Media Lab Forums

tsummerall · Site Admin Joined: 29 Sep 2005 Posts: 1714

Media Lab is eager to pounce once the industry decides upon and supports a font embedding technology for web pages. It's a no-brainer for SiteGrinder.

Is this a step forward?
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/home_blog/2010/05/the-changing-typography-of-the-web.html

If you are unfamiliar with the diversity of feelings about the importance of form vs. content on the web I'd advise you to peruse the comments on the site "slasshdot" regarding this. Warning STRONG OPINIONS:
http://tech.slashdot.org/story/10/05/05/1754202/Font-Foundries-Opening-Up-To-the-Web

tsummerall · Site Admin Joined: 29 Sep 2005 Posts: 1714

Is anyone else disappointed by technologies that seem to always be "ten years away"? This includes nuclear fusion, natural language speech recognition, and, seemingly, arbitrary web fonts.

The worst thing about the delay of web fonts is that the obstacles are entirely legal and bureaucratic instead of technological.

Chris Perkins · Site Admin Joined: 29 Sep 2005 Posts: 5665

I had a relatively simple idea for web font licensing. A web foundry could make all its fonts online but would only serve them to incoming requests that had a known referring domain.

So, if I want to use a font I would license it from the foundry for may domain xyz.com and when any user visits my page the request would go to the web foundry with a referrer of 'xyz.com' and it would serve the typeface. And if it didn't recognize the referring domain, it wouldn't.

Of course, there are a dozen ways this will fail or be hacked. But it seems close enough.

andywaldrop · Joined: 09 May 2008 Posts: 93 Location: Chapel Hill, NC

I'm really digging this new web font directory:

http://code.google.com/webfonts

Open source, Google support, and even gives appropriate step downs.

This list is sure to expand in the coming months.

tsummerall · Site Admin Joined: 29 Sep 2005 Posts: 1714

Have you been doing this with SiteGrinder?

I think the steps would be:

1. Download and install fonts
2. Use the fonts wherever you like in the -text areas of your design
3. Paste the link for the fonts you used in the head section area of SiteGrinder's new page settings

Links look like this:

andywaldrop · Joined: 09 May 2008 Posts: 93 Location: Chapel Hill, NC

Hey Tom,

No I haven't tried this yet within SiteGrinder, but seems easy enough. I'll have to give it a try.

Allucinari · Joined: 18 Jul 2010 Posts: 1

I noticed that fonts.com basically did this. I am sure as they are a commercial entity, there will be a catch. Will it just be an added bonus for buying a font from them or will it be an on going license fee?

Anyone have any experience using their "free" solution with site grinder?

pawleyboboli · Joined: 13 Jul 2010 Posts: 14 Location: Cambridge MA

Here's an example of a site I did in SG2 which uses a font I own "Futura" :
http://giftedhand.com/index.html

I created the web version of my font by using this utility:
http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fontface/generator which provides a zip package of the font in several formats for different browsers, a CSS file, and a sample page showing you how to use it in your site.

Unfortunately, I could not figure out how to integrate this in SG2, so I had to do the custom CSS parts in Dreamweaver after building the site.

Now I need to do this again, but this time with SG3. It looks like SG3 will support moving the custom font files into the externalmedia folder... is this possible? Do I draw some rect somewhere on the page in Photoshop and link the font files that way? Then I guess I would have to customize the CSS to point to those font files in that path. Would I also put the CSS into the externalmedia folder via a PS layer, and then add a <link> to the header in the Design Manager for each page? Or do I use a Snippet Importer for that?

The reason I want to try to do it all through SG3 instead of Dreamweaver is because I want to use the Control CMS in SG3, which disables any editing by other applications.

Thanks for any help,
PB

andywaldrop · Joined: 09 May 2008 Posts: 93 Location: Chapel Hill, NC

This works very well with sitegrinder. Use the font you would like to use in your photoshop file. The in the SG UI all you have to do is add the head code from this site: http://code.google.com/webfonts

That's it! You now can use any font in the Google font base.

pawleyboboli · Joined: 13 Jul 2010 Posts: 14 Location: Cambridge MA

Thanks Andy.

One more thing... is there a way to designate what alternative font family will be used if the custom font won't work in a particular browser? Example: this site works great in most browsers http://drewblanckenberg.com/drew-home.php and uses a custom font for that menu at the top.

It does wig out on mobile devices though, and substitutes a serif font "Times" I think and one that it too large causing the menu to wrap. Is there a way I can force "ariel" or some san-serif font if my custom font will not work?

thanks for any help
--PB

andywaldrop · Joined: 09 May 2008 Posts: 93 Location: Chapel Hill, NC

Yes, there is a way to make that edit in the code. You need to edit your common CSS file named, "drew-bwebsg-0104_common.css"

Do a find and replace for this:

Find this:

QlassikMedium, "Qlassik Medium";

Replace with this:

QlassikMedium, "Qlassik Medium", arial, sans-serif;

Make sure you replace all instances where that font is used. That should do it.

pawleyboboli · Joined: 13 Jul 2010 Posts: 14 Location: Cambridge MA

how will this be affected with the "Control" add-on? Sometimes the client makes edits to the site via the online Content Manager, and sometimes I do. Will the Content Manager over-write any custom code I put in?

thanks,

PB

Chris Perkins · Site Admin Joined: 29 Sep 2005 Posts: 5665

the Content Manager does not touch the CSS. So long as you are making the changes Andy describes to your site, and not to the build before it is deployed, then you'll be ok.