More fonts, possibly?

[Lady Odyssey]

Personally, I love fonts. They offer unique styles and visualizations that please the eye. Given, this site does not have much of a selection to choose from, and I was wondering if it was a possibility to add more to the selection gradually; a few fonts at a time would be lovely! Of course, you can keep the selection, but maybe we can insert our own fonts by coding? I think it would be quite fun to tamper with, but if this is not possible, I completely understand. I was just wondering how difficult it would be to incorporate/include with everything else, and if you were already looking into it. Thank you!

-Runner♥

 

[Pineapple]

Font's work on the assumption that everyone viewing the page has the font installed on their computer. There are very few generally accepted global fonts (for instance: Verdana and Times New Roman).


More unique fonts can be used, but it's used by uploading the font to the server and attaching it to the site, or by using something such as Google fonts.


Now, the problem that is faced is a simple one: When a font in included in this way, everyone who browses your site will need to be able to load it, and it causes slower load times for the site. This effects SEO, as well as being generally annoying. Why make the site take a second longer to load each page in case someone wants to make their post that little bit different?


There are many ways to make your post unique and interesting, using font size or font types should be avoided. The default was made default for a reason, it's easy to read.

 

[Lady Odyssey]

Ah, alright. I see your point. Definitely makes sense, with the loading time and all that. Thank you, though! I was just a bit curious.

 

[Kaerri]

I used to change the fonts in my character sheets, which have numerous tabs in them. For some reason it always ended up glitching the tabs (although font colors, bold, italics, and underlining seemed to work fine). That was pre-RPZone merge, though; I don't know whether it would glitch now or not.

 

[Dusky]

Any font available in default Word will work on RPN, actually. Even some odd ones you've never heard of.

 

[Wolf Rawrrr]

I don't see many people using non-default fonts, so I don't think we're at significant loss. Like Kaerri, I myself have only ever used different fonts in character sheets or official roleplay information, for effect *rawrrr*


Though Dusky makes a good point. The Staff should at least consider adding a few more of those compatible fonts which everyone has installed - it would satisfy the people while at the same time not adding to loading times. A win-win situation if Wolf's ever seen one *woof*

 

[Dusky]

No, I mean really - those fonts already work on RPN.


Narkisim


AR Darling


Chiller


All those are available just in Word and they show up for me.

 

[Erica]

But they won't show up for everyone. Those who do not have those fonts loaded on their device will see the closest font. I don't have those loaded on this computer, so all the fonts above look the same. (See screenshot below.)


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Which was Pineapple's original point.

 

[Miz]

No, I mean really - those fonts already work on RPN.
Narkisim


AR Darling


Chiller


All those are available just in Word and they show up for me.

As Erica added, fonts are client-side. If you have a Windows computer you can actually find which fonts are installed onto your system by just going into the Control Panel.


However the same thing isn't the case for everyone. The fonts that are added into the system at the moment are those recommended as we can confirm that they will work for about 99.99% of people. Other fonts can be used but that doesn't mean they will work completely without us doing the work of uploading such files to the server and requiring them to load (and as Pineapple mentioned increasing load-time issues).


For this reason, we only recommend you use the default fonts provided so that whatever font effect you wish to achieve will actually be seen by all members.

 

[Pineapple]

See here: http://www.cssfontstack.com/


Those are the only fonts that are widespread enough to be considered Web Safe. Many fonts are Windows 7 only, MAC only, Android phone, Windows 8only, etc...


You can see the % that a certain computer would have it too.