What is Digg?72 Comments
- asadotzler, on 06/10/2008, -1/+68What's really cool is that a lot of this work comes from Stuart Parmenter, A.K.A. Pavlov, the same guy that took on and defeated Firefox 2's sometimes excessive memory usage. http://blog.pavlov.net/2008/03/11/firefox-3-memory ... So, not only will Firefox 3 kick ass in performance and resource usage, but it's going to open up a can on fonts too!! IE 6 and 7 are officially doomed :-)
- inactive, on 06/10/2008, -3/+36Stuart Parmenter is Mozilla's intrepid girl reporter?
- FFXIfrohike, on 06/11/2008, -3/+27Think of the elvish we will be able to render in our blogs! The mind boggles!
Ahem, I mean cool, it'll finally render... Arabic correctly.
Yeah
>.> - malekov, on 06/10/2008, -10/+34nerd empty comment: Firefox FTW!!11
No, let's be serious. This things and improvements is what make Firefox a better choice than Opera or Safari. - Evolutuon, on 06/11/2008, -1/+25Dugg for ligatures.
- Greatfulbread, on 06/11/2008, -1/+19Sadly FF may be one of the best browsers, but us front end developers still have to support the IE =(
- zwaldowski, on 06/11/2008, -0/+15You're mixing up kerning and ligatures.
First: ligatures are used very few in English, and will likely require a special key combo to use, or will probably use Windows' special input methods thing.
Kerning is what kind-of brings letters together to make them more readable. If you're in Firefox right now on XP or Vista, look closely at the window title. you'll notice that, in the word "Firefox," the "o" is slightly under the lowercase "f". As a result, it looks more natural to read. Without kerning, the gap between "o" and "f" looks unnatural and is consequently hard to read. - Damovisa, on 06/11/2008, -0/+13If the font supports it, it will be automatic.
Contrary to popular belief (and what I used to think), fonts are more than just pretty letters - they can have all sorts of tricky behaviours like custom kerning and ligatures. - inactive, on 06/11/2008, -1/+13Noting, unless you're resorting to ASCII porn.
In which case, still nothing. - dullnation, on 06/11/2008, -4/+16Firefox HAS supported it. It's just been improved on.
- Rikkochet, on 06/11/2008, -11/+22What the ***** kind of article description is that? Your subtle allusions to it being about sex or at least some titties are misplaced in a technical article about fonts.
- alpha88, on 06/11/2008, -2/+13Cool, now us web developers only have to wait another 4 years before Internet Explorer supports the same thing!!
- dullnation, on 06/11/2008, -0/+9There isn't much written about this app because it was made by Japanese who have notoriously had terrible font smoothing in windows.
If you're daring and trust me, http://free.flop.jp/gdi++/src/gdi0859.zip download that file, extract and run "gditray.exe".
Right click on the tray icon and click "enable".
If some apps don't have the new font smoothing, right click the tray icon and click "redraw desktop".
You can tweak the font smoothing by editing the ini file in the folder. - trevah, on 06/11/2008, -2/+10Seriously, what the ***** was that really awkward reference to the gender of the author about? I think the poster expects some sort of "compensation" for his glowing review of her blogging style or something.
- TheCoreh, on 06/11/2008, -1/+8Indeed. I wish you could choose between native and custom font antialiasing.
- petemorley, on 06/11/2008, -0/+6It's called Typography and its one of the most fundamental aspects of design.
- kickelephant, on 06/11/2008, -0/+6My thoughts exactly. I was prototyping a logo for a local fitness center. The client emailed me stating "I found a font online and thought it was pretty. Have you heard of Zapfino?" I then cried blood.
- h3xley, on 06/11/2008, -2/+8Safari and all Cocoa applications on OS X have supported ligatures and kerning (the Zapfino demo, particularly) for about 9 years now. It even works in TextEdit.
- samfishercell, on 06/11/2008, -0/+5Dugg for kerning. Second thoughts for Zapfino.
- Daggity, on 06/11/2008, -4/+9I'd use Opera over Firefox anyday if Opera had it's own addons.
- dullnation, on 06/11/2008, -1/+5I just found out, this can be done in windows!
Read this forum post:
http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=63 ...
I'd give a direct link but its just a program you run in the background so I'm linking to the forum so you can see what people have to say yourselves. - srg13, on 06/11/2008, -1/+5I noticed this too - Firefox's font rendering used to look pretty bad compared to the rest of my (Gnome on Linux) desktop. Now it looks very good!
- encrypter, on 06/11/2008, -6/+10I'd love it if they could render text like Safari. The smoothing around the edges of the fonts are much easier on my eyes.
- EelfinnTy, on 06/11/2008, -0/+4Usually it will not automatically create ligatures like your fs example. If the typeface has that ligature you will have to type it manually. If you are using illustrator there is an option to do it automatically if you are using open type.
Kerning is the space between two letters. When a designer creates a typeface they do the kerning then, and it is automatic when you type. - HonoredMule, on 06/11/2008, -0/+4I'm on Windows Server 2003 right now, and, surprisingly, I've got the gap. It's slight and barely noticeable, but it does increase eye strain having to read over the gaps...even if they aren't noticed. Now that I've spotted that specific gap, it's standing out like a sore thumb, because it just doesn't quite look right. :P
The kerning is correct inside Firefox though, so I'm guessing the erroneous kerning in the window title is entirely Window's fault. - scy1192, on 06/11/2008, -14/+17hate to burst your bubble
Ligature support in Opera 6: http://www.opera.com/docs/specs/opera6/?platform=w ...
