Re: CSS3 Web Fonts issue with ‘block on download’

On May 7, 2009, at 12:18 PM, Brad Kemper wrote:

>
> On May 7, 2009, at 9:08 AM, David Hyatt wrote:
>
>> You don't want to see an unsightly visual flicker every time you  
>> use an uncached downloadable font.  I think the behavior of just  
>> showing nothing until the font is loaded is much better.  WebKit  
>> should probably eventually display the wrong font after a certain  
>> timeout period, but displaying the wrong font immediately is as bad  
>> as FOUC.
>
> I also agree, especially if it was a relatively short timeout (a  
> second or two). The effect on page load speed, especially on an  
> HTTPS server, is one of my primary concerns.
>
> Is there any way to just grab kerning, tracking, and width info  
> first, so that the page can be drawn with the right geometries prior  
> to getting all the glyph path information? If that would be faster,  
> maybe it could be an additional standard for loading that separately  
> if available (as in, from a separate file). Then it wouldn't look as  
> FOUC-like, because it wouldn't force a reflow.

WebKit does use the the following fonts in the fallback list for  
measurement information.  It just doesn't paint the glyphs.

dave