Closed Bug 225096 Opened 21 years ago Closed 15 years ago

Font too large for windows users now on the main site

Categories

(www.mozilla.org :: General, defect)

x86
Windows XP
defect
Not set
major

Tracking

(Not tracked)

RESOLVED WONTFIX

People

(Reporter: mscott, Assigned: dbaron)

References

()

Details

Attachments

(5 files)

I know we've been having some font issues on what font to use with the new
website and I'm trying to duck that issue :).

But the recent font change is now showing a font that is a couple sizes too
large on windows.
reassigning to brendan who was the person who championed the change
to the current setup.
Assignee: endico → brendan
Which Windows users? Not too big on IE6 here. If too big for some in IE, it's
their system (e.g. large fonts, in which case fonts should be big; or big
monitor; or low resolution) and/or IE (v4/v5/v5.5 has larger fonts than v6; or
non-medium text size setting) at fault, not our web page.

We are now 100% based, which is the right way for _every_ page to be. This
should be WONTFIX.

OTOH, as I inferred in bug 224263 proposed patch, color: #896834; where used,
remains insufficiently contrasty to/for/on a white background on systems
lacking anti-aliasing to make the apparent stroke weight heavier.
Um, I'm using firebird, and I'm sure most are.  Your screenshot clearly shows it
as being at least one size too large.  It's currently 2 sizes too large for me,
in comparison to a large majority of other sites that I visit.  Many others who
have seen the site see this as well.
It may be clear to you. It clearly is not to me. I'm over 40. Are you? What size
is your monitor? What is your resolution? What is your vision?

Are you saying that the 16px Mozilla.org product line's default is too big? Well
it isn't. 100% of the 16px Mozilla default is just right as long as 16px is what
the Mozilla default is.

100% of whatever default you have set Firebird to, or Jane Doe has set brand X
browser to, is as close to perfect as is possible, because 100% basing is always
as good as is possible, whether at 640x480 or 1800x1350 or 72 DPI or 144 DPI or
Verdana or Times Roman or anything else. You can't know what is just right for
anyone but you and your settings. 100% basing is the only way anyone can have
the "right" size. If it's wrong at 100% for you, then your system or POV need
adjustment, not the web page.

90%, as it was set before in body, is essentially saying to everyone "Whatever
your default is, it's too big for us, and we don't care what size is best for
you. Regardless your choice, 9px, 12px, 24px, 48px or whatever, we think it is
too big, and are doing something about it."
I'm not going to fix this, but dbaron might.

/be
Assignee: brendan → dbaron
For the record, I agree with comment 4.  I'm fairly disgusted that lots of
people apparently want to force font size down 90% on the new mozilla.org site,
but I'm not going to go try to "fix" things so that all users on all systems see
a font size that they like.  I do not believe, however, that the right solution
involves making Linux and Mac users suffer from bad Windows content authors'
habits, which seem to be geared toward cramming lots of tiny glyphs into
young-ish eyes.

Using Verdana, which has oversized lowercase letters, in combination with the
90% forced downsizing, seems to be just putting more nails into the coffin of
letting users pick their font size default.

It's up to dbaron, not because I'm a slacker (I am, but not on the system I use,
Linux -- I have to slack on Windows, because I don't care on a day to day basis,
and because I lack the expertise to fix this bug).  Mainly because only he, if
anyone, can pull off the CSS magic needed.

/be
> but I'm not going to go try to "fix" things so that all users on all systems see
> a font size that they like.

In case it's not obvious, that's impossible to do.  The only way to let users on
all systems see the font size they like is to respect their default font prefs.
 If IE has set different defaults from Mozilla's, then perhaps on Windows, we
need to do something (but in a backward-compatible way).  Not on Linux or Mac,
though.

/be
We're not using Verdana anymore, FWIW.  The list is "Tahoma, Arial, Helvetica,
sans-serif".
This should be dupe of bug 224263

> But the recent font change is now showing a font that is a couple sizes too
> large on windows.

Anyone who complains about the font size should be challenged to answer the
questions "what size is too large" and "what is too small".

As I see it, there are two people who will be concerned about text size: 1)
designers who need precise control over the type size, spacing, style, etc. to
produce aethestically pleasing / effective layout 2) reader who will otherwise
be penalized if the types are too small.

For the 1st group, this is WONTFIX since the major concern about type size is
x-height, not font size, and you don't have any kind of precise control anyway.

For the 2nd group, this is an obvious WONTFIX.

Why is the font size too big (or too small)? Because someone is not accustomed
to it? Then again when are you ever accustomed to any layout/type design? Is
there any standard font size for print, bill board, or the Web even? The answer
is "never". I'm voting WONTFIX.
*** Bug 225123 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
I feel strongly that we need to address the font, size and line spacing issue.  

