Website: Font problem

[jK]

Okay,
tried to use svg fonts (internet says it helps). Aaaaaand it fails, it's blurry as hell (no hinting). No solution at all (only for big fonts it is).

So switched to Arial in case of Chrome+Win :<
When there are still issues please say.

[Petah]

Looks nice in my Chrome now. But it wasn't Chrome exclusive (maybe a Windows thing?)

I have had these problems before on some of my sites (P.S. I am a web developer) the only real way to fix it is use a font that it doesn't occur with. Tweaking the font size sometimes helps to, but that is haphazard.

[Forboding Angel]

Here's a free tip... Stop using pixel sizes for fonts.

100% = 16px

Extrapolate from there.

Free tip #2: 75%

[AF]

Can we add Helvetica and Helvetica Neue for OS X/iOS users? Not everyone uses Linux/Windows

[jK]

Can we add Helvetica and Helvetica Neue for OS X/iOS users? Not everyone uses Linux/Windows

???
OSX doesn't suffer any font render bug. OSX & iOS will download the woff and render fine.

[knorke]

Firefox is red
IE is blue
and this bug
reports to you


(the different breaking of text is just because IE window was smaller)

[AF]

Code: Select all

font-family: 'FreeSans Spring', FreeSans, sans-serif;

In the event that freesans hasn't, can't, or won't load, there should be fallbacks, e.g. when wifi is unavailable ( local testing for example, or saved html pages ).

My own website uses typekit web fonts, all it takes is an uncached refresh with no internet connection and it cant grab the typekit servers and it goes to the fallback font. There's also when the webfonts service has an unexpected outage. It's simply prudent to have fallbacks

[jK]

In the event that freesans hasn't, can't, or won't load, there should be fallbacks, e.g. when wifi is unavailable ( local testing for example, or saved html pages ).

I know what a fallback font is ...

My own website uses typekit web fonts, all it takes is an uncached refresh with no internet connection and it cant grab the typekit servers and it goes to the fallback font. There's also when the webfonts service has an unexpected outage. It's simply prudent to have fallbacks

sans-serif is a very good fallback imo, why add another?

[jK]

Can ppl post screenshots of how their browsers display springrts.com (and tell browser + os version)?

Cause I experimented a bit with mah winxp vm and I wasn't able to get ClearType to work at all (tested stock IE, Firefox & Safari). So I wonder for how many it works at all and when what are the req.

[zwzsg]

http://uppix.net/WUden3.png

Firefox 28.0, Windows XP.

[AF]

sans-serif is a very good fallback imo, why add another?

Because on OS X there are nicer variations of helvetica than the standard, much in the same way you prefer free sans over arial citing technical reasons. I see no reason not to add it.

[jK]

sans-serif is a very good fallback imo, why add another?

Because on OS X there are nicer variations of helvetica than the standard, much in the same way you prefer free sans over arial citing technical reasons. I see no reason not to add it.

then set it as standard sans-serif in your browser?

[The Yak]

http://i.imgur.com/2MZFaJU.png

Win7, Chrome on left, FF on right

[AF]

then set it as standard sans-serif in your browser?

I can't be expected to do that, if not because it's a U turn on your own position, but because I'm a web developer and it would interfere with my ability to test and do my job, my browser needs to be as close to default as possible across many browsers

Perhaps you should set Freesans as your sans-serif font in your browser? Or perhaps the irony is lost on you, all the arguments for adding Helvetica Neue etc are the same arguments you put forward for using Free Sans and not Arial

[jK]

then set it as standard sans-serif in your browser?

I can't be expected to do that, if not because it's a U turn on your own position, but because I'm a web developer and it would interfere with my ability to test and do my job, my browser needs to be as close to default as possible across many browsers

Perhaps you should set Freesans as your sans-serif font in your browser? Or perhaps the irony is lost on you, all the arguments for adding Helvetica Neue etc are the same arguments you put forward for using Free Sans and not Arial

You don't seem to understand what I did and what my intention was. I removed _all_ font-family attributes and replaced them with a global one. So the whole website uses a single font (with the latter option to give captions another one). The idea is to make stuff more predictable and consistence. The website should look everywhere the `same` (except font hinting etc.).
But atm it seems none browser on windows displays the font correctly :<

Problem the available fonts are limited to google ones & free ones (so we can distribute them ourself as woff). Cause google ones are heavily based on subpixel rendering they fail on all current windows browser, too. Cause of that I am currently thinking about to switch to `Liberation Sans`, which looks more blocky than FreeSans, but should work better w/o subpixel rendering.

[AF]

And my point is that Windows and OS X have perfectly good fonts, the whole reason this discussion and the problems we have began is because you're a linux user and wanted a fallback, but instead of setting a fallback you put everyone on the linux users preferred font then worked from there to patch it up.

Why can we not have a font stack like this:

Code: Select all

helvetica, arial, freesans, sans-serif

This way OS X, iOS, and Windows all work fine, and any machines that don't have them fallback to Free Sans or whatever font you deem necessary for half decent linux typography. This way you get your fonts working as linux users won't have helvetica and arial, OS X and Windows users don't get rubbish subpixel aliasing as they have the full standard font installed already, and everyone else gets sans-serif

This way we have a font stack that's intentional that's designed to work, rather than one were we keep swapping out a single font until it works for everyone, which means we will be here a while doing that. Browsers aren't famed for consistent rendering of web fonts, and you've demonstrated you're not exactly lax about what you consider good font rendering.