Re: Debian Games Team website
Hello, Nils Dagsson!
Thanks for pointing out this issue!
I'm using "Glyphicons"[0] to show small icons on the page. They're
part of Bootstrap, a largely used web framework.
This issue, where it shows strange symbols, occurs when it's unable
to load a font that's present on the Git repository. But I tested
the site on several browsers, across different operational systems
and distros and it seemed OK.
I agree with the point that it should have Unicode characters,
but the support for individual glyphs is somewhat sparse [1].
So I've decided to provide both alternatives - use custom font
for modern browsers (with the @font-face attribute) and an
Unicode fallback with look-alike glyphs.
I hope the website gets displayed nicely now.
If you still have issues with it feel free to point them out,
I'm glad to work on the Games Team website.
Also, thanks for the link to that chart and congratulations for
your hard work! I heard about GNU Unifont before and am glad to
be able to talk to you.
Cheers,
Alexandre Dantas
[0]: http://getbootstrap.com/components/#glyphicons
[1]: http://unicode.johnholtripley.co.uk/all/os
On 08/14/2014 10:01 AM, Nils Dagsson Moskopp wrote:
> Alexandre Dantas <eu@alexdantas.net> writes:
>
>> So, back to the team website; I made a draft that anyone can see live
>> here[4] and the entire code is available on a Git repository[5].
>
> I looked at it and saw that you used quite some weird characters on the
> page. Likely, the font you used on your development machine does contain
> the characters you want to show there, but most, if not all other fonts
> will differ at that place. This means that the page is only looks right
> if the browser is using the font that you used during development.
>
> This is similar to including characters in a text file that only looks
> correct if the user has Wingdings installed – and hampers accessibility,
> interoperability and maintainability in similar ways.
>
> I am seeing the following glyphs on the page that are probably not quite
> what you intended: The digit 7 in a filled box () besides “Get
> Involved”, the ligature for fl () besides “Wiki”, some kind of cross
> () besides “Packages”, a small serif p () besides “Choose Theme”, the
> number 8 in an outlined box () besides “Alioth Project”, a 4 lowered
> below the baseline () besides “Introductory Information”, the number 19
> in an outlined box () besides “Various useful links”.
>
> Do not dismiss this – I actually thought that “Introductory Information”
> was section 4 and tried to scroll up until I realized that there are no
> sections 1 to 3. But do not worry: This happens to be a common mistake
> among new web developers and can easily be fixed – just use the right
> Unicode codepoints!
>
> I can infer from the class name “glyphicon-book” that you want to show
> the glyph for “book” besides “Wiki”. Unicode has several characters for
> books, like U+1F4D3 NOTEBOOK (📓), U+1F4D5 CLOSED BOOK (📕) or U+1F4D6
> OPEN BOOK (📖). See <http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U1F300.pdf> for a
> non-exhaustive list of miscellaneous symbols and pictographs.
>
> (Disclaimer: I have drawn lots of Unicode symbols for GNU Unifont.)
>
> Greetings,
>
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