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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: KDefault font
From:       "Jamethiel Knorth" <jamethknorth () hotmail ! com>
Date:       2004-05-12 17:52:52
Message-ID: BAY7-F33Rvaun4QRIkY00017465 () hotmail ! com
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>From: Art Carney <greencarrots@nospammail.net>
>Date: Wed, 12 May 2004 06:40:24 -0400
>
>On Wednesday 12 May 2004 04:27 am, Luciano Montanaro wrote:
> > On Wednesday 12 May 2004 03:43, Art Carney wrote:
> > > My favorite font for UI is News Gothic by Bitstream. Incredible
> > > legibility without the smeariness that Vera Sans, Verdana, and Arial
> > > often have. The glyphs are crisp and slightly taller most sans-serif
> > > fonts for a look that is attractive and readable for long periods of
> > > time.
> > >
> > > Unfortunately, the News Gothic fonts aren't free.
> > >
> > > On Tuesday 11 May 2004 12:21 pm, Mikolaj Machowski wrote:
> > > > Dnia poniedzia³ek, 10 maja 2004 00:44, Davide Ferrari napisa³:
> > > > > Alle 22:02, domenica 9 maggio 2004, Alexander Nordström ha 
>scritto:
> > > > > > I find Freesans incredibly sexy and readable. I use it for just
> > > > > > about everything and force all Web pages to use it. Personally, 
>I
> > > > > > wouldn't mind seeing it adopted as a standard for the desktop.
> > > > >
> > > > > My 2cents..I found Cursor a really nice and readable font, ways
> > > > > better than Helvetica.
> > > >
> > > > Helvetica is one of the worst... I was looking for some time and
> > > > settled with Verdana. Font itself is rather ugly but has very good
> > > > readability - ideal for interface.
> > > >
> > > > m.
> >
> > I'm not too fond of helvetica myself. I have used Lucida-based
> > configurations for a long time now, and I'm still using it on my slow
> > laptop.
> > however, if this discussion has to produce anything useful, there is no
> > point in suggesting non-free fonts. In fact, probably the only viable 
>fonts
> > are those supplied with X.
> >
> > Luciano
>
>If freely licensed font is what you want, then Bitstream's Vera Sans is a 
>nice
>one for UI fonts. It's designed to be very close to Verdana, just as Vera
>Serif is designed to approximate Microsoft's Georgia (which is OK but 
>doesn't
>look very good in FreeType IMO). Vera Mono is designed to be similar to 
>MS's
>Andale Mono.

Bitstream does look nice, but it has a couple problems. For one, it doesn't 
support all that many special characters. Also, it is extremely wide. 
Bitstream takes up more screen space than almost any other font its height, 
and doesn't gain in readability from it. Currently, I only use it because I 
can't find anything else.

>All in all, a nice font family and worth installing on any Linux box. They 
>are
>GPLed, btw.

They are not GPLed as the source code has not been released. They are only 
free to redistribute. They are only given as binaries with freedom to 
redistribute.


On a side note, I was looking into fonts a bit ago and have worked with them 
a very little. I think I'm going to try to make a sans-serif KDE font, and 
hopefully we can use that. I'll do the outlines and get some help from a 
friend for the programming. You shouldn't expect anything from this for 
another bunch of months, probably, but I thought I'd mention. I'm thinking 
about somewhat modeling my work after Arial, Helvetica, Bitstream Vera Sans, 
and possibly Verdana. If anyone knows any truly GPLed fonts that I can check 
out for examples, that would be great.

Wish me luck, as this looks like quite an undertaking.

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