Re: CSS21 @font-face removal

Henri, "Support" is a broad term. Thanks for clarifying.

To "support" a script an OS may need to provide a lot of services besides
display- keyboard/input method, a few different categories of fonts, sorting,
etc.

However, to display a web page, the requirements are much less, and a font may
be all that is needed.

Expecting users to supply a font may be reasonable but it does raise the bar
for users to access the page-
They need to have access to a font, understand how to install it, have
privileges to install it, and be comfortable with the risk of installing it.

Today many users are taught not to install things from the web- too many bad
things out there.

There are a few things they do trust to install such as browser plug-ins and
the certification process.
If fonts were as automated and easy to install as plug-ins, and as trustworthy
and risk-reduced if not risk-free, then pages in other languages would be more
accessible to people.

@font-face of course did not resolve all of the problems with font installation
but it seemed like a very good step in that direction.

tex

Henri Sivonen wrote:
> 
> On Monday, Oct 20, 2003, at 19:56 Europe/Helsinki, Chris Lilley wrote:
> 
> > HS> Then there's the practice of transferring Latin gibberish and
> > applying
> > HS> a font that is a Latin font from the system's point of view but
> > HS> contains glyphs for another script. I think CSS 2.1 should not
> > HS> accommodate fontifying Latin gibberish to look like text in a
> > minority
> > HS> script in browsers that happen to support such a trick.
> >
> > I agree, so its handy that CSS 2 dissallows such a practice. But wat
> > does that have to do with downloading fonts in general?
> 
> The part that I quoted was:
> "With respect to minority scripts, no - the fact that you can read it
> does not
> mean automatically that your computer system comes with support for it."
> 
> If the system doesn't support the script, what does downloading a
> properly encoded font help?
> 
> If the system already knows how to deal with the script but doesn't
> come bundled with a font, it is (in my opinion) reasonable to expect
> the user to supply the required font.
> 
> --
> Henri Sivonen
> hsivonen@iki.fi
> http://www.iki.fi/hsivonen/

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Received on Monday, 20 October 2003 16:39:47 UTC