Eben Sorkin asked if I could give some examples of tilde design good and bad, so I compiled a good bit in this post on my blog. Comments are welcome of course.
Looks like it might have been an interesting page, had I been able to read the tiny type. And unfortunately, the coding did not allow me to switch to a larger font with my browser.
Great summary, interesting points. Thanks, Matthew.
While I defintely prefer unobtrusive inline links to long lines of bulky URL rigmarole, the current implementation is way too subtle!
Under certain circumstances (screen angle, lighting, …), I cannot tell apart the regular text in Georgia Roman, without underline, in medium gray – from link text in Georgia Roman, without underline, in grayish blue.
Can’t we have a text-decoration:underline, please? (It doesn’t have to be the chunky default one.) And if that is too much of a revolution, what about a little icon, like the wiki entries have?
I’ve sent a feature request; if others suffer from the same thing, please do so, too.
And yes, Matthew, your ideas deserve a better treatment than 10px type in lengthy lines. A max-width in ems would help a lot.
It should let you make the font bigger, in fact the majority of the page is based on em-scaling so changing font size should also nicely change image size as well. I just checked in FF, OmniWeb and Safari and Opera and the fonts go up.
And yeah I need to work on my site a bit. I've keep forgetting not everyone uses the smallest windows possible :)
I would also like if any Portuguese-native users on the forums could tell me how they generally write the tilde over the A and the O. The standard Spanish handwriting for it I'm sure would be too easily confused for an acute accent.
Also if there's interest I can go back and find more examples of older tildes. (Cervantes Virtual Library is your friend).
«El futuro es una línea tan fina que apenas nos damos cuenta de pintarla nosotros mismos». (La Luz Oscura, por Javier Guerrero)
18 Mar 2008 — 11:24am
Thanks for writing that up! I am keen to hear some opinions about Matthew's idea.
Here is the link again in a less subtle way
http://mateo.elahorcado.net/blog.php?post=20080318152234
18 Mar 2008 — 12:07pm
Looks like it might have been an interesting page, had I been able to read the tiny type. And unfortunately, the coding did not allow me to switch to a larger font with my browser.
18 Mar 2008 — 12:43pm
I was able to make the font bigger. I agree.
I have some other suggestions. But I will offer them later.
His main idea is clear I think.
It might be useful to drop into a post though, just to make it easier to read.
18 Mar 2008 — 12:53pm
I second that! All three points, that is:
Great summary, interesting points. Thanks, Matthew.
While I defintely prefer unobtrusive inline links to long lines of bulky URL rigmarole, the current implementation is way too subtle!
Under certain circumstances (screen angle, lighting, …), I cannot tell apart the regular text in Georgia Roman, without underline, in medium gray – from link text in Georgia Roman, without underline, in grayish blue.
Can’t we have a
text-decoration:underline, please? (It doesn’t have to be the chunky default one.) And if that is too much of a revolution, what about a little icon, like the wiki entries have?I’ve sent a feature request; if others suffer from the same thing, please do so, too.
And yes, Matthew, your ideas deserve a better treatment than 10px type in lengthy lines. A max-width in ems would help a lot.
[sorry for the off-topic comments]
18 Mar 2008 — 1:12pm
It should let you make the font bigger, in fact the majority of the page is based on em-scaling so changing font size should also nicely change image size as well. I just checked in FF, OmniWeb and Safari and Opera and the fonts go up.
And yeah I need to work on my site a bit. I've keep forgetting not everyone uses the smallest windows possible :)
I would also like if any Portuguese-native users on the forums could tell me how they generally write the tilde over the A and the O. The standard Spanish handwriting for it I'm sure would be too easily confused for an acute accent.
Also if there's interest I can go back and find more examples of older tildes. (Cervantes Virtual Library is your friend).
«El futuro es una línea tan fina que apenas nos damos cuenta de pintarla nosotros mismos». (La Luz Oscura, por Javier Guerrero)