On Mon, Feb 17, 2014 at 3:38 PM, Steven Walling
steven.walling@gmail.comwrote:
Even an *exceptionally* plain product like Gmail has a more specific
font family setting than Vector does at the moment.
And in Gmail, "I" and "l" look identical in the font that they chose.
Often
that doesn't matter, but sometimes it does and since they override it
it's
not as simple as configuring a better font in the browser (or not having
to
at all).
And then there are the several ways they screw around with the normal browser behavior in these reply boxes that are usability issues for me: I can't Ctrl-PgUp or Ctrl-PgDn to switch tabs, I can't Shift-PgUp or Shift-PgDn to select large blocks of text, I have to always choose the
"Pop
out reply" because the scrolling is screwed up in the inline reply and I can't actually see the entirety of the input field, etc.
So saying "We're not as fancy as Gmail" doesn't sound like a very compelling argument to me.
While I have been following the conversation (or trying to) Brad's comments about '1' versus 'l' hits a sore point for the Wikisources. As the Wikisources are working often working with texts that have been OCR'd, the easy visual ability to differentiate between similar looking characters is very important.
To note that I know _not_ the difference between web fonts, which bits are downloaded, uploaded or whatever, and while it is presumably quite fascinating, it is the right output and outcomes that are pertinent for me, and the community in which I am involved. Characters needs to be individual and clear, and for there to be a diverse character set of characters (roman/greek/...) are used in the printing industry, especially in the 19th and early 20th century printing industry.
Regards, Billinghurst