font face question

charles cashion · Dec 26, 2007

I have created a short html program to test
between between the following font faces...
<font face=Times
<font face=Roman
<font face="Times Roman"
<font face="New Times Roman"



 

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 


 

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 


 

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 


 

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 


 

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 


</html>

John Hosking · Dec 26, 2007

charles said:
I have created a short html program

A what?

to test
between between the following font faces...
<font face=Times
<font face=Roman
<font face="Times Roman"
<font face="New Times Roman"
<font face="Times New Roman"
Each of these font declarations is

not really a font declaration, whatever that is.

followed
by the same short message. The five messages
are identical.

Here is the program

This is not a program, friend.

---------------------------------------------
<html>


 

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 


 

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 


 

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 


 

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 


 

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 


</html>

I'll try: you are posting some vaguely HTML-like character sequences and
calling them a program (although they don't comprise even a valid HTML
*page*), the putative object of which you have failed to mention, in a
post titled "font face question" which contains only one actual
question, namely the one I am vainly attempting to answer here.

Charles
(ps I am running windows xp and standard M$ fonts)

If you despise Microsoft so much that you can't even type the company's
name right, maybe you should change platforms. You didn't mention what
browser you were trying to "run" your HTML "program" in (among your
other errors) but if it's a flavor of IE, it could easier affect
(negatively) the results you were hoping to get (whatever they were).

You might want to look at, e.g.,
<http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/posting-rules/part1/>
<http://www.anta.net/misc/nnq/help-us.shtml> and/or
<http://diveintomark.org/archives/2003/05/05/why_we_wont_help_you> .

HTH. If you can regroup your ideas and come back with a coherent
question (and a URL to validated code), maybe we can help more.

charles cashion · Dec 26, 2007

I will refrain from repeating the whole message.

John Hosking wrote:
J> A what?
Would you be less irritated if I said "SEGMENT"?

J> friend
Friends help friends, even when critical.

J> not really a font declaration
You are correct. I need to close each one with
a greater-than glyph ( > )...







J> ...the putative object
J> of which you have failed to mention...
I have re-read my own message. I think my question
is clear. To put my question into another choice
of words, my question is, why do five different face
declarations produce identical glyphs?

J> If you despise Microsoft
Despise? Did my abbreviation offend you, John?
You mean that there are people that still despise
Microsoft? Perhaps I have been writing text messages
and using abbreviations and have lost sensitivity.

I think you should judge people (or organizations)
according to both their good deeds and their greed.

Either way, you *will* think what you want.

J> ...didn't mention what browser...
You are correct. I am using Firefox 2.0.0.11

J> ...results you were hoping to get...
Perhaps my question was a bit too terse
for some people. I want to know why five different
face declarations produce identical lines of text.

J> ...URL to validated code...
I do not usually upload small test segments. But if
it makes any difference, my NON-program is uploaded
And to make it easy for some people, I will use an
easy-to-discern name for the non-program...
http://dunjas.com/JohnHosking.html

I must remember to remove it after some helpful
person answers my question.

J> *expensive* keeping a bear in a tall building
Ah yes... Criticism disguised as humor.

J> The service is obnoxious
True, but not constructive.

J>I've been hosed before
If you say so.

J> What would that have to do with it?
Mea Culpa. My filter originally contained a
typographical error. It was not *exact*.

J> Of course, none of this actually makes the spammer
J> "go away," but I don't see the spam, and that's
J> good enough for me.
That was actually helpful. Because you insisted that
Firefox filters work, I kept working on my (one)
filter until it was correct and functional.

Thank you John for calling attention to my ignorance.
You have done a much better job than me.
Charles

rf · Dec 26, 2007

Perhaps my question was a bit too terse

Terse?

Your original question was: "Can somebody tell me what is happening?".

That was not only terse but is in fact a non question. I could quite easily
say "it's raining".

for some people. I want to know why five different
face declarations produce identical lines of text.

Ah, an actual question.

Have a look at your computer. Do you find fonts called "New Times Roman", or
any of the other fonts? The only one that is on *my* computer is Times New
Roman.

