GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 644523
The default font should be the serif font
Last modified: 2011-03-16 16:04:09 UTC
The default font should be the serif font to match the behavior of typical browsers. Generally, a browser allows the selection of a serif font, a sans-serif font, and a monospace font. The serif font is used by default.
I said typical browsers, but I should mention that this is the behavior of Firefox, Chromium and Safari.
Created attachment 183170 [details] [review] Use the serif font as the default font for web content
Comment on attachment 183170 [details] [review] Use the serif font as the default font for web content Yes!
Pushed to master, will be in 2.91.91.1
Hold on a sec. Are there any arguments to choose a serif font other than "other browsers do it"? I'll admit that a sans-serif font has my personal preference, but I've always been told that serif fonts work well on paper and sans-serif works well on screens. Is there any documented rationale between choosing a serif font by default?
Here's my rationale: 1. Since most web browsers (except Epiphany, as far as I can tell), make the default font a serif font, web developers design these sites with this assumption. Since we want things to look "correct" with the default settings, we meet those expectations. WebKit has two settings "default font" and "default sans-serif font." 2. Users who prefer sans-serif fonts can simply set the default font to a sans-serif font. Hopefully that answers your questions!
(In reply to comment #6) > Here's my rationale: > > 1. Since most web browsers (except Epiphany, as far as I can tell), make the > default font a serif font, web developers design these sites with this > assumption. Since we want things to look "correct" with the default settings, > we meet those expectations. As a professional web developer, I have never seen a design where the desired font family wasn't specified using CSS. I doubt that this assumption exists in reality. Furthermore, bug 598645 stipulates that Epiphany should take the Gnome-wide document font setting as a default, which makes more sense to me than assuming 'serif'. > WebKit has two settings "default font" and "default sans-serif font." > > 2. Users who prefer sans-serif fonts can simply set the default font to a > sans-serif font. This is a non-argument, because it's just as valid the other way around. This bug is about the default setting.
I too am really confused here. Why would we force any kind of font, when we could just use the "document" font configured gnome-wide?
(In reply to comment #8) > I too am really confused here. Why would we force any kind of font, when we > could just use the "document" font configured gnome-wide? This has no effect if the "use gnome fonts" setting is ON. We just use the document font and that's that. If the setting is NOT on we'll use the serif font as default because that's what every other significant browser in the planet is doing. IMHO this is more important than the personal preference of people commenting in bugzilla, who still have ways of forcing those preferences into the browser anyway. Hopefully that clarifies things a bit.
> Hopefully that clarifies things a bit. Not just yet :) > This has no effect if the "use gnome fonts" setting is ON. Where is the "use gnome fonts" setting? I haven't seen one. > We just use the document font and that's that. Do you mean the "application" font? Because that's what epiphany seems to be using, and (at least partly) what bug 598645 seeks to change.
(In reply to comment #10) > > This has no effect if the "use gnome fonts" setting is ON. > > Where is the "use gnome fonts" setting? I haven't seen one. The exact sentence is "Use system fonts". It's the first thing in the Fonts&Style tab if you are using a recent enough epiphany. > > > We just use the document font and that's that. > > Do you mean the "application" font? Because that's what epiphany seems to be > using, and (at least partly) what bug 598645 seeks to change. No, I mean document font. We changed it in bug #644521
> The exact sentence is "Use system fonts". It's the first thing in the Fonts&Style tab if you are using a recent enough epiphany. If I understand right, "Use system fonts" just forces the use of system fonts, disallowing web pages from specifying their own fonts. (Under 2.30.6, this option is "Let web pages specify their own fonts"). Even if "Use system fonts" is disabled (i.e., I want pages to be able to set fonts), it should use the system's document font when pages don't specify anything, not just arbitrarily chose "Serif" or "Sans serif". Right?
(In reply to comment #12) > If I understand right, "Use system fonts" just forces the use of system fonts, > disallowing web pages from specifying their own fonts. (Under 2.30.6, this > option is "Let web pages specify their own fonts"). If this is the case, let me remark that "Let web pages specify their own fonts" is a lot easier to understand than "Use system fonts". > Even if "Use system fonts" is disabled (i.e., I want pages to be able to set > fonts), it should use the system's document font when pages don't specify > anything, not just arbitrarily chose "Serif" or "Sans serif". Right? Agreed. On top of that, the majority Linux installations don't contain the patented freetype bytecode interpreter by default. This tends to make serif fonts ugly sooner than sans-serif. (In the last Fedora Gnome3 alpha I tested, subpixel hinting for LCD's wasn't even enabled and there was no UI to change that save dconf-editor!)
