Re: [Wikitech-l] Free fonts and Windows users

On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 12:33 PM, Martijn Hoekstra <martijnhoekstra(a)gmail.com > On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 8:13 PM, Erik Moeller <erik(a)wikimedia.org> > > On Tue, Apr 8, 2014 at 10:59 AM, Martijn Hoekstra > > <martijnhoekstra(a)gmail.com> > > So, the font stack changes with regards to the status quo now change > > > nothing for Windows users, changes Helvetica -> Helvetica neue for Mac > > > users and changes Arial, DejaVu Sans or Arimo for possibly something > > else, > > > amongst which Nimbus Sans L, maybe, maybe not. > > > > Actually, it's a bit more complicated. All users get serif fonts for > > headings, which they didn't before and which is probably the biggest > > visual before/after difference. The serif fonts still prioritize > > free/libre fonts over non-free ones. > > > > The body fonts prioritized free/libre fonts on deployments, but for > > Windows users without ClearType/anti-aliasing, those render very > > poorly, so they were disabled shortly after deployment. This is now > > causing people to be upset because the initial agreement to never > > prioritize non-free fonts is no longer maintained for the body. > > > > Odder's patch would revert to sans-serif as a generic classification > > for the body, but doesn't touch the font specification for the headers > > (yet). The commit summary is a bit misleading in that regard. > > > > Yes, I should have made that clear: I do very much support the Odder > patch[1] ( https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/124475/ ) that reverts body > to sans serif and keeps @content-heading-font-family: "Linux Libertine", > Georgia, Times, serif; > > That is not the status quo, but the diff between the Odder patch and the > typography refresh basically is the "Set a non-free font stack to give Mac > now Helvetica Neue rather than Helvetica", with a -2 is planted in the > ground before as a demarcation line. That's the point that I don't think is > worth having a non-free font-stack for, and that I certainly think standing > your ground for the brave new world of typography refresh is constructive > for. > This is a persistent myth floating around about this. Neue for Mac users is most definitely not the only effect of explicitly declaring the stack. As Jared, S Page, and others have already pointed out, and as is stated in the FAQ on mediawiki.org, the impact of the current stack is: -- Linux users get Nimbus Sans L, instead of DejaVu Sans, Liberation Sans, or whatever else the default sans is on your distro. Nimbus has an improved x-height and is much more consistent with the other sans-serifs we're specifying. -- Windows users always get Arial, unless they have Helvetica installed. This means many of the Windows users who might otherwise have set an alternative sans in their browser default (like Verdana or Tahoma) will now always get Arial. -- And yes, Mac users or those with it installed get Neue Helvetica instead of older version. This is a minor but worthwhile improvement for Mac users. For example, Neue Helvetica actually has properly designed font weights for bold, italic, etc. so that the cap height and x-height are consistent between weights. Regular Helvetica was really not consistently designed across weights. Declaring some of the system defaults explicitly is not only an improvement for Mac users. It means that regardless of whether you switch between devices/browsers, you always get a grotesque/neo-grotesque sans-serif ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vox-ATypI_classification) which is ideal for reading long, large blocks of text and is more neutral. Times, like setting Helvetica, is there because it's what Linux systems recognize and match to. Linux fc-match has no idea what Georgia and Linux Libertine are unless you've installed them. By setting Times, we ensure that Linux uses Nimbus Roman No9 L for headings, which complements the body typeface selected on Linux well and which is consistent in style with the other serifs specified. A lot of this stuff is already documented in the FAQ on [[Typography refresh]] on mediawiki.org. We produced it to answer the basic questions just like this.