I just reviewed 26 sites, including the most popular sites on the Net, Mozilla
related sites, browser related sites, technology related sites, Linux related
sites and open source sites.  Our default font is visibly large than 23 out of
the 26 sites I reviewed and our line spacing is larger than any of the sites
reviewed.  

I also tested the reference sites for readability on Linux.  21 out of 26 were
readable on Linux.  

See attachment for the list of sites, comments, URLs and screenshots.

Priority: -- → P1
To clarify: I'm saying that we need to address the overall issue of tightness of
the site, which includes both the font size and the line spacing issue.  The
line spacing issue (including bullet spacing on the homepage) is a major part of
the problem, and there doesn't seem to be much controversy on that, so that's an
obvious place to start.
I looked at these (from attachment survey) in IE6 fullscreen at 1024x768 small
(default) fonts:
1-MSN-fonts too small (and fixed in px)
2-AOL-fonts much too small
3-Yahoo-fonts too small
4-Fonts-too small
5-Google-fonts too small
7-Mozillazine-fonts too small
8-Mozdev-mostly OK
9-Netscape-fonts much too small (and fixed in px)
10-Safari-useless in IE6 (fonts fixed in px at sub-9px)
11-Opera-fonts too small
12-Cnet-fonts too small
13-Webmonkey-fonts much too small (and fixed in px)
14-Apple-some fonts much too small (9px or under fixed)
15-Sun-fonts too small (and fixed in px)
16-M$-perennial example of mousetype (e.g. how not to)
17-RedHat-fonts too small (and fixed in px)
18-Ximian-fonts too small (and fixed in px)
19-SuSE-fonts too small (and fixed in px)
20-Lindows-fonts too small (and fixed in px)
21-/.-Reasonable
22-Gnome-Reasonable
23-KDE-Reasonable
24-OpenOffice.org-fonts too small
25-Sourceforge-fonts to small (some much so & fixed in px)
26-W3C-probable best of the lot

What the sample really proves is not that we are too big, but that:
1-css has made the web harder to use than it used to be, or
2-the maintainers of those sites have good or better vision, or
3-the maintainers of those sites want maximum content in your viewport, or
4-the maintainers of those sites use giant monitors, or
5-the maintainers of those sites use low resolutions, or
6-the maintainers of those sites think your default is too big, and/or
7-the maintainers of those sites don't respect user default font choice

Personally, I don't see why enlarged line spacing is so popular among site
maintainers, but I'm not about to say it degrades any site's appearance or utility.
s/4-Fonts-too small/4-eBay-fonts too small/
Why is

     font-family: Verdana,Sans-serif;
     font-size: 90%;

back in body again? Have we decided respecting user default font choice is not
appropriate? Is http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=24846#c2 no longer true?
Felix: believe me, I'm at least as unhappy about this as you are.  We're stuck,
as many people predicted, unable to "tweak" a design that piles css hack on top
of hack, to compensate for the choice of Verdana.  First, downsizing 90% because
Verdana looks too big by default, then kludging up line height till the smaller
font looked less cramped vertically, then kludging top and bottom margins down
to zero for paragraphs and other containers.

Trying to change just one of these parameters (e.g., using Tahoma at default,
not at 90%) results in uglier layout.  Trying to fix all of these problems
before we launch the site will delay the launch beyond the endurance of those
involved in trying to get the new site up.

It's an open question to me whether these dog-piled hacks will be fixed in the
longer run, once we launch.  I certainly hope so.  But I personally don't have
the time to go through each page and try to optimize the look, after having
selected a better font, removed the 90% font size reduction, eliminated the
increased line-height, and zapped the zero vertical margins.  I hope someone does.

On the plus side, the new site updates our aged 1998 site's look.  The site has
been due for an update for years.  What we have on website-beta came from a
motivated volunteer.  We need more such motivated volunteers, but we do not want
more pages of CSS rules.  Can you help us fix the new site?  Will you?

/be
brendan: That's unfair.
We had a few groups of people in the past volunteer to redo the site,
e.g. the zope people. AFAIK they put together a serious design and were
willing to maintain it and respond to criticism. I don't remember hearing
anyone complain about their CSS. Their efforts stalled for years.

I did not see you defend their efforts or work to get their efforts into CVS.

The difference here is that a new person who was selected to run MF is now
driving the site in ways which established contributors (I'm counting you and
dbaron to avoid people complaining about my list) don't like. But you're
defending this new group and making requests of others to help them, when you
did not, to my knowledge, make similar overtures to the other groups.
> AFAIK they put together a serious design and were
> willing to maintain it and respond to criticism.

One problem they never overcame was the lack of revision control.

> I don't remember hearing anyone complain about their CSS. Their efforts
> stalled for years.

