Re: JavaScript & Fonts

From: Jukka K. Korpela (jkorpela@cs.tut.fi)
Date: Mon Nov 02 2009 - 09:46:26 CST

  • Next message: Michael D'Errico: "Re: JavaScript & Fonts"

    vanisaac@boil.afraid.org wrote:

    >> My conclusion is that in cases like this, an author should create a
    >> suitable image of the character, in the intended environment–in
    >> practice, a button of the same style as those based on characters
    >> when rendered in a typical way. That is, to take an image of the
    >> button rendered using some nice font (DejaVu Sans?) and edit it in a
    >> graphics program to make it somewhat more legible.
    >
    > There is one big problem with this approach, which is that images
    > don't generally scale.

    Images can be scaled, and browsers have become better in this. You can use
    an image in an HTML document and set its height in em units (i.e. relative
    to font size) in CSS, and browsers will scale it accordingly (preserving the
    width to height ratio). This is not ideal, and it would be better to be able
    to use characters, but in a situation like the one discussed, it's probably
    the best approach in practice. - Besides, the page discussed sets font size
    in fixed units, thereby declaring text to be non-scaleable (though browsers
    may ignore that).

    The question whether we should use a character or an image is a practical
    one, not a matter of principles. When the question is raised, there is
    usually at least one considerable drawback in using a character - otherwise
    one would just use a character and not ask at all.

    -- 
    Yucca, http://www.cs.tut.fi/~jkorpela/ 
    


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