Re: [Ayatana] Ubuntu Font as default for web site

["Scott E. Armitage" <launchpad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 5:31 PM, Remco <remco47@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
> On Thu, Feb 10, 2011 at 22:48, Scott E. Armitage <launchpad@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>> Sorry, but if a website wants to use a specific font, then they should
>> specify that font in the stylesheet. The terms sans-serif, serif, and
>> monospace are keywords that allow the browser to display text using
>> the corresponding user-selected fonts.
>>
>> A web page that relies on the exact pixel-size of a font is broken to
>> begin with.
>>
>
> That may or may not be true from a developer point of view (I believe
> DTPers might object), but from the user's point of view, Ubuntu would
> break the web. The web is a messy place, and many broken things have
> become part of the standard. The Liberation fonts provide a solution
> to the proprietary fonts problem, so there would have to be a very
> compelling reason to break compatibility again.

>From https://developer.mozilla.org/en/CSS/font-family (there are many
other examples available around the web):

    Generic font families are a fallback mechanism, a means of
    preserving some of the style sheet author's intent in case
    when none of the specified fonts are available. [...] A generic
    font family should be the a last alternative in the list of font
    family names.

It goes on to list serif, sans-serif, cursive, fantasy, and monospace
as the list of generic font families. Their examples detail very well
how one is supposed to specify a web page font, by starting with the
actual font you want, then going to the "closest" alternative that is
most likely available to all your viewers, and finally defaulting to
whatever class of font you want.

e.g.:
    .receipt { font-family: Courier, "Lucida Console", monospace }

I want Courier!! But I guess Lucida Console is OK if you don't have
Courier. Man, you have none of those? OK, just use a monospaced font.

I see absolutely no compatibility breaking here whatsoever.

-S
-- 
Scott Armitage, B.A.Sc., M.A.Sc. candidate
Space Flight Laboratory
University of Toronto Institute for Aerospace Studies
4925 Dufferin Street, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M3H 5T6