The stalling had more to do with organizing and re-organizing (and gratuitously
overcomplicating, in my opinion) the document hierarchy, than with look (CSS). 
There was also the "big bang" integration problem.  The new website-beta redoes
only a few pages, relatively speaking, and simply rewraps the rest.  The
zope-oriented effort wanted to redo almost everything, including pages and
indexes that we are conserving -- while at the same time, switch to a new
content management system.

"Big bang" integration attempts usually fail.  Doing five hard things at once,
where the success of the total project depends on each of five things, means the
odds of success multiple to a small fraction near zero.  You should ask yourself
why that particular effort stalled.  It wasn't because mozilla.org didn't want a
better web site.

/be
Felix: yes, the current front page (done in mid-July) is not bad, and is not the
"aged" 1998 look that I mentioned, regarding the site in general.  But I believe
that Ben, who did the front page, has no time now to own it.  So we are taking a
chance here that we can make a step backward, by some peoples' eyes, on the
front page, and make two steps forward (one for the site as a whole, the other
by fixing what's broken in the new design, soon).

/be
Brendan, other than the new content (sales and support), I see no need for a
new look, thus no rush to foist compromise with a fix later attitude.

I dislike fatso Verdana at anything resembling friendly sizes (15px+). It gets
uninstalled from my machines so that I never need see it except when
temporarily installed for testcases. I like Arial among common fonts. I don't
like Trubuchet all that much. Still, the Trebuchet 100% version from a few days
ago is a clear winner over today's as far as I'm concerned.

I think you're making too much of the line spacing issues, and too little of
broader issues. Extra line spacing is a typical (and poor) attempt at
compensation from those foisting undersized text upon users. It's rarely
appropriate with 100%-basing. Too much fret over spacing and positioning is
indicative of excess need to control, contra to good fluid design for the web.
Let's stay the course until what we want is well defined for all interested
parties, and apply
http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/attachment.cgi?id=134544&action=view to bug 224263
in the mean time.
Felix, I think you've misread me.  I don't want line-height fiddling.  I said
quite clearly in comment 17 that that was a kludge to try to compensate for the
reduced font size.  Why did you think I was in favor of it, when I clearly said
it was a bad hack (with others, such as zero vertical margins, then piled on top
of it), in that comment?

I'm saying that no one is volunteering to modify the current front page to
include the CD sales and other end-user information.  You're saying it would be
easy to do, but I don't hear you volunteering.

I agree the roadmap.html wrapping is poor -- in particular, the left-justified
heading followed by the centered authors' names.  That should be fixed too.

/be
Brendan, I don't think we disagree. I don't like the excess control so many
hacks represent, and would rather see few if any used. I like standard
line-height. I just think you had more than enough to say about line-height,
while I see it as a minor issue.

If all that needs doing is updating the home page to include the needed new
content, I could do that, and soon, but wouldn't do it without incorporating the
screen media css changes in the aforementioned patch. Point sizing is simply not
acceptable in anything I do, just as other than 100%-basing is unacceptable. Any
more on this issue belongs in bug 224263.

Also, I still don't have cvs access, and have no experience with changing
mozilla.org web pages other than submitting proposed changes to Gerv or akk.
Felix: line-height escalation was just one example I gave, and it was
interesting how it led to zero vertical margins.  There are too many
"over-control" hacks, I agree; I was simply citing several in a chain of hacks
to show how the problems are deep and not easily treated by "tweaks".

If you can come up with an alternative based on the current front page that
clearly addes the new content, I'll review it.  Website CVS access can be
granted in due course, and there are others who can help you check in now, so
don't worry about that.

/be
Updating url and summary--it's not the beta site anymore.
Summary: Font too large for windows users now on the beta site → Font too large for windows users now on the main site
QA Contact: imajes → stolenclover
Has this been resolved?
No this is not resolved. The fonts are too small, not too big. The old site rule
was 90%, while the new is small, which is about 89%
(http://lxr.mozilla.org/seamonkey/source/content/html/style/src/nsStyleUtil.cpp#198).
Domi and http://www.mozilla.org/css/cavendish/content.css both report 'body, td,
th, input {font-size: small; font-family: verdana, sans-serif;}' using current
trunk. That not only makes everyone see fonts smaller than their preference, but
also means win users get the very large (and largest commonly available) font,
while people without that font installed (many if not most non-win users)
invariably see something smaller, in many cases, much smaller. 
QA Contact: danielwang → www-mozilla-org
Product: mozilla.org → Websites
We should review this after the new design is in place and see if this is still
an issue.
Priority: P1 → --
Closing as wontfix since this relates to an old site design and the specific issue of the font being too large is no longer an issue.  For any discussion of the font being too small, please comment in

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=225639
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 15 years ago
Resolution: --- → WONTFIX
Component: www.mozilla.org → General
Product: Websites → www.mozilla.org
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