such thing as a web page without styling. Every browser
comes with its own default stylesheets which will determine things
like font-size, margins, and padding if not overridden by the
author's or the user's own stylesheets. So we're not really living in
a pure universe in which it's possible not to style. If you don't use
a stylesheet at all, you're just asking the browser to apply its own,
so by refusing to control you're not helping to create a situation of
no control, you're simply passing the buck. As a Buddhist you can
refuse to kill animals but as long as you're alive you can't avoid
killing vegetables and microorganisms and you can't prevent the lion
from taking down the antelope nor the spider the fly. Styling
Happens. Get used to it.
- Finally, if your relinquishing of control extends to not even
suggesting font-families, what do you use stylesheets for? Unlike
font-family suggestions, stipulations of color, margins, padding, and
other properties really are commands and will be carried out in most
browsers. {margin-left: 10px;} doesn't say to the browser if you
feel like it, it says just do it. If you do use stylesheets at
all, it strikes me as odd that you would take exception to named
font-families, the one aspect of CSS that is the least controlling of all.
Curiously,
Paul
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Paul Novitski
Juniper Webcraft Ltd.
http://juniperwebcraft.com
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[WSG] more on fonts
hi. well, the subject that i was taking, and the web page for pinciples of visual design, my professor, said i have to had fonts, in the style sheet. that was the requirmenet of this site i was doing for a fruit shop. cheers Marvin. E-Mail: startrekc...@gmail.com Msn: startrekc...@msn.com Skype: startrekcafe Visit my Jaws Australia Group at http://groups.yahoo.com/groups/JawsOz/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] more on fonts
At 6/22/2009 05:00 AM, Marvin Hunkin wrote:
hi.
well, the subject that i was taking, and the web page for pinciples of
visual design, my professor, said i have to had fonts, in the style sheet.
that was the requirmenet of this site i was doing for a fruit shop.
Just as a reality check, let me go over how this works.
You don't have to have any particular fonts on your own computer in
order to designate them in a web page.
You create a web page on your computer, upload it to the server, and
after that each visitor who sees the page downloads it to their
computer where it is displayed (rendered). It is the fonts installed
on each visitor's computer that determine how the text will be
displayed on their screens.
If you specify font-families in the stylesheet, you're not DICTATING
what font must appear, you're only SUGGESTING which fonts you'd like
to appear. If a font you've requested isn't installed, it doesn't
show up; that simple.
If you use the stylesheet to ask that some text be rendered in a very
common font such as Arial, it will be displayed in Arial on the vast
majority of visitors' computers. If you use a more unusual font, only
a small number of visitors might have that font and see it on the
page. Everyone else will see your 2nd or 3rd choice font for that text.
For example, if your stylesheet says:
h1
{
font-family: Gothic Rare, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
}
...then the visitor's browser checks to see if it can find a match
with any of the fonts in the list. Gothic Rare will not be found
anywhere because I just made it up. Helvetica is far from universally
installed, but Arial is extremely common so most people will see the
text in Arial. If none of those three fonts is found, 'sans-serif'
tells the browser to use whatever its default sans serif font is
which might easily be different on every computer.
A sans serif font is a font with no serifs. See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sans_serif
Does that help clarify any of this?
Regards,
Paul
__
Paul Novitski
Juniper Webcraft Ltd.
http://juniperwebcraft.com
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Re: [WSG] more on fonts
Don't see how it could be any clearer Paul ...
:)
On 23/06/09 8:39 AM, Paul Novitski p...@juniperwebcraft.com wrote:
At 6/22/2009 05:00 AM, Marvin Hunkin wrote:
hi.
well, the subject that i was taking, and the web page for pinciples of
visual design, my professor, said i have to had fonts, in the style sheet.
that was the requirmenet of this site i was doing for a fruit shop.
Just as a reality check, let me go over how this works.
You don't have to have any particular fonts on your own computer in
order to designate them in a web page.
You create a web page on your computer, upload it to the server, and
after that each visitor who sees the page downloads it to their
computer where it is displayed (rendered). It is the fonts installed
on each visitor's computer that determine how the text will be
displayed on their screens.
If you specify font-families in the stylesheet, you're not DICTATING
what font must appear, you're only SUGGESTING which fonts you'd like
to appear. If a font you've requested isn't installed, it doesn't
show up; that simple.
If you use the stylesheet to ask that some text be rendered in a very
common font such as Arial, it will be displayed in Arial on the vast
majority of visitors' computers. If you use a more unusual font, only
a small number of visitors might have that font and see it on the
page. Everyone else will see your 2nd or 3rd choice font for that text.
For example, if your stylesheet says:
h1
{
font-family: Gothic Rare, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;
}
...then the visitor's browser checks to see if it can find a match
with any of the fonts in the list. Gothic Rare will not be found
anywhere because I just made it up. Helvetica is far from universally
installed, but Arial is extremely common so most people will see the
text in Arial. If none of those three fonts is found, 'sans-serif'
tells the browser to use whatever its default sans serif font is
which might easily be different on every computer.
A sans serif font is a font with no serifs. See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sans_serif
Does that help clarify any of this?
