Use different font for headers (with full Unicode support)

[VVelda]

Hello,
please, consider to use different font for headers used in description of scripts. Actual one doesn't have even diacritics letters.

Example: (look at "Změny ve verzích")
https://openuserjs.org/scripts/vvelda/Export_kontakt%C5%AF_z_Email.cz

[Martii]

EDITED

Welcome and thanks for the report.

please, consider to use different font for headers used in description of scripts. Actual one doesn't have even diacritics letters.

Example: (look at "Změny ve verzích")
https://openuserjs.org/scripts/vvelda/Export_kontakt%C5%AF_z_Email.cz#zm-ny-ve-verz-ch-

Only issue I see though is your ě does have the diacritic here. The font-family ordering is here via Firebug as "Squada One","Helvetica Neue",Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif and each of those is showing your ě with diacritical mark for me.

1. I believe the first step would be to figure out your issue is to see what your user agent is so I can be on the same browser. e.g. http://whatsmyuseragent.com/ and have you post that string.
2. Screenshots are always a good thing... in a few I'll add mine to this post... I have to do that in a different profile as GitHub doesn't like my security for uploads in this one.
3. Are you running any Add-on/Extension that may block font downloads? e.g. Clean profile?
4. Check your system for "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica and Arial... if Windows then it's probably a .ttf or .otf file... each Linux distro is different with fonts but X11 should have a list somewhere... same with OSX.
5. The last one is usually web defaults and defined in your browsers settings/options... so they should have your ě.

In the meantime I will add a recheck of "Squada One" to my TODO list as google occasionally updates that font. Their Unicode letters are a bit bulky here but I'll see if that's been updated as well.

Please let us know if there can be any further assistance or if you have any other suggestions.

---

• Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/534.57.2 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.1.7 Safari/534.57.2 (top left)
• Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:44.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/44.0 (bottom left)
• Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/48.0.2564.116 Safari/537.36 (top right)
• Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/48.0.2564.82 Safari/537.36 OPR/35.0.2066.37 (middle right)
• Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:42.0) Gecko/20100101 SeaMonkey/2.39 (bottom right)

PASS Diacritical marks all present.

---

• Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:42.0) Gecko/20100101 SeaMonkey/2.39 (top left)
• Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/48.0.2564.97 Safari/537.36 (top right)
• Mozilla/5.0 (X11; Linux x86_64; rv:38.9) Gecko/20100101 Goanna/2.0 Firefox/38.9 PaleMoon/26.0.3 (bottom left)
• Opera/9.80 (X11; Linux x86_64) Presto/2.12.388 Version/12.16 (bottom right)

PASS Diacritical marks all present.

---

Hash on current static "Squada One":

$ sha256sum SquadaOne-Regular.ttf
7fb11ce5541246c83ebc3640543c9f53de186964bcbbf184c1a00cb9ec6cc457  SquadaOne-Regular.ttf

Hash on current remote downloaded "Squada One" via redirect:

$ sha256sum SquadaOne-Regular.ttf
7fb11ce5541246c83ebc3640543c9f53de186964bcbbf184c1a00cb9ec6cc457  SquadaOne-Regular.ttf

PASS No update from prior update of #827

[Martii]

@VVelda

Actual one doesn't have even diacritics letters.

Okay... so did some investigation and your sentence was a little ambiguous at first and was steering me in a different direction... but you are correct in the context that SquadaOne-Regular.ttf doesn't have as many characters as Arial for example which is why your ě is as I mentioned with:

Their Unicode letters are a bit bulky here

... and is because it's falling back to "Helvetica Neue" for that letter.

Your mission, should you decide to accept, is to find a font that is similar to SquadaOne-Regular with spacing and shape or contribute to that font repository that I just added into our dispersed statics in the README.md and add every Unicode character there. ;) e.g. I would suggest opening an issue on that repository and see if they'll do it... if not... perhaps you can... if not... wait... if not... wait again. :)

@sizzlemctwizzle
Your mission is also to find a font that is similar to Squada-One with spacing (especially horizontal fit) and shape. I know you like that font but it hasn't been updated in more than a year... and is now proving to be a visual distraction in the UI which is the real issue here.

As far as myself I'm labeling this as later, enhancement, and tracking upstream... it's not completely critical to UI interaction and there is the fall back to the next font family name.

If I come by a font that is similar that has more Unicode characters (I really don't know of any font that has them all personally) that is similiar I'll drop in some linkage here... this is one of those things that needs developers out there to assist creators.

---

P.S. Font should be open-source and has to have no restrictions on redistribution... and technically no restrictions at all (example SIL OPEN FONT LICENSE). We have no issues with giving attribution but FOSS is the general goal of OUJS... let us aim to keep it that way please. :)... recommend .ttf as well as preferably woff, woff2, eot, svg fonts included but not completely necessary as they can be transformed like "Squada One".

