RE: follow up on service workers for publishing platform

On Tuesday, December 01, 2015 12:09 PM Ivan Herman wrote:

> We used this example before: a publication may refer to very large font files. 
> In some cases, those fonts are for fanciness; ie, it is perfectly o.k. if the reader 
> does not cache those and, in case it is offline, falls back to some system fonts. 
> In other cases those fonts are essential because, for example, they display 
> mathematical symbols or musical notes: in this case the font must be cached, 
> too, for proper offline use. This cannot really be covered algorithmically; it is up 
> to the creator of the publication to control this.

I agree and I think it's a bad idea to try and second-guess the intention of content authors. Whether a font is deemed a necessity because it's needed to visualize a math equation or musical symbols or if [we think] it's an unneeded fancy stuff (because all it does is to display text that e.g. preserves content look and feel or brand identity) - it is not up to us or for anyone else other than authors to decide! (Ask a marketing person about brand and they would likely care more about brand identity rather than math symbols.)

I believe that the only way we can deal with it is to consider that if a resource is chosen and used by an author it's an essential component and needs to be treated as such. Fonts in this regards are no different than e.g. images - would we even argue that it's ok not to cache and show images in case of offline use?

Thanks,
Vlad

Received on Wednesday, 2 December 2015 15:53:15 UTC