using non-system fonts in pages

[Kris]

http://www.gododdin.demon.co.uk/ng/fonttest.htm

[/QUOTE]

Fails with IE6 on the iMac.

You must have your own idea of what IE6 for the iMac is, because there
isn't any. IE for Mac goes no further than version 5.2.3.

 

[jake]

And on mine IE accounts for only 57%.

But how many of those IEs floating about support WEFT? That's anyone's
guess.

Who knows? Probably most do (no real reason not to).

 

[jake]

Works under IE, fails under Firefox. (Windows)

Yes, quite correct. 'Fails' is perhaps the wrong word to use for Firefox
as the technology only works with IE, as previously mentioned.

The nice thing is that Firefox/Netscape/Opera/Etc. will simply show the
font that's next in line in the font-family choice -- or the user's
chosen default.

Fails with IE6 on the iMac.

Sorry, but the iMac is not something I'm really familiar with <hangs
head in shame>.

[OT] BTW - Do you know Kim Siddorn ?

No, sorry. What makes you think I should? (Just interested.)

Well look out for a large hairy chap from the South West, fond of
setting off a-viking to Kent. He's building some soft of long house
over there.

Interesting. Can you tell me a bit more?

regards

 

[Sam Hughes]

And on mine IE accounts for only 57%.

But how many of those IEs floating about support WEFT? That's anyone's
guess.

Well, WEFT has been understood in IE since version 4, anyway. Or so says
<http://members.tripod.com/~bhaavana/embedded/faq.html>. Of course,
installing it is optional, I read that yes.

Apparently, Netscape 4 had its own method of font embedding as well,
which I did not know.

The question is, is font embedding worth the bother? I don't think so.
But YLMV.

 

[Andy Dingley]

You must have your own idea of what IE6 for the iMac is, because there
isn't any. IE for Mac goes no further than version 5.2.3.

Sorry - I've no idea what version it is then. I don't have an iMac, I
just tried this while I was over the road at a friend's place. I'd
assumed that IE versions had caught up by now.

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

Ah. The old "attack is the best form of defence" approach.

If you make arguments on a person (yourself not telling your full real
name), stay tuned to be treated analogously.

Sure. Here's an example I've published in this and other NGs as an
example, showing you don't have to be a rocket scientist to use it.

http://www.gododdin.demon.co.uk/ng/fonttest.htm

"Embedded Font Test Page". Yes, it is possible to construct such pages.
Did you miss some of my notes and questions about _real_ usage?

Now. Maybe *you* could post an example that *you've* produced, and
then tell me about the problems that *you* had in getting that far?
Fair?

I don't think you would be qualified to solve the problems, and I have
little interest in them anyway. Maybe it would be exciting to be the
first one who uses the technology for things other than demos of the
technology itself, but I'll try to survive without such kicks.

<yawn> See above. </yawn>

You mean your dummy test page? (Using a manifestly poor font for a
heading, and using Garamond for copy text - most users already have
Garamond on their systems, so that WEFT wasn't needed, and the rest won't
care. Did I mention that the few authors who use WEFT seem to use it in
an attempt to make rather poor or, at best, irrelevant font choices?)

A rather silly argument.

Yes, your argument was silly, as I explained. It is also easy to see that
you have no actual evidence for your global claim.

As I said to the OP "...Other visitors see whatever else you've
suggested -- or their own preferred font ...".

Nobody has argumented against that observation, so you can leave the
strawman alone.

 

[Kris]

You must have your own idea of what IE6 for the iMac is, because there
isn't any. IE for Mac goes no further than version 5.2.3.

Sorry - I've no idea what version it is then. I don't have an iMac, I
just tried this while I was over the road at a friend's place. I'd
assumed that IE versions had caught up by now.[/QUOTE]

IE/Mac is a totally different product than IE/PC and version numbers on
the two systems have not much in common. There is however a good range
of browsers available for Mac OS X right now. IE/Mac will no longer be
updated, officials have announced, so therefore IE/Mac is a thing of the
past. Look forward to the future; like Safari of Firefox.

 

[Andy Dingley]

Look forward to the future; like Safari of Firefox.

Sure, but I was assuming that a WEFT-built site wasn't going to work
on them, if it didn't run on IE. I'd already tried and failed with
Firefox on W2K.

 

[Kris]

Look forward to the future; like Safari of Firefox.

Sure, but I was assuming that a WEFT-built site wasn't going to work
on them, if it didn't run on IE. I'd already tried and failed with
Firefox on W2K.[/QUOTE]

And you are right. It is not going to work. It is not worth keeping you
up at night, really. Ask a random 10 people what they like about a
website's design and I think none of them will mention 'the cool font
face'.