And if you thing the comic sans ms one should be used it won't. You cannot
nest font elements.

Neredbojias · Dec 26, 2007

Well bust mah britches and call me cheeky, on Wed, 26 Dec 2007 02:52:13
GMT charles cashion scribed:

I have created a short html program to test
between between the following font faces...
<font face=Times
<font face=Roman
<font face="Times Roman"
<font face="New Times Roman"



 

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 


 

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 


 

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 


 

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 


 

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog. 


</html>

Yes. You are wasting your time. And ours.

PS: It's okay to waste our time with liberal abandon, but you have to be
funnier than that.

Sid · Dec 26, 2007

: --
: Richard.

Happy festivities, Richard, Jukka, et al !!

Sid

charles cashion · Dec 26, 2007

rf said:
> >
>
> Terse?
>
> Your original question was: "Can somebody tell me what is happening?".
>
> That was not only terse but is in fact a non question.

rf: my question was two sentences long. If you take the
second sentence out of context, it is not very acute.
*BUT* I know what you are saying. It is desirable for
posters to refrain from obtuse pointless questions.

I think I know what is happening.
If the firefox browser does not recognize
face=roman or face=times or any other non
recognizable face, it defaults to Times
New Roman.

Now my question is: Is it possible to change
the *default* font?

OBTW rf is correct. One cannot nest fonts.
Charles

Harlan Messinger · Dec 26, 2007

charles said:
rf: my question was two sentences long. If you take the
second sentence out of context, it is not very acute.
*BUT* I know what you are saying. It is desirable for
posters to refrain from obtuse pointless questions.

I think I know what is happening.
If the firefox browser does not recognize
face=roman or face=times or any other non
recognizable face, it defaults to Times
New Roman.

Now my question is: Is it possible to change
the *default* font?

If you don't know what fonts the user has, how could you presume to
choose his *default* font for him? The user chooses his default font, or
leaves it as was set in the browser when it was installed.

OBTW rf is correct. One cannot nest fonts.

Yes, one can. From the transition DTD:

<!ELEMENT FONT - - (%inline

* -(A) -- anchor -->
<!ELEMENT FORM - - (%flow

* -(FORM) -- interactive form -->

Jonathan N. Little · Dec 26, 2007

charles said:
I think I know what is happening.
If the firefox browser does not recognize
face=roman or face=times or any other non
recognizable face, it defaults to Times
New Roman.

Now my question is: Is it possible to change
the *default* font?

Of course, but this is a browser setting question, not really an HTML
question. You can change the default fonts for all modern browsers.

Firefox:
"Tools > Options > Content" "Fonts & Colors" "Default Font:"
or
"Edit > Preferences > Content" "Fonts & Colors" "Default Font:"

Opera:
"Tools > Preferences > Web Pages" "Normal font"

IE:
"Tools > Internet Options > General" "Fonts"

SeaMonkey/Netscape:
"Edit > Preferences > Appearance > Fonts"

Beauregard T. Shagnasty · Dec 26, 2007

charles said:
think I know what is happening. If the firefox browser does not
recognize face=roman or face=times or any other non recognizable
face, it defaults to Times New Roman.

No, it defaults to whatever you have your own browser set to use as ..
well .. as its default font.

"face=roman" would only work if you have a font on your computer
explicitly named "roman".

Now my question is: Is it possible to change the *default* font?

See your browser's options. All modern browsers have the ability to set
default fonts (and sizes). In Firefox, the settings are located at:
Tools > Options > Content tab
"Fonts & Colors" > "Default font:"
and more using the: [ Advanced ] button

OBTW rf is correct. One cannot nest fonts.

Cannot?


The quick brown fox jumped
over the lazy dog's back.


BTW, you should be using modern markup instead of the 1990's style
. Learn CSS, too.

Jukka K. Korpela · Dec 26, 2007

Scripsit charles cashion:

I think I know what is happening.

Part of it, yes.

