Crikey! A Verdana's got my baby!

[Karl Smith]

Anyone who has read c.i.w.a.* for more than a few weeks knows that one
of the pet hates of the CIWAHians is Verdana (it's a typeface, BTW).
Future archeologists stumbling across these messages out of context
could be forgiven for thinking "Verdana" must be some kind of
dangerous animal. We must get rid of it, before it gets us!

Oddly, they can never seem to articulate *why* they dislike Verdana,
other than some vague assertion that it looks different. Surely that's
the point. What would be the purpose of all these font files that
infest my computer if all the typefaces looked the same? I can't
understand the apparent level of fear and loathing, just because
something looks a bit different. "A fair go for Verdana," that's all
I'm saying.

If you really find Verdana that distracting, all you need do is remove
the font from your *personal computer* - a simple, painless operation
that will take only a few seconds. Repeatedly asserting to other
people that they should not use something just because the cult
members have chosen to dislike it makes no sense whatsoever.

Is there anyone out there who has actually removed Verdana from their
computer? Perhaps they could explain what the often alluded to, but
rarely explained, "problem" really is?

--
Karl Smith.

[jake]

In message <Pi************ *************** ****@ppepc56.ph .gla.ac.uk>,
Alan J. Flavell <fl*****@ph.gla .ac.uk> writes

On Thu, 1 Apr 2004, jake wrote:

I actually like Verdana -- yes, honest.
Whether we like it or not is irrelevant to the issue being debated,
though.

So?
I've nothing against it in the right places (it's designed
for enhanced legibility at small pixel sizes, and it achieves that
rather well). It's still a problem.
So you say.

The problem seems to stem from designers who like the appearance of
Verdana, but don't like its size. So, they set their stylesheets to show
it at less than 100%.
That's not the whole story, though. Read previous discussions.

Take a look and decide:
http://www.gododdin.demon.co.uk/ng/verdana.htm

That's useless for making the kind of decision that's under discussion
here.

Really? How so?
They would have to take a look on *everyone else's* browser
before they could decide. At least Stephen Poley went part of the way
to demonstrate the problem - as best one can on an individual browser.

Then I guess I'll just have to use the evidence of my own eyes. Sorry.

--
Jake

[jake]

In message <40************ **********@drea der2.news.tisca li.nl>, Els
<el*********@ti scali.nl> writes
[snip]

I think the example at http://www.gododdin.demon.co.uk/ng/verdana.htm
is showing the 'problem' really well.

Personally, I can easily read all of those fonts at 80%. On a 19"
1280x1024 screen. If I set my screen to 1600x1200 things are different
already.

But not everybody has good eyesight.

And what Ivo said :-)

And on my 17" 1024x768 I don't see a problem reading Verdana, Tahoma, or
Trebuchet down to 85% (with my glasses on) without getting eye-strain.

I'm beginning to get the impression that the problem is more theoretical
than real ;-)
--
Jake

[Els]

jake wrote:

In message <40************ **********@drea der2.news.tisca li.nl>, Els
<el*********@ti scali.nl> writes
[snip]

I think the example at http://www.gododdin.demon.co.uk/ng/verdana.htm
is showing the 'problem' really well.

Personally, I can easily read all of those fonts at 80%. On a 19"
1280x1024 screen. If I set my screen to 1600x1200 things are different
already.

But not everybody has good eyesight.

And what Ivo said :-)
And on my 17" 1024x768 I don't see a problem reading Verdana, Tahoma, or
Trebuchet down to 85% (with my glasses on) without getting eye-strain.

But what if you wouldn't have those fonts? How's Arial on
your screen at 85%?

And I'm not sure (too lazy to calculate), but isn't 17"
1024x768 bigger than 19" 1280x1024?
Anyway, someone in this thread mentioned 'other systems',
and I've heard about Macs and other OS's having different
versions of the regular fonts.
I'm beginning to get the impression that the problem is more theoretical
than real ;-)

We'd have to investigate that, I suppose. Anyone here with
less than 20/20 vision, and a Mac with a 14" screen set to
1600x1200 resolution? :-)

--
Els

Sonhos vem. Sonhos vão. O resto é imperfeito.
- Renato Russo -

[Charles Allen]

>> You're talking to the wrong person. I love Verdana. Look at my site -

http://locusmeus.com/ - all Verdana.

(if you have it installed, that is :-) )

And if the user's browser is set to allow font changes. Odd, all the
pages I browse seem to be using Bistream Vera these days....

--
Charles Allen

[jake]

In message <40************ **********@drea der2.news.tisca li.nl>, Els
<el*********@ti scali.nl> writes

jake wrote:

In message <40************ **********@drea der2.news.tisca li.nl>, Els
<el*********@ tiscali.nl> writes
[snip]

I think the example at
http://www.gododdin.demon.co.uk/ng/verdana.htm is showing the
'problem' really well.

Personally, I can easily read all of those fonts at 80%. On a 19"
1280x1024 screen. If I set my screen to 1600x1200 things are
different already.

But not everybody has good eyesight.

And what Ivo said :-) And on my 17" 1024x768 I don't see a problem reading Verdana,
Tahoma, or Trebuchet down to 85% (with my glasses on) without getting
eye-strain.

