What is Digg?46 Comments
- mrsonicblue, on 07/06/2009, -4/+36What is sadder than nearly two decades of only having 10 standard web fonts? The fact that Comic Sans MS is one of them.
- Bobby1978, on 07/07/2009, -0/+13Fonts are the least of the problems facing the web. CSS first needs to be completely overhauled, as it is a complete mess right now. Provide simple yet robust tools so that constructing layouts, y'know the basis of everything, is as easy as doing it through tables. Scrap the idiotic sequential system in style sheets, and create a brand new scripting structure that is both easy to read and follow, specifically with parent-child relations. Then dissolve all updates and support for older HTML/CSS versions, thus ensuring full support from all new browsers, and with no crippling backwards compatibilities for any browser.
Do these first, then we can worry about how pages look with exotic fonts. - inactive, on 07/07/2009, -4/+16Why bother?
The web and HTML should have been trashed a decade ago and people should have started over. The web was never designed for graphics, this god awful mixture of presentation and structure, or (and worse) interactive use. And anyone that thinks CSS fixes a damn thing is a fool that doesn't understand graphic design. Form and function are inseparable. They have to be considered at the same time, and current practice proves this once you get a giant mess of DIV and SPAN tags everywhere.
The right approach would have been a fully vectorized web, with REAL applications and a REAL application language. Then you would have stuff like XML or RSS for devices that couldn't handle the web or for the handicapped. But instead we have this giant crap bucket of one-size-fits-all dynamic looks-like-*****-usually design. - chrisnyce2002, on 07/06/2009, -2/+11I would absolutely love this if it happens! Just as long as everyone gets off of IE 6 and all the browsers are compliant!
- doom777, on 07/07/2009, -1/+9I'd just like to say that ars technica's content is very impressive. It provides decent, if opinionated, journalism about tech world.
Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated with them, nor getting any reward for their praise. I just think they are doing a good job. - ducksoup31, on 07/07/2009, -1/+9Reminds me of http://www.collegehumor.com/video:1823766
- BossKey, on 07/07/2009, -3/+10"All the serious pros consider Arial to be the best typeface ever made."
OK, ok...now we *know* he's just a troll. - ArchangelZLT, on 07/07/2009, -1/+7/s for either sarcasm or stupidity.
- Archer007, on 07/07/2009, -0/+4You really need to expand your worldview, Arial Narrow.
- foresmac, on 07/07/2009, -3/+7Remove all choice, and all problems will be solved. Genius.
- Lochie, on 07/07/2009, -4/+8I thought all designers thought Helvetica Neue was the best typeface ever.
- Hellahulla, on 07/07/2009, -0/+4What the hell, what?
Really? That's frightening. - inactive, on 07/07/2009, -1/+4Apparently it's supposedly rated by ordinary users as the most readable font.
Just saying... - doom777, on 07/07/2009, -0/+3Dropping IE7 is a bit too much. Supporting the last two versions of a browser is standard; three is pushing.
- c187, on 07/07/2009, -2/+5I've been using @font-face for a bit now, and I just tell clients that if they want IE6 support go somewhere else. Although I'm also a fan of dropping IE7 once Windows 7 comes out. So take it as you will. But I will give M$ this much, at least IE8 understands CSS2.
- KingRocket, on 07/07/2009, -1/+4That joke was funnier when it was based around pornography and told in the 90's
- foresmac, on 07/07/2009, -0/+3@font-face was originally part of CSS2, but IE and Netscape had essentially differing, proprietary implementations that never saw wide adoption. WebKit added support for loading TrueType and OpenType fonts in 2007. With Firefox including support of the same thing, and Opera soon to follow suit in version 10, it means that virtually every browser *except* IE will support it. That's only about 30% of the current desktop space, but nearly all of the mobile space.
@font-face is part of the CSS3 spec as well, though that still seems far from becoming a ratified standard anytime soon. - inactive, on 07/07/2009, -0/+2proprietary plug-ins are hacks and not an actual part of the web. Nice try though.
"just because it is old, it can't handle new technology"
Don't confuse hacks like CSS with a system that is actually *designed*. If you really think HTML/HTTP are the best solution for interactive graphical user interfaces, then you obviously are not a developer and have not been using computers long. CSS is to HTML as Windows95 was to DOS, a massive hack grafted onto an already bloated and inelegant system. - dkrender, on 07/07/2009, -0/+2That demo was incredible. The Mozilla team managed to load custom, specified typefaces with the ease of one CSS attribute. This took Mike Davidson, who created sIFR, years to perfect using a clunky conglomerate of Flash and Java. I'm still shocked at the realization it took this long to get something like loading an external font file incorporated into the browser by developers.
