Forum font gone walkies (2)

JonB

Per my thread of the same title in 2019 https://forum.qt.io/topic/107503/forum-font-gone-walkies

As of about 10 days ago this forum has gone into Times [New] Roman or similar serif font. It has been a sans serif font for years, and needs to be as it should. Don't mean to be a pain, but this makes a big difference to legibility.

Tested on Chrome on two machines, and in Incognito window. So far as I know this is a forum change not a Chrome one. This forum has occasionally done this in the past. Hoping some kind @AndyS or other forum manager might be kind enough to look at this, please?

TomZ

@JonB can confirm.

The font I see is absolutely NOT any Titillium related one.

JonB

@TomZ
Indeed.

I have 2 PCs with Windows 11, and these both choose a sans-serif font. I tried deleting all cookies, no difference.

I then tried on another PC which has Windows 10. That does show in serif!

All my browsers are Chrome. I pressed F12, Elements tab. There the applicable rule is

body {
    font-family: "Titillium Web";
}

I overtype with, say, Helvetica, and sure enough it changes to a serif font.

Soooo... What is this Titillium Web font? How long has Qt forum been using it? Does it not exist under (default installation) Windows 11? Can I influence the choice of "fallback" font for this if I have to?

JonB

@JonB
OK, don't quite know what I did, but I went to "Adobe Fonts" at https://fonts.adobe.com/fonts/titillium-web#fonts-section. It seemed to make me create an account :( That page now says

11 fonts included in your free plan

whatever that means. It also shows Titillium Web with a Remove button, so I guess it got installed.

Whatever, the Qt forum pages now seem to be in a (readable) serif font, again/at last!

I think the Qt.io team ought really look into whether this choice of font is a good/sensible one, perhaps under Windows 11? I should not have to download fonts/sign up to Adobe to get the font it uses... !

EDIT
I think I may have got mixed up which machine/Windows. I now have that Adobe font (apparently) installed on both PCs. The Windows 10 one works, the Windows 11 one still shows a serif font. So don't think this actually solved anything.... :(

TomZ

@JonB said in Forum font gone walkies (2):

I went to "Adobe Fonts"

The website / css is supposed to make sure the font will be downloaded from the location given.

Today checked the error log on my Firefox, and I got the answer:

JonB

@TomZ
Ah ha!

I am still unsure why, having explicitly installed Titillium Web font apparently in case that is necessary, it is not prepared to pick that up locally? Nor why I believe my two Windows 11 machines are badly affected but my one Windows 10 one does not seem to be, or picks a sans-serif font?

From where we are now, if Qt.io are not acting on this and I (wish to) stick to Chrome is there anything I can do to make it pick the right font or at least a sans-serif one?

TomZ

@JonB said in Forum font gone walkies (2):

From where we are now, if Qt.io are not acting on this

It is clearly a bug on their side;
https://www.w3.org/TR/css-fonts-3/#font-fetching-requirements

The implications of this for authors are that fonts will typically not be loaded cross-origin unless authors specifically takes steps to permit cross-origin loads.

In the meantime I'm wondering (never checked) if there are plugins for your browser that allows overriding specific css stuff. In this case the font used.

JonB

@TomZ
Hmm, let's hope that someone looks at this thread then....

Meanwhile, since it works for me on some machines' Chrome but not others, is there a (security?) setting I may have in one Chrome but not the other which would allow through this CORS issue on only one of them?

KH-219Design

I got an email "[Qt Forum] