Verdana font. Why not?

[Ståle Sæbøe]

I am a bit curious about this.

The graphic design people I work with say it is their preferred font for
web pages. The reason being that it is "kinder" to the eye both in terms
of shape and size.

The HTML "hardcore elititst" profess that it is a useless font because
it is too big compared to other fonts.

Personally I do not care one way or the other, but I generally trust
graphic designers more than programmers and rules lawyers when it comes
to pure design.

It seems to me that the only argument against using Verdana is that a
large number of browsers do not support it and therefore it causes their
pages to render with a very small font.

Can anyone honestly say they do not have the Verdana font installed?

[Steve Pugh]

C A Upsdell <""cupsdellXXX\ "@-@[e-mail] "> wrote:

me wrote:

Still a few people using IE??? According to the w3c 68% of their visitors
use IE:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
IMO IE users are probally the least likely to visit the w3c site (I hardly
ever go there) so I suspect the real percentage of IE users world wide is
much higher. Ducking back in my hole now.

Something else you are clearly missing is a sense of irony.

Along with the ability to tell one site from another... The URL given
is for the w3schools site which has nothing at all to do with the W3C.

Steve

--
"My theories appal you, my heresies outrage you,
I never answer letters and you don't like my tie." - The Doctor

Steve Pugh <st***@pugh.net > <http://steve.pugh.net/>

[me]

"Ståle Sæbøe" <ot*****@tdz.no > wrote in message
news:42******** @news.broadpark .no...

I am a bit curious about this.

The graphic design people I work with say it is their preferred font for
web pages. The reason being that it is "kinder" to the eye both in terms
of shape and size.

The HTML "hardcore elititst" profess that it is a useless font because
it is too big compared to other fonts.

Personally I do not care one way or the other, but I generally trust
graphic designers more than programmers and rules lawyers when it comes
to pure design.

It seems to me that the only argument against using Verdana is that a
large number of browsers do not support it and therefore it causes their
pages to render with a very small font.

Can anyone honestly say they do not have the Verdana font installed?

Not me. ;-)

This may be OT: Please excuse me but I'm going to throw a hand grenade. IMO
it's time to wake up and smell the coffee folks. It seems to me that many of
the most popular sites use fixed font sizes, usually in pixels, whatever
font they please and non-fluid layouts. With few exceptions the only people
I see not doing this are militant IE haters and fundamentalist designers
whose posts I read in NG's. As proof I offer www.weather.com. I don't say
this is a great site but everybody needs to know what the weather will be
like sometime.

In addition some people here say that if someone with such and such
browser/PPI/resolution etc etc etc visits site X that has a fixed font with
a fixed layout they will become disoriented or confused and immediately
leave. I disagree, those people have very likely already visited sites where
they experienced that phenomena and they know that their
browser/settings/preferences are what's affecting the site. IMO these people
are able to cope and have already found a work around that will accommodate
their needs. I think they're used to doing this on a regular basis and
aren't nearly as put off by it as some here might think.

May I offer my most humble apologies for the rude awakening I have visited
upon this rarefied group? ;-)
Signed,
me

[C A Upsdell]

me wrote:

This may be OT: Please excuse me but I'm going to throw a hand grenade. IMO
it's time to wake up and smell the coffee folks. It seems to me that many of
the most popular sites use fixed font sizes, usually in pixels, whatever
font they please and non-fluid layouts. With few exceptions the only people
I see not doing this are militant IE haters and fundamentalist designers
whose posts I read in NG's. As proof I offer www.weather.com. I don't say
this is a great site but everybody needs to know what the weather will be
like sometime.

(are you trying to see how long you make this thread last?)

"Many of the most popular sites". So what? You're supposed to do
what's right, not blindly copy what others do.

"With few exceptions the only people I see not doing this are militant
IE haters and fundamentalist designers ...". I don't think many hate
IE; rather they are disappointed with IE6 being left to stagnate. As to
'fundamentalist ', I suppose that this word is commonly used today as a
pejorative to refer to someone extreme and despicable: but a true
fundamentalist is actually someone who believes in the fundamentals, and
in webdesign one of the fundamentals is that the people on the web are
diverse, and that websites should be designed with this diversity in mind.

As for weather sites, here's the one I use:
http://weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/city/p..._metric_e.html . You will
find that it does not specify font sizes in absolute units, but rather
font sizes that match the users' preferences.

[kaeli]

In article <11************ *@corp.supernew s.com>, anonymous@_.com enlightened
us with...

This may be OT: Please excuse me but I'm going to throw a hand grenade. IMO
it's time to wake up and smell the coffee folks. It seems to me that many of
the most popular sites use fixed font sizes, usually in pixels, whatever
font they please and non-fluid layouts.

When all the popular kids did drugs (got drunk, got laid, whatever) in
school, did you do it, too?
There are a lot of valid reasons to do things.
"Because other people do it" isn't one of them.

--
--
~kaeli~
Punctuation, capitalization, and grammar are your friends,
and will help people think that you aren't such an ignorant
moron, after all.
http://www.ipwebdesign.net/wildAtHeart
http://www.ipwebdesign.net/kaelisSpace

[me]

"C A Upsdell" <""cupsdellXXX\ "@-@[e-mail] "> wrote in message
news:Wq******** ************@ro gers.com...

me wrote:

Okay, I'm totally missing something here. Every visual browser I'm
familiar with has a choice under the 'view' option to increase the size
of the text by various percentages. Being old as well as slow, I often
read pages at 120-200 percent, depending on font size and background.

I'm certainly not advocating unreadable fonts (although Ghu knows there
are enough unreadable pages out there), but it seems to me that once
again the user triumphs.

What am I missing?

What you may be missing is that, if the font size is specified in
absolute units, like pixels, IE's View TextSize function does not change
the text size. A browser like Firefox can, but there are still a few
people out there who use IE.

Still a few people using IE??? According to the w3c 68% of their visitors use IE:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
IMO IE users are probally the least likely to visit the w3c site (I hardly ever go there) so I suspect the real percentage of IE users world wide is much higher. Ducking back in my hole now.

Something else you are clearly missing is a sense of irony.

My bad. Irony can be difficult to discern in print.
Signed,
me

[me]

"Steve Pugh" <st***@pugh.net > wrote in message
news:nh******** *************** *********@4ax.c om...

C A Upsdell <""cupsdellXXX\ "@-@[e-mail] "> wrote:

me wrote:

Still a few people using IE??? According to the w3c 68% of their visitors use IE:
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp
IMO IE users are probally the least likely to visit the w3c site (I hardly ever go there) so I suspect the real percentage of IE users world wide is much higher. Ducking back in my hole now.

Something else you are clearly missing is a sense of irony.

Along with the ability to tell one site from another... The URL given
is for the w3schools site which has nothing at all to do with the W3C.

Steve

Fair enough. They fooled me. I'd say they're dangerously close to breaking
trademark laws if the w3c has one. So do you think their stats are wrong?
Signed,
me

[me]

"kaeli" <ti******@NOSPA M.comcast.net> wrote in message
news:MP******** *************** *@nntp.lucent.c om...

In article <11************ *@corp.supernew s.com>, anonymous@_.com enlightened us with...

This may be OT: Please excuse me but I'm going to throw a hand grenade. IMO it's time to wake up and smell the coffee folks. It seems to me that many of the most popular sites use fixed font sizes, usually in pixels, whatever
font they please and non-fluid layouts.

When all the popular kids did drugs (got drunk, got laid, whatever) in
school, did you do it, too?
There are a lot of valid reasons to do things.
"Because other people do it" isn't one of them.

I infer from your comment that you disagree but you didn't specify exactly
how. IMO if those designers are wrong then their sites should be shunned but
since that's clearly not the case we must assume their visitors like their
sites and hence don't mind fixed fonts sizes and non-fluid layouts.
Signed,
me

[SeaPlusPlus]

>>>>SeaPlusPl us wrote:

>Truth is h1 through h6 is just a syntax handle to
>designat e font and font size (among other properties) larger and
>smaller.

Lauri Raittila wrote: No, actually that is not true. That is syntax to indicate different level
of headings, and make have no relevance at all on font size.

SeaPlusPlus wrote: (2.)
<sacrasm>
Oh right, <h1> through <h6> doesn't allow me to adjust font and font
size, how ignorant of me.
</sarcasm>
John C. Ring, Jr. wrote:
It doesn't :) The browser decides to render it in whatever size it deems
appropriate, taking into consideration any stylesheets it's been told about,
and/or any user settings.
Hi John...

First of all this was my sarcastic answer so I don't really want to
defend it, but where this discussion had started was when I listed my
***PRINTER*** stylesheet CSS for h1 through h6 and Lauri didn't like
that h6 was smaller font size selection than body text. I didn't realize
there were people here who would miquote my text to enable them to make
some obscure tangential point which is to make it appear that what I
said was in some way wrong.

So, do you belong to the club also?
(3.)
Yep, and h6 can still be smaller than body text.

In my brower (Opera), the H6 size settings are not smaller the my default text
size. It also by default renders then in a different font then normal text.
In my browser (Opera), the h6 size settings ARE the size and font
specified. hmmm... Why should I care how you have Opera set?
And that is the point. If you are marking up something as Hx *only* because
you wish it to be visually presented in some manner, then you have used the
wrong markup and your readers may not see something that ends up making much
sense.
I DIDN'T!!! What are you getting on my case for?
If, on the other hand, you used Hx elemtents on what logically are actual
headings for the content in your page, then the reader will see things in a
decent manner, even if they have completely over-ridden all presentational
aspects of your document. Or the next version of Internet Explorer changes
the default presentation of such elements to something else.
Yes, I told you you've been suckered into this by Lauri who is
misquoting HELLO ! ! ! ;-)
I know this can seem like a small point, but in fact if someone doesn't
understand the difference, it can lead to very bad practices and incorrectly
rendered pages.
My web pages are very good, thank you.
For example, from your previous, recent posts, I imagine you'd never use some
Hx element instead of, say, BLOCKQUOTE, just because you liked the size of it.
But it's not unheard of for someone new to web authoring to end up doing
something exactly like that because they just think that "Hx tags change the
font size". Hence the insistence on the distinction. If no one ever made
such a mistake, then no one would ever bother to point out the distinction.

Why don't you go to my web site and tell me whether you want to repeat that?

http://RichardRPlourde.home.comcast.net/

Thank you...

Rich

[me]

"C A Upsdell" <""cupsdellXXX\ "@-@[e-mail] "> wrote in message
news:Tq******** ************@ro gers.com...

me wrote:

This may be OT: Please excuse me but I'm going to throw a hand grenade. IMO it's time to wake up and smell the coffee folks. It seems to me that many of the most popular sites use fixed font sizes, usually in pixels, whatever
font they please and non-fluid layouts. With few exceptions the only people I see not doing this are militant IE haters and fundamentalist designers
whose posts I read in NG's. As proof I offer www.weather.com. I don't say this is a great site but everybody needs to know what the weather will be like sometime.
(are you trying to see how long you make this thread last?)

"Many of the most popular sites". So what? You're supposed to do
what's right, not blindly copy what others do.

I'm not copying anyone, but if fixed font sizes and non-fluid layouts are so
wrong then those sites wouldn't be popular.
"With few exceptions the only people I see not doing this are militant
IE haters and fundamentalist designers ...". I don't think many hate
IE; rather they are disappointed with IE6 being left to stagnate.
My experiences in NG's does not support that claim. Some militant IE haters
take every opportunity to denigrate it by saying things like "that won't
work except in a broken browser", it's obvious they mean IE.
As to
'fundamentalist ', I suppose that this word is commonly used today as a
pejorative to refer to someone extreme and despicable: but a true
fundamentalist is actually someone who believes in the fundamentals, and
in webdesign one of the fundamentals is that the people on the web are
diverse, and that websites should be designed with this diversity in mind.
I'm certain you understood my usage of the word "fundamentalist ".
As for weather sites, here's the one I use:
http://weatheroffice.ec.gc.ca/city/p..._metric_e.html . You will
find that it does not specify font sizes in absolute units, but rather
font sizes that match the users' preferences.

That's a government site and may be prohibited from using fixed font sizes.
Interesting that they use a non-fluid design. Weather.com is a private site
so we know they aren't worried about fixed font sizes hurting their
popularity.

You clipped out so much, care to comment on the following:
In addition some people here say that if someone with such and such
browser/PPI/resolution etc etc etc visits site X that has a fixed font with
a fixed layout they will become disoriented or confused and immediately
leave. I disagree, those people have very likely already visited sites where
they experienced that phenomena and they know that their
browser/settings/preferences are what's affecting the site. IMO these people
are able to cope and have already found a work around that will accommodate
their needs. I think they're use to doing this on a regular basis and aren't
nearly as put off by it as some here might think.
Signed,
me

[Beauregard T. Shagnasty]

me wrote:

I infer from your comment that you disagree but you didn't specify
exactly how. IMO if those designers are wrong then their sites
should be shunned but since that's clearly not the case we must
assume their visitors like their sites and hence don't mind fixed
fonts sizes and non-fluid layouts.

No, we can't assume that they don't mind it or like it.

We may just as well assume that if they really want to buy that
[product] they will *endure* it.

Or, we may assume that they had their grandson with the good eyes
place the order for them.

Or, we might assume that they just hit the Back button to their search
engine, and selected a site they *could* read.

And, we might also assume that the site may do a significantly higher
amount of business if it used flexible font sizing ...

--
-bts
-This space intentionally left assuming... :-)