Opera has supported anti-aliased text since 6.1
Opera has supported kerning since who knows when (seriously, I was surprised to lean that Firefox never had this) - petemorley, on 06/11/2008, -0/+3Computers are gadgets you numpty.
- demotivater, on 06/11/2008, -5/+7So....this does what for porn?
- Verdanic, on 06/11/2008, -0/+2http://www.microsoft.com/typography/ClearTypePower ...
- dullnation, on 06/11/2008, -3/+5Unfortunately, as far as anti-aliasing goes, the host OS does all the work so Mozilla would have to implement each OS anti-aliasing type independently. Doubt that's going to happen but I'd love safari text rendering too! On windows in general, not just firefox.
- ianam, on 06/11/2008, -0/+2You and trevah and everyone who dug you up are cretins. "intrepid girl reporter" is the blogger's id. Try reading the effing page you're commenting on before spewing your idiocy.
- lazlonger, on 06/11/2008, -1/+3very informative. makes font design sound really fun, and much more varied than one would think.
- specialK16, on 06/11/2008, -0/+2Erm, incorrect syntax ftw?
- samfishercell, on 06/12/2008, -0/+2I find that the flowing lines, horrendously large "f", and horrible legibility of Zapfino just SCREAMS "fitness center."
- Thogster, on 06/11/2008, -0/+2As an avid Opera-users for two years, I feel that Firefox 3 is a great improvement.
I'd say it's wrong to say that that Opera doesn't need addons. Sure, it comes with more essential features than Firefox does, but there are several features I want that doesn't come packed in with Opera (and have no available extension). I want my del.icio.us-addon they way it's handled in Firefox, not the more "primitive" way you can get it in Opera. I love Foxmarks which allows me to sync my bookmarks between my laptop and my desktop. Aside from this, there are many new features in Firefox 3 that are just amazing, one example being the Smart Location Bar.
I'm Norwegian, and I've loved Opera over Firefox for a long time, but no there are no doubt that Firefox is ahead in terms of usability and efficiency of surfing. Opera still owns when it comes to customising the interface though. - kawai, on 06/11/2008, -2/+4Too bad Safari doesn't have adblock
- The_Decryptor, on 06/11/2008, -0/+2Read up on the GSUB table, or the Glyph Substitution table.
Basically (if the font supports it), GSUB tells the font renderer to turn (for example) ffi (3 separate characters) into a single glyph (the ligatures) of the same size.
You don't have to do it manually when the font can do it automatically (Calibri, a font that comes with Vista has ligatures for ffi and fi at least) - jpinsonault, on 06/11/2008, -1/+3I think the real question is why isn't there a link to EXAMPLES of all the things she's describing. Just lame pictures. I'd like to see Zapfino rendered like that in my browser please
- masterthiefster, on 06/12/2008, -0/+1But her nipples seem rounder now!
...er, at least I hope that's a nipple... - HonoredMule, on 06/11/2008, -0/+1See comments section.
You can download and run http://people.mozilla.com/~jdaggett/ligaturetestal ... yourself (accepting the security alert) to render what fonts you have (so you'll have to have Zapfino installed locally to check it out). - jpinsonault, on 06/11/2008, -1/+2opera's adblock was insufficient.
- NanoStuff, on 06/11/2008, -1/+2"Suffice it to say that Firefox 3 continues to obey system settings on all platforms"
That's unfortunate, cleartype can't render large text competently. Improved text rendering that makes use of both pixel and sub-pixel anti-aliasing rather than just one or the other would have been very welcome. - trevah, on 06/11/2008, -2/+31) "This post is largely written by Stuart Parmenter, with some light editing by me."
2) The second sentence of the description still slobs her metaphorical knob.
3) I wasn't commenting on the page, but rather the description.
4) Shutup. - jamusallen, on 06/11/2008, -4/+4Most of these features seem pretty unimportant. Ligatures in English? The fact that "Firefox 3 continues to obey [anti-aliasing] system settings on all platforms"? Better support for international languages is very welcome, though.
- deepee912, on 01/25/2009, -0/+0You can rave all you want but text in IE 7 is dramatically clearer thean Firefox 3.
- petemorley, on 06/11/2008, -1/+1"Firefox 3 is now able to render all these different types of fonts properly, where most other browsers, including Firefox 2, cannot"
That's fair enough but until a certain other browser catches up, I'm gonna have to stick with sIFR for non standard fonts. Especially since sIFR 3 is shaping up so nicely.
http://www.mikeindustries.com/blog/archive/2006/12 ...
Unfortunately, IE 6 and 7 won't be officially doomed until Joe public gets its collective head out of 2001. - aserer511, on 06/11/2008, -4/+4can someone elaborate on kerning? if i type fs willit AUTO transform that is it a prompted option?
- slythfox, on 06/11/2008, -6/+6if (sarcasm detected in previous comment) {
/* I honestly can't read text in IE 7+ or Safari with an LCD... I don't know what I would do if I had to use either browser. */
} else {
//exit
} - petemorley, on 06/11/2008, -1/+1Just sIFR the font. Re-renders it using a flash file, you can use any font you want.
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