You seem to have formulated your question poorly, got flamed, and
reacted by longish babbling. You have wasted everyone's time and, what's
infinitely more important, my time. But hey, this is Christmas time, so
we're are supposed to act as if we simulated attempts at being nice even
to people who don't deserve it, so let's see... (To be honest, your
question is interesting and relevant, and you didn't ask it in a
completely obscure way.)

If the firefox browser does not recognize
face=roman or face=times or any other non
recognizable face, it defaults to Times
New Roman.

Not quite. It uses the browser's default font, which is, in fact, often
Times New Roman, for some weird reason.

This is close to a bug, but it can be explained as a feature. We would
expect that with

bla bla xxx

the text xxx would appear in the foo font, if the bar font is not
available. If refers to a font that is not available
in the system, the markup shall be ignored (it is a suggestion that
cannot be fulfilled), so the parent element's font shall be used.

However, to justify the odd Firefox behavior, we can start from the fact
that mapping of font names to actual fonts is browser-dependent anyway.
Even on one system. different browsers may treat font names differently.
For example, font names as such are case-sensitive, but browsers tend to
treat them as case-insensitive, mapping e.g. arial, ARIAL and AriaL all
to Arial. Moreover, they might interpret some names as variants of other
names. Finally, a browser could map all unrecognized font names to a
single font, namely the browser's default font; I cannot find anything
that prevents this, even though it is odd and something that I wouldn't
expect intuitively.

So this more or less explains what I see on Firefox:
When the font is set to Times New Roman, I see Times New Roman.
When it is set to New Times Roman, Times Roman, or Roman, I see the
default font I've set in Firefox (this time Verdana, just for testing).
When it is set to Times, I see Times New Roman, which is very close to a
serious bug, since my computer actually has Times, too, with slightly
different characteristics (e.g., a wider "h"). But even this can be
explained as browser-dependence: the interpretation of font names is not
fixed. In practice, Firefox probably applies some "loose" font name
matching, so that Times matches Times New Roman (even when Times
actually exists on the system!).

Internet Explorer 7 behaves in a somewhat more expected way:
When the font is set to New Times Roman or Times Roman, I see Comic Sans
MS, i.e. the font of the enclosing element. This is expected behavior:
the unrecognized font name is ignored, in the sense that ... markup has no effect.
When it is set to Roman, I see some rather ugly font, since my computer
seems to contain such a font under the name Roman, labelled as "OEM/DOS"
font. I guess it suffers from font smoothing, since it was created
before modern smoothing techniques.
And when the font is set to Times, I see Times - slightly larger than
Times New Roman, with some differences in glyph design. Most computers
probably lack such a font, and I don't really remember how I got it.

What this means in practice is yet another reason why font suggestions
may fail to have any effect or, worse, may have some unintended effect.

Now my question is: Is it possible to change
the *default* font?

Of course. The way to do this depends on the browser and its version.
It's typically something you do in a "Settings" window opened via a
"Tools" menu. And you don't do it to other people's browsers unless they
personally ask you to do that.

OBTW rf is correct. One cannot nest fonts.

Who's "rf"? I'd hate to dig into my killfile. And if he or she has
claimed that elements cannot be nested, as I guess, he or she is
completely wrong, once again, in a usual boring manner.

dorayme · Dec 26, 2007

"Jukka K. Korpela said:
a browser could map all unrecognized font names to a
single font, namely the browser's default font; I cannot find anything
that prevents this, even though it is odd and something that I wouldn't
expect intuitively.

It is not intuitive and one can only guess at the motivation. A
browser maker's pitiless attitude to authors mistakes? Laziness,
it being easier to code for in browser construction?

Who's "rf"? I'd hate to dig into my killfile. And if he or she has
claimed that elements cannot be nested, as I guess, he or she is
completely wrong, once again, in a usual boring manner.

Your "wrong again" gives you away! You are a secret avid reader
of him.

By the way, he is not boring. He does not make as many mistakes
as the average poster, not even more than the average long term
experienced member here. And he is an Australian, so lay off.

And one more particularly important thing. He is my enemy and I
feel pretty proprietorial about him.