 

[Andy Dingley]

Ask a random 10 people what they like about a
website's design and I think none of them will mention 'the cool font
face'.

Hmmm....

If I were to ask the last 10 people I discussed web design with, half
of them are re-enactors and really want medieval calligraphy on their
web pages, the other half are working on a library project with me
where we'd love to be able to re-create Victorian typesetting.

For both groups, we already have suitable TTFs, but there's no way to
put them on the web short of PDFs.

 

[Kris]

Ask a random 10 people what they like about a
website's design and I think none of them will mention 'the cool font
face'.

If I were to ask the last 10 people I discussed web design with, half
of them are re-enactors and really want medieval calligraphy on their
web pages, the other half are working on a library project with me
where we'd love to be able to re-create Victorian typesetting.[/QUOTE]

Are you making a website for these 10 people? Then the solution is easy:
demand that they install and enable WEFT.

 

[jake]

If I were to ask the last 10 people I discussed web design with, half
of them are re-enactors and really want medieval calligraphy on their
web pages, the other half are working on a library project with me
where we'd love to be able to re-create Victorian typesetting.

Are you making a website for these 10 people? Then the solution is easy:
demand that they install and enable WEFT.
[/QUOTE]
'WEFT' is the program that generates the font files; font download is
the IE browser option (default is 'enabled').


regards.

 

[jake]

Hmmm....

If I were to ask the last 10 people I discussed web design with, half
of them are re-enactors and really want medieval calligraphy on their
web pages,

[snip]

Something like this?
http://www.gododdin.demon.co.uk/ng/fonttestx.htm

It requires a 15k overhead for a font subset (the characters used on
that page) or 39k for the full font.

regards.

 

[jake]

In message <[email protected]>, Jukka K.

"Embedded Font Test Page". Yes, it is possible to construct such pages.
Did you miss some of my notes and questions about _real_ usage?

And this isn't real usage? It's what, then? 'virtual usage'?

I don't think you would be qualified to solve the problems, and I have
little interest in them anyway.

I take it, that's a 'no'.

Maybe it would be exciting to be the
first one who uses the technology for things other than demos of the
technology itself, but I'll try to survive without such kicks.

It's a technology that's been around for years, but maybe you hadn't
noticed. No one's suggesting *you* have to do anything -- but it's a
useful item for a developer to have in their toolbag.

I guess it's going to be difficult to take this conversation much
further unless you have something concrete you can comment on.

You mean your dummy test page? (Using a manifestly poor font for a
heading, and using Garamond for copy text - most users already have
Garamond on their systems, so that WEFT wasn't needed, and the rest won't
care.

I was beginning to wonder whether it's worth wasting time replying to
this trolling. Still, here goes:

(1) This page demonstrates the facility. Whether people want to use it
or not is entirely up to them; it's just another tool in the developer's
armoury.

(2) If you had looked (and understood the code) you would see that the
download font has been renamed. Nobody will have a font called either
MyEagle or MyGara installed on their system.

It makes little difference whether or not they have Garamond installed
-- it will be shown as a serif font *unless* the font download works.

Remember, this is a *demonstration* of the facility.

Did I mention that the few authors who use WEFT seem to use it in
an attempt to make rather poor or, at best, irrelevant font choices?)

Please give us examples. A couple of url's to back-up your claim would
be useful.[snip]

Do come back when you've got something sensible to talk about.

regards.

 

[Andy Dingley]

(2) If you had looked (and understood the code) you would see that the
download font has been renamed. Nobody will have a font called either
MyEagle or MyGara installed on their system.

Should Garamond in this instance best be named as Garamond or MyGara ?

Assuming the case where the user doesn't have Garamond, then it makes
no difference (AIUI).

Now Garamond is a reasonably common, but not standard-issue, typeface.
There's a reasonable proportion of users who will have it. Am I right
in thinking that keeping the name as Garamond will give preference to
a pre-installed local copy, over the web-delivered version ? Now
assuming that both fonts are equivalent, this should be acceptable /
even better (Garamond is well known, and an inaccurate representation
of it is just shoddy).


In the case of "Engraver", "Handwriting" or "Blackletter" where
there's no unambiguous single typeface identified by the name, then I
can see the argument for renaming as "MyBlackletter" - not for
Garamond, Gill Sans or Rodchenko though.

 

[jake]

Should Garamond in this instance best be named as Garamond or MyGara ?

MyGara (for demo/testing purposes) ... see below.

Assuming the case where the user doesn't have Garamond, then it makes
no difference (AIUI).

In this case, it would still need to be called MyGara to ensure that it
gets downloaded.