Regards,
Paul
__
Paul Novitski
Juniper Webcraft Ltd.
http://juniperwebcraft.com
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Re: [WSG] website fonts
On Mon, 22 Jun 2009 04:00:27 pm Mark Harris wrote: Henry Mencia wrote: So you just have serif or sans serif in the font-family? Pretty much, unless a client specifies otherwise (and I'll try to talk them around). The biggest cost I have seen in web design since 1996, when I started, is the perceived need to make the web like the printed page. That, and the desire to make it pixel-identical in multiple browsers. Amen to that, in fact I'd suffix the pixel identical thing with and Internet Explorer. It (IE) is probably the costliest burden in web design and development over the last 5 years at least. Fonts : Nothing to stop anyone from specifying a font list and the generic family at the end of the list. That way you can aim for the font you like best, then the font which most people have (they may be the same) and then less common fonts you still want to display, then the family. e.g I did a site primarily for linux users and specified the font as: DejuVu Sans Condensed, FreeSans, Helvetica, Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans- serif; The first two are quite common on Linux (Liberation is also a good, open source, Verdana like font), Helvetica is a common Mac font, the last three pick up 99.% (tm) of the slack and sans-serif picks up those browsers without any of them installed. Once you get to sans-serif, you are at the mercy of how the user or org has configured the browser for sans-serif display. Some may set it to Times Roman, some to Comic Sans. It'd be nice to try and avoid that ;) Cool site for further reading : http://www.sansseriftype.com/ Cheers James *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] website fonts
On 2009/06/22 12:58 (GMT+1000) James Ellis composed: Fonts : Nothing to stop anyone from specifying a font list and the generic family at the end of the list. That way you can aim for the font you like best, then the font which most people have (they may be the same) and then less common fonts you still want to display, then the family. e.g I did a site primarily for linux users and specified the font as: DejuVu Sans Condensed, FreeSans, Helvetica, Tahoma, Verdana, Arial, sans- serif; The first two are quite common on Linux (Liberation is also a good, open source, Verdana like font), Helvetica is a common Mac font, the last three pick up 99.% (tm) of the slack and sans-serif picks up those browsers without any of them installed. Once you get to sans-serif, you are at the mercy of how the user or org has configured the browser for sans-serif display. Some may set it to Times Roman, some to Comic Sans. It'd be nice to try and avoid that ;) To put what you wrote another way, with a font family list such as your example, the visitor is at the designer's mercy to see only the designer's choice of fonts, instead of the visitor's, even if the visitor has spent big money on high quality but uncommon fonts and chosen as default one of them. To actually see his choice, the visitor will have to set is browser to completely ignore the designer's font choices throughout all documents. Like Mark, I say let the visitor's choice be the choice applied to most content, with the designer specifying otherwise only to highlight or provide character, as in headings, emphasis, or menuing. On body at least, it should be enough to specify either serif or sans-serif (partial deference to visitor), or nothing at all (total deference to visitor). If the visitor wants Comic Sans, let him have it. It's his puter, not yours. -- Cast but a glance at riches, and they are gone, for they will surely sprout wings and fly off to the sky like an eagle.Proverbs 23:5 NIV Team OS/2 ** Reg. Linux User #211409 Felix Miata *** http://fm.no-ip.com/ *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***
Re: [WSG] website fonts
Felix Miata wrote: On 2009/06/22 12:58 (GMT+1000) James Ellis composed: To put what you wrote another way, with a font family list such as your example, the visitor is at the designer's mercy to see only the designer's choice of fonts, instead of the visitor's, even if the visitor has spent big money on high quality but uncommon fonts and chosen as default one of them. I wish it was possible for users of all languages to set their preferred font for their language in all browsers. IT IS NOT possible. Doesn't matter which browser you use there are writing scripts for which a user can not set or specify a default font through the browsers user interface. The best you can do is write a stylesheet to override a sites CSS rules. But not all users are able to write their own stylesheets. Andrew -- Andrew Cunningham Senior Manager, Research and Development Vicnet State Library of Victoria 328 Swanston Street Melbourne VIC 3000 Ph: +61-3-8664-7430 Fax: +61-3-9639-2175 Email: andr...@vicnet.net.au Alt email: lang.supp...@gmail.com http://home.vicnet.net.au/~andrewc/ http://www.openroad.net.au http://www.vicnet.net.au http://www.slv.vic.gov.au *** List Guidelines: http://webstandardsgroup.org/mail/guidelines.cfm Unsubscribe: http://webstandardsgroup.org/join/unsubscribe.cfm Help: memberh...@webstandardsgroup.org ***begin:vcard fn:Andrew Cunningham n:Cunningham;Andrew org:State Library of Victoria;Vicnet adr:;;328 Swanston Street;Melbourne;VIC;3000;Australia email;internet:andr...@vicnet.net.au title:Senior Manager, Research and Development tel;work:+61-3-8664-7430 tel;fax:+61-3-9639-2175 tel;cell:0421-450-816 note;quoted-printable:Projects:=0D=0A= http://www.openroad.net.au/=0D=0A= http://www.mylanguage.gov.au/ x-mozilla-html:FALSE url:http://www.vicnet.net.au/ version:2.1 end:vcard