(In reply to comment #13) > (In reply to comment #12) > > > If I understand right, "Use system fonts" just forces the use of system fonts, > > disallowing web pages from specifying their own fonts. (Under 2.30.6, this > > option is "Let web pages specify their own fonts"). > > If this is the case, let me remark that "Let web pages specify their own fonts" > is a lot easier to understand than "Use system fonts". > No, it's not that. There is no way in WebKit do enforce this. The setting just does what it says, sets the defaults as whatever GNOME uses.
> No, it's not that. There is no way in WebKit do enforce this. The setting just does what it says, sets the defaults as whatever GNOME uses. So what did this option do in 2.30? The option is similar to that used in Firefox, where you can disable web site's ability to change fonts. If we can't deny web pages the ability to select fonts, why do we even have an option for this? Shouldn't it just *ALWAYS* use the gnome "document" font by default, unless the web page says otherwise?
Here is some more information which will hopefully clear up confusion around this issue and help others understand my motivation for these changes: 1. The "Use system fonts" setting has no equivalent in Firefox. This is a feature of Epiphany which uses the Gnome font face and size defaults. This bug addresses changing the default font (when this setting is checked) from the Gnome interface font to the Gnome document font. My reasoning for this is stated above. 2. The reason we expose "Use system fonts" as an option is that often the Gnome font sizes are set too small for web content. Most web content is created assuming a font size of 16 pixels, while Gnome defaults are typically 10 points (12 pixels on 96 DPI displays). This leads to an unreadable text size on some web pages. Unchecking "Use sysystem fonts" allows users to set the font settings to defaults that are more useable.
Sounds reasonable. One question remaining: when not using the "Use system fonts" section, how does one specify the default size?
(In reply to comment #16) > This bug addresses changing the default font (when this setting is checked) from the > Gnome interface font to the Gnome document font. My reasoning for this is > stated above. I'm even more confused now. If my Gnome document font is set to Sans, will Epiphany use that when the "use system fonts" setting is checked? > 2. The reason we expose "Use system fonts" as an option is that often the Gnome > font sizes are set too small for web content. Most web content is created > assuming a font size of 16 pixels, while Gnome defaults are typically 10 points > (12 pixels on 96 DPI displays). This leads to an unreadable text size on some > web pages. Unchecking "Use system fonts" allows users to set the font > settings to defaults that are more useable. While this option might "fix" the font size for some sites, it will break it for other (properly designed) sites. IMHO, this makes "use system fonts" unsuitable as a general preference, it should be site-specific instead. Perhaps we could use an infobar-dialog when Epiphany detects that fonts are rendered very small.[1] Furthermore, Epiphany already remembers the last used zoom factor per visited website. We have zoom buttons on the default toolbar layout, mostly because of the font size issue. What problem are we trying to fix here, one with the font face or with the font size? Please remember, we should choose sane defaults, and not rely on the user to "unbreak" the software by changing a preference. [1] I image something like "The text on this website might be too small for you to read. Would you like to use the system's font settings instead? [The text is readable] [Use system fonts]".
"2. The reason we expose "Use system fonts" as an option is that often the Gnome font sizes are set too small for web content." I can't help but think that this is referring to the "Application" font and not the "Document" font, which, because it's to be used for long documents like web pages, should be an appropriate size anyways. Further, it seems like the issue isn't about fonts at all, but only about size. Should there be an option that says: "[*] Use system document font size" Which, when unchecked, allows the user to specify the font size they'd prefer? That's the route the other big browsers take. At the same time, I thought that the "Document font (+size)" in gnome's settings was intended to solve exactly this problem. Maybe that's really a discussion for bug 598645, so I'll repost my thoughts there. But as long as this bug depends on that, it probably shouldn't be marked 'resolved yet'.
We get the size from the GNOME/system fonts, and the UI allows you to set the sizes you want when that option is not checked. I have the impression you are writing on the bug without even knowing how the latest code works, but this is probably too crazy to be true? Also, please do not reopen bugs that the maintainers of the module consider closed. Feel free to open new bugs with any suggestions you have.
(In reply to comment #18) > While this option might "fix" the font size for some sites, it will break it > for other (properly designed) sites. IMHO, this makes "use system fonts" > unsuitable as a general preference, it should be site-specific instead. Perhaps > we could use an infobar-dialog when Epiphany detects that fonts are rendered > very small.[1] Many sites specify sizes relative to the default font size (using a percentage or some other relative font sizes specifier such as the css "small" keyword). Sites that use these kind of perfectly valid and reasonable font styles are the ones that break when default font size is too small. We have other bugs open in the Bugzilla addressing this, so we should probably move the discussoin there. https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=596396 https://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=598645
*** Bug 598645 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***