Hi everyone, I wanted to give everyone an update from an in-person conversation I had with Ryan (see...see...I do talk to people in person!) :-) Ryan and crew, I'm really glad you all are following through with documentation and doing all of the testing you are. Thank you!
If we're going to bias toward Liberation Sans based on the install base, we need to make sure we're testing with the version of Liberation Sans which is actually in widespread distribution in the context it'll be used (Linux). I believe that is the 1.07.* for Ubuntu at least, and I think that's true for the other Linux distros as well, due to some still unresolved(?) hinting problems with Liberation Sans 2.00. This is made tougher by the fact that I think Red Hat is distributing a font billed as 1.07 on their website, but I think is in fact 2.00 when you open up the tarball. I'm not positive about this...I spent a lot of time on this a couple weekends ago, and haven't touched it since, so I could be a bit rusty on it and may have been misreading things. It may also be that Liberation Sans 1.07.x has better diacritic support than Liberation Sans 2.00. Based on what Ryan showed me with 2.00, it's got a number of technical issues. In lieu of finding a reliable source to download Liberation Sans 1.07.x, I sent Ryan a copy of 1.07.3 from my machine, which I believe he's in the process of working with now. Rob On Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 12:58 PM, Ryan Kaldari <rkald...@wikimedia.org>wrote: > Yes, we only looked at Latin fonts. We are working on an FAQ, however, that > explains how wikis that use non-Latin scripts can specify their own font > stack using MediaWiki:Vector.css. > > Ryan Kaldari > > > On Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 12:26 PM, Alolita Sharma <asha...@wikimedia.org > >wrote: > > > Ryan, > > > > This is useful. Am I assuming accurately that you looked only at Latin > > language fonts focused on English. Did you consider Google webfonts too. > > > > I would be interested in reusing your test criteria for other language > > fonts too. Thanks for your efforts so far. > > > > Best > > Alolita > > On Mar 3, 2014 11:57 AM, "Ryan Kaldari" <rkald...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > > > > > I spent most of Friday working on font evaluation with the designers. > > First > > > I presented them with a blind "taste test" of 10 potential body fonts. > 7 > > of > > > them were FOSS fonts, 3 were commercial. Each one was used to render an > > > identical section of Lorem Ipsum text in a MedaWiki page. Each font was > > > given a "style" score based on readability, neutrality, and "authority" > > > (does the font look like it conveys reliable information). > Interestingly, > > > of the 4 fonts that they preferred, 3 of them were the commercial > fonts. > > > The only FOSS font that scored highly was Liberation Sans. > > > > > > Next, I did a blind technical evaluation. For this, I used each of the > 10 > > > fonts to render combining diacritics, ties, and other "obscure" Unicode > > > features. Then I gave each font a score based on how many problems it > had > > > rendering the characters. > > > > > > Finally, I researched the installation base of each font, i.e. what > > > operating systems it is installed on by default and also gave scores > for > > > this. > > > > > > The results can be seen at > > > > > > > > > https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Typography_refresh/Font_choice#Body_font_evaluation > > > . > > > > > > The highest scoring fonts were: Arial, Helvetica, Helvetica Neue, and > > > Liberation Sans, so I'm going to suggest that all of these fonts be > > > included in the body stack, with the preference order based on the > > "style" > > > scores. Although Liberation Sans and Helvetica Neue tied on the style > > > score, I'm going to suggest that Liberation Sans go first since it is a > > > FOSS font: > > > > > > div#content { > > > font-family: Liberation Sans, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, > > > sans-serif; > > > } > > > > > > Additional feedback is welcome. > > > > > > Ryan Kaldari > > > > > > > > > > > > > > > On Sat, Oct 26, 2013 at 9:43 AM, Brad Jorsch (Anomie) < > > > bjor...@wikimedia.org > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > I came across Gerrit change 79948[1] today, which makes "VectorBeta" > > > > use a pile of non-free fonts (with one free font thrown in at the end > > > > as a sop). Is this really the direction we want to go, considering > > > > that in many other areas we prefer to use free software whenever we > > > > can? > > > > > > > > Looking around a bit, I see this has been discussed in some "back > > > > corners"[2][3] (no offense intended), but not on this list and I > don't > > > > see any place where free versus non-free was actually discussed > rather > > > > than being brought up and then seemingly ignored. > > > > > > > > In case it helps, I did some searching through mediawiki/core and > > > > WMF-deployed extensions for font-family directives containing > non-free > > > > fonts. The results are at > > > > https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/User:Anomie/font-family (use of > > > > non-staff account intentional). > > > > > > > > > > > > [1]: https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/79948 > > > > [2]: > > > > > > > > > > https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Wikimedia_Foundation_Design/Typography#Arial.3F_18136 > > > > [3]: https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=44394 > > > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > Wikitech-l mailing list > > > > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Wikitech-l mailing list > > > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikitech-l mailing list > > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > > > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l > _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
