Having problems viewing fonts? (Call for Guinea Pigs!)

Questions and discussion about B-Greek policies or the B-Greek forum.

Can you see the text correctly?

Yes
24
96%
No
1
4%
 
Total votes: 25

Jonathan Robie
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Location: Durham, NC
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Re: Having problems viewing fonts? (Call for Guinea Pigs!)

Post by Jonathan Robie »

sccarlson wrote:Change that. The problem I'm having is that "Microsoft Sans Serif" font is an old VGA font on my system, so it is not anti-aliased or anything that makes it appear nice.

Did someone request or need this font to be so high on the list before Tahoma or Arial?
I have now put them in this order:

1. Arial - vanilla, available everywhere, lots of characters
2. Tahoma
3. Microsoft Sans-Serif
4. sans-serif (fallback)

Every new and fancy font seems to work better on some systems than others, so I'm putting the old standbys first.

This means IE6 users have problems with some characters, unless they upgrade to IE7, IE8, or IE9. Or IE6 users on lame boxes can upgrade to the Opera browser at http://www.opera.com.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
David Lim
Posts: 901
Joined: June 6th, 2011, 6:55 am

Re: Having problems viewing fonts? (Call for Guinea Pigs!)

Post by David Lim »

Jonathan Robie wrote:If these letters match the attachment, you are doing fine:

ἀ έ ῃ ϊ ὸ ῥ ϋ ᾧ

If not, please tell me:

1. What operating system you are using
2. What Web browser
3. Which of the following fonts do you have installed:

Palatino Linotype
Lucida Grande
Gentium
Abyssinica SIL
Hmm just a few days ago I could see them perfectly, because I have Gentium (using Firefox 2.0.0.20 on Win 98), but now I can't. Can Gentium be added back to the list? :)
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Nigel Chapman
Posts: 74
Joined: June 3rd, 2011, 4:55 pm
Location: Sydney Australia
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Re: Having problems viewing fonts? (Call for Guinea Pigs!)

Post by Nigel Chapman »

Hi David,

Preferring Gentium without limiting it to just the Greek characters has already been shown to diminish readability for other readers.

Could you tell me if the following process works on your system.

1. Create a new bookmark (I called mine 'Gentrify')
2. Paste the following text into the 'Location' field (no spaces):

Code: Select all

javascript:regexp=/([\u0370-\u037D\u0386-\u0386\u0388-\u03FF\u1F00-\u1FFF][\u0370-\u037D\u0386-\u0386\u0388-\u03FF\u1F00-\u1FFF\s]*[\u0370-\u037D\u0386-\u0386\u0388-\u03FF\u1F00-\u1FFF]?)/g;markup='<span%20class="greek">$1</span>';divs=document.getElementsByTagName("DIV");for(d=0;d<divs.length;d++){if(divs[d].className.indexOf('postbody')==0){divs[d].innerHTML=divs[d].innerHTML.replace(regexp,markup);}}head=document.getElementsByTagName("HEAD");for(d=0;d<divs.length;d++){newStyle="<style>.greek{font-family:Gentium;font-size:116%;line-height:145%;}</style>";divs[d].innerHTML=divs[d].innerHTML+newStyle;}void(false);
3. Save the bookmark,
4. Go to a page containing Greek characters; e.g. the fourth page of this thread.
5. Click the bookmark.

If this works, your Greek characters now display in Gentium. I suspect, though, Firefox 2.0 is too archaic, and you would need FF 3.0 and equivalent. Have you considered Xubuntu as a free alternative to Win98? The XFCE window manager is incredibly lightweight and will run on almost any old hardware. You can probably find it for $10-15 on a Linux magazine-and-DVD at your local newsagent.

http://xubuntu.org/

For anyone else who wants to try this, you can replace "Gentium" in the above bookmark with whatever font you prefer. Just don't run it more than once on a page; the Greek text will keep increasing in size out of proportion to the English text.
"When eras die their legacies are left to strange police." -- Clarence Day
Nigel Chapman | http://chapman.id.au
Jonathan Robie
Posts: 4158
Joined: May 5th, 2011, 5:34 pm
Location: Durham, NC
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Re: Having problems viewing fonts? (Call for Guinea Pigs!)

Post by Jonathan Robie »

Just did a little reading, looks like Windows 98 supports True Type fonts.

We might be able to support Windows 98 / Firefox in several ways:

1. Use Freesans, and ask Windows 98 people to install that font
2. Use Gentium, knowing full well that it's uglier, but also that it supports all the characters.

Why not go with Freesans? David - if we agree on Freesans, could you test that for us? Perhaps with more than one browser?

I agree with Nigel that Linux operating systems, which are free, work great with Unicode and work very well on ancient, wimpy hardware. I'm a Fedora guy. But I don't expect anyone to change their operating system just to get our site to look right.

Jonathan
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Jonathan Robie
Posts: 4158
Joined: May 5th, 2011, 5:34 pm
Location: Durham, NC
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Re: Having problems viewing fonts? (Call for Guinea Pigs!)

Post by Jonathan Robie »

I have now added FreeSans.

Windows 98 users: please install the FreeSans fonts from here:

http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/freefont/freefont-ttf.zip

Once you have installed, let me know if you can read polytonic Greek on this site. If you can try this with more than one Web browser, all the better - I don't know if I'll get IE6 to work or not this way.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Jason Hare
Posts: 951
Joined: June 2nd, 2011, 5:28 pm
Location: Tel Aviv, Israel
Contact:

Re: Having problems viewing fonts? (Call for Guinea Pigs!)

