RE: @font-face and slow downloading

Brad Kemper [mailto:brad.kemper@gmail.com] wrote on Wednesday, October
20, 2010 10:05 PM
> 
> On Oct 20, 2010, at 7:17 PM, Belov, Charles wrote:
> 
> >> Maybe we should insist on a fallback list including at least one 
> >> 'normal' font, for downloadable faces, and say that the UA 
> 'may' show 
> >> a fallback before the downloaded font is available, but if 
> it does, 
> >> must re-render using the downloaded font when it becomes available?
> >> 
> > But it is an issue if I go to click something and the link 
> is now as I 
> > click going to some completely different page because the 
> normal font 
> > and the suddenly-available downloaded font have different metrics.
> 
> That could happen occasionally if you happen to click at the 
> exact wrong time. But at least you were able to read the text 
> in the interim enough to know what link you want to click on. 
> If nothing renders for a text block except for some 
> underlines (which is what seems to happen in Webkit), then 
> you're just left sitting there wondering if something is 
> broken. I think rendering with a fallback font is by far the 
> lesser of two evils, especially if the font never finishes 
> downloading.

That was only one example of an annoyance caused by the difference in
font metrics between the fallback and the downloaded fonts when the
downloaded font finally loads.  Other annoyances are losing my place if
I'm reading or having an element I'm interacting with, such as a
dropdown menu, suddenly deactivate or jump to a different sub-menu while
I am navigating it.

I *do* want the fallback font.  What I also want is to be able to
specify in my user style sheet that if the download font can't download
within x seconds that I don't want it at all.

I'd also like the UA to be intelligent enough not to replace the
fallback font with the downloaded font while I am moving my cursor or
typing, but perhaps that is too much to ask.


Hope this helps,
Charles Belov
SFMTA Webmaster

Received on Thursday, 21 October 2010 18:23:24 UTC