John Hosking · Dec 26, 2007

charles said:
I will refrain from repeating the whole message.

Cool. But then you go and quote bits from old unrelated posts (without
any citation) so the space savings are negated.

John Hosking wrote:
J> A what?
Would you be less irritated if I said "SEGMENT"?

Only a bit. I was actually trying to point out that HTML isn't a
programming language.

J> friend
Friends help friends, even when critical.

Yes, that's why I tried to include helpful information in my reply to
you. I wasn't meaning to be critical, but I guess it came out that way.
Sorry you didn't see that, even though I didn't type the word "friend"
by accident.

J> not really a font declaration
You are correct. I need to close each one with
a greater-than glyph ( > )...

and -- silly, pedantic me, I just can't help myself -- with a closing

J> ...the putative object
J> of which you have failed to mention...
I have re-read my own message. I think my question
is clear. To put my question into another choice
of words, my question is, why do five different face
declarations produce identical glyphs?

I have re-read your message as well, armed with this clear restatement
of your question. I was almost going to write that I still couldn't
derive your question from just the OP, but now I think I see it. It must
be what you meant when you wrote, "The five messages are identical." I
have to tell you that I thought you meant you were using identical texts
("The quick brown fox...").

J> If you despise Microsoft
Despise? Did my abbreviation offend you, John?
You mean that there are people that still despise
Microsoft? Perhaps I have been writing text messages
and using abbreviations and have lost sensitivity.

"M$" is clearly established as the Microsoft-basher's cut at the
company, used by Mac-fans and UNIX-heads to demonize MS for pursuing
profits. "MS" is just as short, MSFT is usually clear.

I think you should judge people (or organizations)
according to both their good deeds and their greed.

Yeah, OK. So? You've apparently judged MS for its greed, then paid for
its OS on your PC, then typed "M$" to show how irate you are.

J> ...URL to validated code...
I do not usually upload small test segments.

Why not? Could make a difference, especially if you post something
different from what you're really testing against. (I mean this as a
friendly helpful tip, not a criticism. Cut-and-paste or simple retyping
errors often through NG discussions off the rails before they even start.)

But if
it makes any difference, my NON-program is uploaded
And to make it easy for some people, I will use an
easy-to-discern name for the non-program...
http://dunjas.com/JohnHosking.html

Great, I'm immortalized on your site. ;-)

And here's Reason #2 to post a URL: Your code, brief though it is,
doesn't validate to HTML 4.01 Transitional. Probably doesn't make a
difference in this particular case, but there it is: 2 errors and a warning.

I must remember to remove it after some helpful
person answers my question.

So much for immortality.

J> *expensive* keeping a bear in a tall building
Ah yes... Criticism disguised as humor.

It wasn't criticism at all. It was completely OT. I'd call it humor
disguised as humor.

In any case, this is a post from weeks ago in an OT thread started by
Blinky (<[email protected]>). I guess
you googled it up and posted it here so you could mock me for it, but
you'd confuse and annoy fewer of the other folks here if you'd at least
explain that you're quoting from extinct (and irrelevant) threads.

J> The service is obnoxious
True, but not constructive.

Another old post about a spammer, as I recall.

J>I've been hosed before
If you say so.

Why did you feel you had to include this? For your witty comeback?
Somebody spammed, I found their offer to "hose" us amusing, I replied.
So what?

J> What would that have to do with it?
Mea Culpa. My filter originally contained a
typographical error. It was not *exact*.

Yes, you posted a response in that other thread. Thanks. (Still OT here,
though, as the thread itself was.)

J> Of course, none of this actually makes the spammer
J> "go away," but I don't see the spam, and that's
J> good enough for me.

Same thread as above but my reply was to the OP, not you.

That was actually helpful. Because you insisted that
Firefox filters work, I kept working on my (one)

(where by "Firefox" you surely mean "Thunderbird")

filter until it was correct and functional.

Thank you John for calling attention to my ignorance.