[Martii]

Here's an example at http://allfont.net/download/pt-sans-narrow/ (unconfirmed if it has as many Unicode characters as needed but is http://scripts.sil.org/OFL) EDIT: Closer weight match at http://allfont.net/download/pt-sans-narrow-bold/ but same... although would be nice to control that via CSS.

Refs:

• CSS letter-spacing using negative values

---

[VVelda]

@Martii Thanks for reply.

First sentence isn't ambiguous, let's see (all of the letters are missing in Squada One font):

č, ď, ě, ň, ř, š, ť, ž, ů, ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ, ŭ, š, ž, ž, š, č, ć, đ, ā, ē, ī, ū, č, š, ž, ļ, ķ, ņ, ģ, ő, ű, ą, ć, ę, ł, ń,ś, ź, ż, ă, ș, ț, č, ď, ň, ŕ, š, ť, ž, ş, ğ, ă, đ, ơ, ư

That is Czech, Estonian, Croatian, Latvian, Hungarian, Polish, Rumunian, Slovak, Turkish and Vietnamese. That is a huge number of languages, so it is totally unusable font for global site.

And it look that PT Sand Narrow have all ot them, so it's truly better choice.

[Martii]

@sizzlemctwizzle
Assuming we go with that font I finally got it downloaded after a series of annoying captchas... but they've added a non-commercial restriction on the download of it... so I'm not sure it would apply. You'll need to make that decision to figure it out.

@VVelda
We'll have to discuss this further... and we still need some assistance finding one that is suitable. One option isn't enough.

There are some language barriers here as your sentence structure is difficult to comprehend as well as the placement of what you were asking for... but I understand that en-US isn't everywhere. Luckily I have training in world markets so I try my best to be patient and courteous. I appreciate your patience as well.

@jesus2099
Asking you to come into this fold as I would like to know from your expertise how this particular font change would affect Chinese on the site... or if you have a recommendation on a suitable replacement for the header fonts besides the browser/operating system stock ones.

[jesus2099]

For info, the Vietnamese characters are (those not covered by basic latin panes):

ảạ ắằẳẵặ ấầẩẫậ ẻẹ ếềểễệ ỉị ỏọ ớờởỡợ ốồổỗộ ủụ ứừửữự ỳỷỹỵ đ
ẢẠ ẮẰẲẴẶ ẤẦẨẪẬ ẺẸ ẾỀỂỄỆ ỈỊ ỎỌ ỚỜỞỠỢ ỐỒỔỖỘ ỦỤ ỨỪỬỮỰ ỲỶỸỴ Đ

They don’t seem covered by http://allfont.net/download/pt-sans-narrow-bold/ which, I think, might be focusing on European scripts.

But I don’t really mind as the character fallback is usually OK for me, I had not notice anything annoying.

I have never really looked into finding alternative fonts to what the OS is providing, so I don’t know of any good font repository, etc.
But taking a font, like this one, that covers more characters cannot be bad, I think. :)

[Martii]

@jesus2099
Awesome and yikes... thank you for that explanation and helping out. I'll have to do some more digging but other higher priority issues are in my queue for now... just thought I'd take a respite from the other issue research and see what is really needed here.

@VVelda
Your example of:

č, ď, ě, ň, ř, š, ť, ž, ů, ĉ, ĝ, ĥ, ĵ, ŝ, ŭ, š, ž, ž, š, č, ć, đ, ā, ē, ī, ū, č, š, ž, ļ, ķ, ņ, ģ, ő, ű, ą, ć, ę, ł, ń,ś, ź, ż, ă, ș, ț, č, ď, ň, ŕ, š, ť, ž, ş, ğ, ă, đ, ơ, ư

... is missing ơ, ư in both PT Sans Narrow and PT Sans Bold from above... so that may disqualify it according to your criteria.

[VVelda]

What about OpenSans – it's look like it's have all diacritics including Vietnamese. It is licensed under Apache licence, so it is FOSS, but I don't know if it is suitable...

Still, PT Sans > Squada One in Unicode support.

[Martii]

@VVelda
Remember it has to be narrow and similar to SquadaOne... I'm about to head afk for now but I'll look at it's kerning and shape tomorrow'ish. I'm also guessing that that is probably similar to sans-serif which is OS derived... so it might not be much of change. Besides being a feature of the site sizzle does have some fondness for the SquadaOne font... so I'd like to maintain at least a similar appearance. The narrowness has proven to be a benefit to the site but also one hindrance that I overrode in the CSS for some notifications.

bootstrap is working on some major changes too which could affect presentation of the site but it is not ready yet.

Plus we have certain portions of the community going "gung-ho" on svg now for icons which will complicate some things. I don't think that sect realizes svg isn't a total answer... not to mention the size of svg vs. woff2 fonts.

The "OpenUserJS" in the header and footer can stay SquadaOne but what is being asked here is a bit more than the User Content area which contains the headers you mentioned. It's also the "Bread crumbs" for the Author and Script name at the top of script homepages, Discussion headers, etc.