The font specified in the CSS is matched up with the .eot file on the
server via the @font-face:

@font-face {
font-family: MyGara;
font-style: normal;
font-weight: normal;
src: url(GARAMON0.eot);
}

Now Garamond is a reasonably common, but not standard-issue, typeface.
There's a reasonable proportion of users who will have it. Am I right
in thinking that keeping the name as Garamond will give preference to
a pre-installed local copy, over the web-delivered version ?

Yes. Exactly.
The browser (IE) will not attempt to download the font if it is already
present in the user's system.

For this *test*, therefore, we need to make sure that if the user has
Garamond installed, that their browser doesn't default to their existing
version but uses the downloaded version .. hence the renaming.

Now
assuming that both fonts are equivalent, this should be acceptable /
even better (Garamond is well known, and an inaccurate representation
of it is just shoddy).


In the case of "Engraver", "Handwriting" or "Blackletter" where
there's no unambiguous single typeface identified by the name, then I
can see the argument for renaming as "MyBlackletter" - not for
Garamond, Gill Sans or Rodchenko though.

Basically, the page 'fonttest' is just a demonstration to show font
downloading in action.

In 'real life' you would simply use the correct name of the font. If the
font is present on the user's system, then that will be the one that is
used, not a download.

The basic font for the demo page, as described in 'BODY{ }' is:
font-family : Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;

The main content (part of a very old poem) is in a serif font i.e.
Garamond and is specified by:
font-family : MyGara, Arial, sans-serif;

So, if font downloading is supported by your browser you will see the
poem in a serif font ........... if it's not, then you see it in a
sans-serif font.

'MyGara' is a simple re-naming of the Garamond font (matching it up with
the .eot file in the url). This makes sure that even if the user has
Garamond installed, but their browser does not support font downloading,
then they will see the content as a sans-serif font.

So. A simple, but effective, test for font downloading ;-)

(Hope that all makes sense.)

regards.

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

And this isn't real usage?

It is "Embedded Font Test Page" - and a homeless page, with no connection
to anything, quite obviously set up just to play with WEFT. Created by
some anonymous entity, containing apparently an uncredited quotation,
working as Lorem ipsum instead of actually saying something.

It's what, then? 'virtual usage'?

Just a contrived "Embedded Font Test Page".

Besides, it demonstrates a remarkably pointless (or worse than pointless)
use of the technology.

The continued lack of real examples is eloquent.

 

[jake]

It is "Embedded Font Test Page" - and a homeless page, with no connection
to anything, quite obviously set up just to play with WEFT. Created by
some anonymous entity, containing apparently an uncredited quotation,
working as Lorem ipsum instead of actually saying something.


Just a contrived "Embedded Font Test Page".

Besides, it demonstrates a remarkably pointless (or worse than pointless)
use of the technology.

The continued lack of real examples is eloquent.

Your continued failure to provide any evidence for past statements
speaks volumes for itself.

Readers can make their own minds up.

regards.

BTW. It's always good practice to indicate where you have decided to
drop/ignore the contents of the last item in the thread when replying to
it.

 

[Jukka K. Korpela]

BTW. It's always good practice to indicate where you have decided to
drop/ignore the contents of the last item in the thread when replying
to it.

I have no idea of what you are talking about here. You seem to have your
private ideas of proper quotation style; please feel to raise them for
public discussion in the appropriate group in the news.* hierarchy.

What I will keep doing is quoting (or summarizing) the parts of a message
I am commenting on. This is decades old Usenet practice.

Thank you for confirming that you are not going to present any actual
examples of sites, or even pages, of yours (or anyone else's) using the
WEFT technology in actual authoring of content pages for the WWW.
You could hardly express this more clearly than now by your attempts to
move the discussion to completely different spheres.

 

[jake]

In message <[email protected]>, Jukka K.

Thank you for confirming that you are not going to present any actual
examples of sites, or even pages, of yours (or anyone else's) using the
WEFT technology in actual authoring of content pages for the WWW.

".......Did I mention that the few authors who use WEFT seem to use it
in an attempt to make rather poor or, at best, irrelevant font choices?
......."

No, thank *you* for confirming that you are not going to present any
actual examples of sites, or even pages, of yours (or anyone else's)
using WEFT technology making poor or, at best, irrelevant font choices.

You could hardly express this more clearly than now by your attempts to
move the discussion to completely different spheres.

Looks like I'm the only one of the two of us who can stay focussed.

"..... the technology is confusing and error-prone..."

I think that you'll have to agree that despite your desire to move away
from your previous statements you will have to agree that you were wrong
in this case.

If a simple fellow like myself can make it work, then I'm sure anyone
else can ;-)

(OK. I realise that you may have had difficulties, but as you won't say
what they were I can't really comment).

Anyway, I think that just about brings this conversation to an end.

Readers can (and obviously will) make up their own mind whether font
downloading works and, if it does, whether it's something they want to
add to their authoring tool-bag.

Regards.