The whole point (to me) of a technical NG like this is to learn and
improve. If somebody thinks HTML is a programming language, or that font
tags don't need closing, or that invalid code will be as reliably
rendered as valid code, then they will continue to have trouble using
HTML to produce the results they want. Pointing out errors (nicely,
helpfully) is an important part of solving current, posted problems and
future problems.

You have done a much better job than me.

No need to pout. Just stay, read, learn, contribute.

charles cashion · Dec 27, 2007

John said:
Cool. But then you go and quote bits from old unrelated posts (without
any citation) so the space savings are negated.

Only a bit. I was actually trying to point out that HTML isn't a
programming language.

I have re-read my original post. I called my program an
html program. In our shop, we write "assembly language
programs" and "C programs" and "html programs" and under
dire circumstances, "machine language programs". Would
it would be better if I said, "program written in html",
"program written in assembly language", etc.?

and -- silly, pedantic me, I just can't help myself -- with a closing
 tag as well. They started with "<" as well.

John. The program that I originally posted had six
instances of <font... and six instances of .

< is in entity. An html interpreter (aka browser)
will produce a < glyph when it comes to it. i.e. it
will be displayed like any other text.

"M$" is clearly established as the Microsoft-basher's cut at the
company, used by Mac-fans and UNIX-heads to demonize MS for pursuing
profits. "MS" is just as short, MSFT is usually clear.

I did not know that until you said it. In the future
I will use either MS or MSFT.

I have an agreement with MS. I will not tell them how
to run their business and they will not tell me how to
run my business (unless I am using their product).
I have my standards. They have their standards. Do I
approve of their standards? They could care less!

And here's Reason #2 to post a URL: Your code, brief though it is,
doesn't validate to HTML 4.01 Transitional. Probably doesn't make a
difference in this particular case, but there it is: 2 errors and a
warning.

*QUESTION* How did you determine that it has 2 errors
and a warning?

The whole point (to me) of a technical NG like this is to learn and
improve. If somebody thinks HTML is a programming language, or that font
tags don't need closing, or that invalid code will be as reliably
rendered as valid code, then they will continue to have trouble using
HTML to produce the results they want. Pointing out errors (nicely,
helpfully) is an important part of solving current, posted problems and
future problems.

I wholly agree.
Charles

John Hosking · Dec 27, 2007

charles said:
John Hosking wrote:

I have re-read my original post. I called my program an
html program. In our shop, we write "assembly language
programs" and "C programs" and

Fine; that's what they are. Assembly and C are programming languages.

"html programs"

HTML is for markup. It's hardly worth calling a language, but there's
that "L" in its name, and its language-ness is fodder for a separate
discussion (or argument). But it's not for programming. HTML is for Web
pages. I don't consider anything written in HTML a program, even if it's
got some scripting (e.g., JavaScript) or animated content (e.g. Flash)
or, yes, a <form> in it (the programming in that case is server-side).
The HTML is just marked-up content. If your shop talks about "HTML
programs," now is a good time to get out of that sloppy habit and start
talking about "HTML pages" or "HTML documents" instead. I do use "HTML
code", but it still doesn't result in a program.

and under
dire circumstances, "machine language programs". Would
it would be better if I said, "program written in html",
"program written in assembly language", etc.?

John. The program that I originally posted had six
instances of <font... and six instances of .

Yes, I see that you're right. I think I got thrown off by quickly
skimming the (which also
appears six times).

< is in entity. An html interpreter (aka browser)
will produce a < glyph when it comes to it. i.e. it
will be displayed like any other text.

Yeah, I see what you meant now. Just reading your posted code, before
you gave the URL, I just saw "broken" code, not the text you wanted in
the rendered page. My mistake.

*QUESTION* How did you determine that it has 2 errors
and a warning?

Via the W3C markup validator at http://validator.w3.org/check .
They have a CSS validator at http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ .

I get to both with a clck of my mouse when in Firefox via the Web
Developer Toolbar add-on, which I find indispensible. MS has something
similar (basically copied wholesale, but styled differently) for IE7.

http://chrispederick.com/work/web-developer/ has the Web Developer
extension. Search microsoft.com for their IE extension.

dorayme · Dec 27, 2007

charles cashion said:
I have re-read my original post. I called my program an
html program. In our shop, we write "assembly language
programs" and "C programs" and "html programs" and under
dire circumstances, "machine language programs". Would
it would be better if I said, "program written in html",
"program written in assembly language", etc.?

