Re: Default font for the web site

[Paul Morris]

> On Mar 2, 2016, at 6:08 PM, Simon Albrecht <address@hidden> wrote:
> 
> <https://sourceforge.net/p/testlilyissues/issues/4771/> made me think that we 
> really should specify a default font for our web site. 

I think specifying a default font is probably a good idea.  This raises a 
couple of related issues in addition to which font to specify.

We could either (A) rely on users having the font installed in their OS or (B) 
provide the font as a “web font”[1] (in compressed WOFF format[2]) that gets 
downloaded and used by the browser when someone visits the site.  

(A) OS-installed fonts
Often this approach means using one of a handful of “web safe fonts”[3] that 
are more likely to be installed.  However, as wikipedia says "most linux 
distributions don't include these fonts by default” and I’m not sure whether or 
not these fonts would be suitable for a free software project like LilyPond.  
We could specify a font like “TeX Gyre Schola” but it will only be used if a 
user has it installed.  Another wrinkle is that it is possible to specify more 
than one font so that there’s a primary font and one or more fallback fonts...

(B) web fonts
This approach gives us more control, assuring that the same font is used 
everywhere and the site looks the same regardless of the OS or what fonts users 
have installed.  The trade-off is that there is more to download when the user 
visits the site, so the first page loaded from the site is a little slower, but 
I’m not sure whether this difference would be noticeable or not.  The TeX Gyre 
fonts are available in WOFF format.[4]

[1] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/CSS/@font-face
[2] https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/Guide/WOFF
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_typography#Web-safe_fonts
[4] 
http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fonts/list/find_fonts?q[term]=Tex+Gyre&q[search_check]=Y


Another question is whether to use a serif or a sans-serif font.  There is a 
debate about whether serif or sans-serif is easier to read on screens/websites. 
 (Keeping the current serif style is the path of least resistance, of course.)

-Paul