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

On May 7, 2009, at 10:31 PM, Oli wrote:

> Is there anything else I can do to minimise this problem? If I  
> include other CSS3 Web Fonts properties (2.6 Descriptors for  
> Matching, 2.7 Descriptors for Synthesis), are UAs planning to  
> eventually use this data to create on-the-fly substitute fonts, or  
> will fouc issues mean synthesised/matched fonts are only used as a  
> last resort (rather than as an intermediary stage)?

The synthesized for intermediary is what I was trying to suggest. If  
there was a pre-installed font (shipping with the browser, perhaps)  
that had a wide axis from very condensed to very extended, then that  
could be used as a substitution until the rest of the downloaded font  
loaded, with each glyph's width chosen and/or stretched to match the  
size of the glyph in the downloading font. Then a repaint without  
reflow could occur when the font finished downloading, which wouldn't  
be so bad (it wouldn't interrupt reading).

But maybe that still takes too much time to synthesize each width and  
position that way?

Received on Friday, 8 May 2009 05:52:16 UTC