Post by Jason Hare »

Nigel Chapman wrote:Hi David,

Preferring Gentium without limiting it to just the Greek characters has already been shown to diminish readability for other readers.

Could you tell me if the following process works on your system.

1. Create a new bookmark (I called mine 'Gentrify')
2. Paste the following text into the 'Location' field (no spaces):

Code: Select all

javascript:regexp=/([\u0370-\u037D\u0386-\u0386\u0388-\u03FF\u1F00-\u1FFF][\u0370-\u037D\u0386-\u0386\u0388-\u03FF\u1F00-\u1FFF\s]*[\u0370-\u037D\u0386-\u0386\u0388-\u03FF\u1F00-\u1FFF]?)/g;markup='<span%20class="greek">$1</span>';divs=document.getElementsByTagName("DIV");for(d=0;d<divs.length;d++){if(divs[d].className.indexOf('postbody')==0){divs[d].innerHTML=divs[d].innerHTML.replace(regexp,markup);}}head=document.getElementsByTagName("HEAD");for(d=0;d<divs.length;d++){newStyle="<style>.greek{font-family:Gentium;font-size:116%;line-height:145%;}</style>";divs[d].innerHTML=divs[d].innerHTML+newStyle;}void(false);
3. Save the bookmark,
4. Go to a page containing Greek characters; e.g. the fourth page of this thread.
5. Click the bookmark.

If this works, your Greek characters now display in Gentium.
WOW!! Thanks for that!! Absolutely amazing.
Jason A. Hare
The Hebrew Café
Tel Aviv, Israel
Stephen Carlson
Posts: 3350
Joined: May 11th, 2011, 10:51 am
Location: Melbourne
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Re: Having problems viewing fonts? (Call for Guinea Pigs!)

Post by Stephen Carlson »

Jason Hare wrote:WOW!! Thanks for that!! Absolutely amazing.
I want to second this. Great job, Nigel!
Stephen C. Carlson, Ph.D.
Melbourne, Australia
David Lim
Posts: 901
Joined: June 6th, 2011, 6:55 am

Re: Having problems viewing fonts? (Call for Guinea Pigs!)

Post by David Lim »

Nigel Chapman wrote:Hi David,

Preferring Gentium without limiting it to just the Greek characters has already been shown to diminish readability for other readers.

Could you tell me if the following process works on your system.

1. Create a new bookmark (I called mine 'Gentrify')
2. Paste the following text into the 'Location' field (no spaces):

Code: Select all

javascript:regexp=/([\u0370-\u037D\u0386-\u0386\u0388-\u03FF\u1F00-\u1FFF][\u0370-\u037D\u0386-\u0386\u0388-\u03FF\u1F00-\u1FFF\s]*[\u0370-\u037D\u0386-\u0386\u0388-\u03FF\u1F00-\u1FFF]?)/g;markup='<span%20class="greek">$1</span>';divs=document.getElementsByTagName("DIV");for(d=0;d<divs.length;d++){if(divs[d].className.indexOf('postbody')==0){divs[d].innerHTML=divs[d].innerHTML.replace(regexp,markup);}}head=document.getElementsByTagName("HEAD");for(d=0;d<divs.length;d++){newStyle="<style>.greek{font-family:Gentium;font-size:116%;line-height:145%;}</style>";divs[d].innerHTML=divs[d].innerHTML+newStyle;}void(false);
3. Save the bookmark,
4. Go to a page containing Greek characters; e.g. the fourth page of this thread.
5. Click the bookmark.

If this works, your Greek characters now display in Gentium. I suspect, though, Firefox 2.0 is too archaic, and you would need FF 3.0 and equivalent. Have you considered Xubuntu as a free alternative to Win98? The XFCE window manager is incredibly lightweight and will run on almost any old hardware. You can probably find it for $10-15 on a Linux magazine-and-DVD at your local newsagent.

http://xubuntu.org/

For anyone else who wants to try this, you can replace "Gentium" in the above bookmark with whatever font you prefer. Just don't run it more than once on a page; the Greek text will keep increasing in size out of proportion to the English text.
I really don't understand; I have not done a single thing but now can see the characters!! Amazing..
Anyway for Funk's Grammar and this forum I already had a back-up bookmark in case the problem is not easily solved:
javascript:document.body.style.fontFamily=%22Gentium%22;document.body.style.fontSize=%2212px%22;void(0);
It will just change everything in document.body to the Gentium font ;)
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Jonathan Robie
Posts: 4158
Joined: May 5th, 2011, 5:34 pm
Location: Durham, NC
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Re: Having problems viewing fonts? (Call for Guinea Pigs!)

Post by Jonathan Robie »

David Lim wrote:I really don't understand; I have not done a single thing but now can see the characters!! Amazing.
Do you happen to have FreeSans installed? If so, that would explain it, I added FreeSans back to the font list.

Were you having the same problem with the Funk Grammar?
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
Jonathan Robie
Posts: 4158
Joined: May 5th, 2011, 5:34 pm
Location: Durham, NC
Contact:

Re: Having problems viewing fonts? (Call for Guinea Pigs!)

Post by Jonathan Robie »

OK, we have at least one holdout. If you're person who voted "no", please see if the fonts show up properly now. If they do, please change your vote; if they do not, please comment here or send me email at jonathan.robie@ibiblio.org and tell me what operating system and browser you are on.
ἐξίσταντο δὲ πάντες καὶ διηποροῦντο, ἄλλος πρὸς ἄλλον λέγοντες, τί θέλει τοῦτο εἶναι;
http://jonathanrobie.biblicalhumanities.org/
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