I truly, truly hope that the tag becomes widely accepted and standardized. Microsoft would hopefully add the feature to IE just to keep up with the Joneses. :)
http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2004/08 ... - unfilterthought, on 07/07/2009, -0/+2Web Design IS a Graphic Design. Specifically for the WEB and not PRINT.
Usability, readability, clarity and conveying the message still applies. - ngmcs8203, on 07/07/2009, -2/+4You turn away client support if they want ie6 support? Wow.
- 2of8, on 07/07/2009, -2/+4Papyrus, baby.
- moothemagiccow, on 07/07/2009, -0/+2Javascript isn't Java
- jkash23686, on 07/07/2009, -0/+2i know someone who is working with the font foundries on the legal aspect of this and he said its not been pretty at all.
- inactive, on 07/07/2009, -1/+3There is technology that can do that (Flash, Flex) and you are welcome to design specifically for it. I hate that misconception that just because it is old, it can't handle new technology. What the *****? If the technology exists, then it can handle it. Everything you listed can be done and that is what is so great about the web. It has evolved and is so expansive (HTML and CSS included). If you get a giant mess of DIV and SPAN tags, maybe you suck at XHTML.
- dronkmunk, on 07/07/2009, -0/+2Yeah, "Wooosh", and all that..
- moothemagiccow, on 07/07/2009, -1/+3Graphic design has nothing to do with web design. Web design is about communicating information, not looking fantastic.
- drenader, on 07/08/2009, -0/+1"Although anyone who would go through the trouble of finding a font file in a browser's cache or pulling the URL out of a CSS file isn't likely the sort to care much for a font's EULA in the first place."
So web designers & coders who are smart enough to look at the code don't respect EULA's? - inactive, on 07/07/2009, -1/+2@ngmcs8203. I do it too. The best way to get rid of IE6 is to make it useless. Therefore, I am proud if any sites I produce render upsidedown in IE6 and hopefully more and more designers stop giving a *****.
- PikeUK, on 07/07/2009, -0/+1CSS already has support for layout using tables (supported in IE8 and all the other browsers):
http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/tables.html
The last thing we need is to start from scratch and wait another decade or two for IE to catch up, not to mention requiring a trillion web pages to be rewritten. - sirmasterboy, on 07/07/2009, -3/+4If people use it apparently they like it. It's a matter of opinion. Killing something just because a few elite "pros" say it sucks is not a reason at all if the majority actually don't mind/like it.
I'm pretty indifferent to it. It's text, I look at it, read it, and it conveys the message. That's the point of it for the vast majority of users and it gets the job done just fine. - DigDugDigger, on 07/07/2009, -1/+2The real pro's use webdings.
- philodygmn, on 07/06/2009, -0/+1Automated micropayments on the basis of standardized accreditation metadata could work, though it would benefit (and require) a lot more than web fonts as the motivation to get it properly implemented.
- foresmac, on 07/07/2009, -0/+1Dropping IE 7 might help encourage more uptake on IE 8, though. Like c187 said, "at least IE8 understands CSS2."
- exeprime, on 07/07/2009, -1/+1poor troll, 2/10.
- drewdiggs, on 07/27/2009, -0/+0I'd love to agree with your statement but I have to deal with the real world as it is today. Not what it could have been.
Once the internet/web became a place for profit all logic and standards became impossible. Are you expecting Google and Microsoft to agree when there's so much money at stake?
Vehicles should have been designed with green power sources. Any other wishes? - doom777, on 07/07/2009, -4/+4burn in hell.
- brandontran, on 07/26/2009, -0/+0While I am fine with just the standard arial font types, I can see how other designers need specific fonts to change their design look and feel. Although I am not one to be finicky over a font that is a little different here and there. The information seems to be more important.
- gentk, on 07/07/2009, -1/+1Georgia works pretty well as a Serif font, provided you have cleartype or some other type of anti-aliased font rendering. Looks good on the screen.
Verdana is easily legible too, but looks quite ugly and wide. - four6three, on 07/06/2009, -17/+16Long live Comic Sans!!!!
- drd18, on 07/07/2009, -3/+1wat?
- dronkmunk, on 07/07/2009, -4/+1If they take all the typography sites off the internet, there will only be one site left. And it will be called "Bring back typography!"
- dkrender, on 07/07/2009, -5/+1You hit the nail right on the head.
- inactive, on 07/07/2009, -7/+3Considering Arial is the only viable typeface choice anyway, what difference does it make? You don't need to offer choices people shouldn't be choosing. Only amateurs use anything other than Arial. All the serious pros consider Arial to be the best typeface ever made.
- inactive, on 07/07/2009, -7/+3Or that you don't know a thing about typography or graphic design.
- inactive, on 07/07/2009, -11/+3Why is this such a problem? Make every browser Arial only and be done with it. Then all web content will be uniform in the best typeface and we can move on.
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