But what if you wouldn't have those fonts?

I wonder how many people don't have one of those fonts installed? I'd be
surprised if it's less than 90% (the number of IE users).
How's Arial on your screen at 85%?
Smaller then I'd like it, but still readable. In reality, if the font
was too small for comfort I'd simply increase the text size (in
Explorer). If the font had been set to a fixed size, I'd just look at it
in Opera (it's set for a minimum text size).

Arial's not a good choice for small text, anyway -- too narrow for my
liking.

Verdana, Tahoma, Trebuchet and Georgia were designed specifically for
legibility on a screen.

So, if you've suggested Verdana as first choice for the font to be used
to view your page, followed by Tahoma, and then Trebuchet I would think
that at least 9 out of 10 viewers will be happy.
And I'm not sure (too lazy to calculate), but isn't 17" 1024x768 bigger
than 19" 1280x1024?
Uhh ...... I'll wait for you to calculate it ;-)
Anyway, someone in this thread mentioned 'other systems', and I've
heard about Macs and other OS's having different versions of the
regular fonts.

I'm beginning to get the impression that the problem is more
theoretical than real ;-)

We'd have to investigate that, I suppose. Anyone here with less than
20/20 vision, and a Mac with a 14" screen set to 1600x1200 resolution?
:-)

There's bound to be at least one .........
--
Jake

[Stan Brown]

"Karl Smith" <go************ @kjsmith.com> wrote in
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.stylesheets:

Oddly, they can never seem to articulate *why* they dislike Verdana,

What, "the x-height is much greater than on other fonts" too
complicated for you?

You posted on April 1, so perhaps what looks like ignorance or
mendacity is just some sort of "April Fool".

This has been discussed here many times, and there's also a good Web
page at <http://www.xs4all.nl/~sbpoley/webmatters/verdana.html>.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
2.1 changes: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/changes.html
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/

[Jukka K. Korpela]

"Alan J. Flavell" <fl*****@ph.gla .ac.uk> wrote:

It's with the lack of a workable font-size-adjust facility. To which
one should add that the facility as originally proposed for CSS isn't
quite what's needed, since it was based on objective em/ex factors,
and that's not the whole story as far as perceived font size is
concerned.

The problem is even more complicated, since for typographic reasons, the
choice of a font should affect both the font size and the line length and
line height. Making all these play together in a manner that respects
user's preferences is no easy job.

For example, if the font is Verdana, line-height should be set to a
fairly large value, considerably larger than typical browser defaults.
But if you do that, you have no way of telling the browser that it should
ignore (e.g.) line-height: 1.35 if it does not actually use Verdana, for
one reason or another.

--
Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/

[Neal]

On Sat, 3 Apr 2004 08:43:24 +0000 (UTC), Jukka K. Korpela
<jk******@cs.tu t.fi> wrote:

"Alan J. Flavell" <fl*****@ph.gla .ac.uk> wrote:

It's with the lack of a workable font-size-adjust facility. To which
one should add that the facility as originally proposed for CSS isn't
quite what's needed, since it was based on objective em/ex factors,
and that's not the whole story as far as perceived font size is
concerned.

The problem is even more complicated, since for typographic reasons, the
choice of a font should affect both the font size and the line length and
line height. Making all these play together in a manner that respects
user's preferences is no easy job.

For example, if the font is Verdana, line-height should be set to a
fairly large value, considerably larger than typical browser defaults.
But if you do that, you have no way of telling the browser that it should
ignore (e.g.) line-height: 1.35 if it does not actually use Verdana, for
one reason or another.

When I originally read Alan's post, I thought, does font-size-adjust vary
from font choice to font choice? If I change the aspect of, say, Verdana,
might it render the replacement font illegible? As far as I can see from
the spec, the answer is no.

However, this line height thing mixes it up a bit. Once you set line
height, all fonts, intended or substituted, get that line height.
Therefore, it seems line height is not something to be toyed with -
without distinct confidence in what fonts the user will be using.

[Nick Kew]

In article <MP************ ************@ne ws.odyssey.net> ,
Stan Brown <th************ @fastmail.fm> writes:

You posted on April 1,

And caught a remarkable number of the "usual suspects" with it: AFAICS
mine is the only followup "in the spirit of" the original!

Perhaps some of them are excused, if there's no such tradition in
their countries.

--
Nick Kew

Desktop productivity software standard on every PC:
http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...r.webthing.com

[Stan Brown]

"Nick Kew" <ni**@hugin.web thing.com> wrote in
comp.infosystem s.www.authoring.stylesheets:

In article <MP************ ************@ne ws.odyssey.net> ,
Stan Brown <th************ @fastmail.fm> writes:

You posted on April 1,

And caught a remarkable number of the "usual suspects" with it: AFAICS
mine is the only followup "in the spirit of" the original!

Perhaps some of them are excused, if there's no such tradition in
their countries.

Well, I considered the source.

--
Stan Brown, Oak Road Systems, Cortland County, New York, USA
http://OakRoadSystems.com/
HTML 4.01 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/html401/
validator: http://validator.w3.org/
CSS 2 spec: http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-CSS2/
2.1 changes: http://www.w3.org/TR/CSS21/changes.html
validator: http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/