Re: [css-fonts-3] i18n-ISSUE-294: Fonts available on platforms

Hello John,

Friday, September 13, 2013, 4:43:48 PM, you wrote:



> --On Friday, September 13, 2013 15:54 +0200 Chris Lilley
> <chris@w3.org> wrote:

>>> (1) The common set of fonts that all platform developers or
>>> packagers have available have decided to include.  This set is
>>> volatile because a new platform could come along and its
>>> designers could make different choices.  But I think it is
>>> what the original text says.
>> 
>> 1A) The common set of fonts that many content developers
>> incorrectly assume is available on all platforms.

> Well put.  And exactly what I was trying to get at in terms of
> the difficulty with both the original terminology and the
> suggested replacement.

> I think we need to be very careful about what we assume in this
> area and what we say about what we assume.

Agreed in general. But what you seems to be saying, and what I am
saying, is that making assumptions about locally installed fonts is a
poor design decision (although web developers have been doing it for
years - "Verdana is everywhere" etc.

And bringing this back to the specification in question, what it is I
believe trying to say in context is "Don't do that. Provide a
downloadable font instead of making (invalid) assumptions about what
is commonly available".

[quote]
  This allows authors to select a font that closely matches the design
  goals for a given page rather than limiting the font choice to a set
  of fonts available on all platforms.
[/quote]

maybe something like "believed to be available on most platforms"
would make the point better.


-- 
Best regards,
 Chris                            mailto:chris@w3.org

Received on Friday, 13 September 2013 17:25:40 UTC