Alternative title: What I’ve been doing is wrong
Different browsers have different “default” styles, which makes it a challenge to even make text appear the same way across all of them. When you want to accomplish this, there is a well known CSS trick that I’ve been using for a long time: Read More
960 grid
The concept of grids in web design has been here for ages. The proof that they’re used everywhere may be the number of css frameworks that have been created ease the creation of a web page layout. Read More
According to this article, the @font-face property is closer than you might suspect. Although CSS3 will probably not be fully supported for a while (by ‘all’ browsers that is, and that’s just my opinion) some of it’s features can already be used. Read More
While waiting for more browsers to support CSS3′s @font-face, the javascript method Cufón is an interesting alternative to the more commonly used sIFR method.
It’s pure Javascript, so it doesn’t require any plugins like sIFR does. And it has faster loading times than sIFR. Depending on the browser, it internally uses different techniques like SVG, Canvas and VML paths to draw the fonts. Luckily, web developers don’t need to know much about it, it just works!
For a long time I have been using JavaScript for the bare necessities, relying on Flash to do the heavy-lifting. After investigating a couple of OK “Flash-sites” I found out they were not actually made in Flash, but in JavaScript. Seemed both had jQuery as the foundation for their scripting. I’ve been using jQuery blindly as a “switch-class” engine for styling only, but could it really do more than a little CSS-manipulation?
Screenshot of Making Waves Labs using Safari 4
This blog is not just a place for new content. It is also our test bench for presentation. CSS3 is currently a buzz word around front-end developers, and it provides new possibilities to make the path from design to website much more straight-forward and joyful. Even if it’s still in its early stages, all web browser makers (all except Microsoft) have teamed up to make this a future standard. Opera, Firefox, Safari and Chrome already support a great number of the properties/selectors, and because not everybody will see all features today, CSS3 will degrade gracefully for users with less-than-optimal software.
Typekit is commercial service that lets you embed non-standard fonts into HTML pages. It is relatively easy to use and takes care of all the licensing issues. So far, all good. Yesterday, I did a quick test of the service using the font LFT Etica Display.
I must say results were disappointing and showed far too much difference than what’s acceptable. It may have something to do with this specific font, like the font-hinting.
It’s sad to see that Opera is not supported at all, even though the latest versions have native support for font embedding.
All the tests were done on a Windows 7 PC.