I don't think so. HTML language is not really a programming one.
It is more a special way of annotating material that a program
like that of a web browser can use as an input to do things that
its program is programmed to do.

I have an agreement with MS. I will not tell them how
to run their business and they will not tell me how to
run my business

--------
A schnorrer (a Jewish beggar) knocks loudly on the front door of
a millionaire's apartment at two o'clock in the morning. No
answer. He knocks again. Still no answer. He keeps knocking,
until after half an hour the angry millionaire comes down and
opens his door.

"Can I have sixpence, please?" asks the schnorrer.

"What do you think you're doing waking me up in the middle of the
night, just for sixpence!"

"Listen," replies the schnorrer, "do me a favour. I won't tell
you how to run your business, don't you tell me how to run mine!"

Harlan Messinger · Dec 27, 2007

charles said:
I have re-read my original post. I called my program an
html program. In our shop, we write "assembly language
programs" and "C programs" and "html programs" and under
dire circumstances, "machine language programs". Would
it would be better if I said, "program written in html",
"program written in assembly language", etc.?

A document written in HTML isn't a program no matter how you word the
sentence. It's a document--data--just like a word processing document is
data and not a program. Setting aside any <script> tags and onclick
attributes and the like (the contents of which are NOT HTML, so they are
a separate discussion), an HTML document contains no instructions, no
procedures, no algorithms. Like a word processing document, all it is is
a collection of chunks of content marked up with code that says "This is
a paragraph", "This is an image", "This is a table row", etc. The
document is *read* by a program that interprets the parts of the
documents and follows rules for formatting a paragraph *this* way, for
retrieving and formatting an image *that* way, for formatting a table
row some *other* way.

Blinky the Shark · Dec 27, 2007

charles said:
I have re-read my original post. I called my program an html program. In
our shop, we write "assembly language programs" and "C programs" and
"html programs" and under dire circumstances, "machine language
programs". Would it would be better if I said, "program written in
html", "program written in assembly language", etc.?

Okay, so you do programning languages *and* HTML code.

Or have you *executed* some HTML lately? Was it compiled or interpreted?

charles cashion · Dec 27, 2007

Blinky said:
Okay, so you do programning languages *and* HTML code.

Or have you *executed* some HTML lately? Was it compiled or interpreted?

I do not believe I have ever compiled html.
All of the "html data" or "html documents" that
I have generated have been interpreted using netscape
or firefox or MSFT InterNetExplorer.

OBTW: If you consider basic programs, the distinction
might become slightly blurred. (but lets not go there)

Jukka: Thank you for taking the time to decypher my
posts and to be curious enough to investigate my claims.

Harlan: Thank you for telling me what a few of those
transition DTD declarations mean. I have wondered how
to read them, and you gave me just enough clues that
I might be able to look at DTD with a new eye.

Jonathan: Thank you for reminding me how to change
my default font.

Beauregard: Thank you.

John: Thank you for pointing me to the html validator.

Harlan: Thank you for suggesting that an accumulation
of html should be call "html data" or "html document"

Blinky the Shark · Dec 28, 2007

charles said:
I do not believe I have ever compiled html.
All of the "html data" or "html documents" that
I have generated have been interpreted using netscape
or firefox or MSFT InterNetExplorer.

I'd ask you what *commands* those browsers have "interpreted", but I see
elsewhere that you've finally seen the light on HTML markup not being a
program.

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font face question

charles cashion

John Hosking

charles cashion

rf

Neredbojias

Sid

charles cashion

Harlan Messinger

Jonathan N. Little

Beauregard T. Shagnasty

Jukka K. Korpela

dorayme

John Hosking

charles cashion

John Hosking

dorayme

Harlan Messinger

Blinky the Shark

charles cashion

Blinky the Shark

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