GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 328499
Font preferences improvements
Last modified: 2013-02-12 19:42:57 UTC
The revamped font preferences dialog, providing a simple "Fonts and style" tab in the main Preference dialog and a "Detailed Font Settings" dialog, does not allow me to set a default font face for serif and sans-serif fonts. I suggest the following layout for the "Detailed Font Settings" dialog (ascii art rocks!): +----------- Detailed font settings -----------+ | For language: [Western] | +----------------------------------------------+ | Default style: [Serif/Sans-serif] | | Serif font: [Minion Web Pro | 10 ] | | Sans-serif font: [Myriad Web Pro | 11 ] | | Fixed width font: [monospace | 10 ] | | | | Minimum size: [7 pt] | | | | [Help] [Close] | +----------------------------------------------+ In words: - a simple dropdown menu for the default style: serif or sans-serif - three GTK font chooser buttons (not the dropdown and the entry) to pick the right font faces (a GTK font chooser dialog should be used here, the current list is horrible) and the right sizes. - a minimum point size preference. This could be the spinner widget that is already used.
Using gtk font chooser buttons is bug 317343.
Okay, but the splitting of serif and sans-serif preferences is a separate issue, I think.
We had a separate setting for serif and sans serif at some point, but it was decided to remove it. I don't quite remember the reason why though...
The issue was discussed in bug 114228.
I don't think there was good reason to remove the distinction other than "it clutters the interface". Since we now have a dialog for advanced settings and setting difference faces for serif and sans-serif fonts is *really* a basic browser preference, I'm still completely in favor of the interface as outline in my original bug report (the ascii art dialog mockup). On a related note: there's been some discussion on a "Document font" preference in all of GNOME. That would be rocking cool too. Epiphany could then use the Document font as a default, although I think Epiphany would still need separate serif and sans-serif preferences. Good CSS stylesheets (it's recommended in the CSS 2.2 spec) should *always* list a generic name at then end of all font-family declarations. Epiphany should really know how to handle these in case the fonts that are listed earlier in the font-family declaration are not available.
What do you think of this now?
I think this is obsolete. Ephy 3.4 has separate settings for serif, sans-serif, and monospace fonts.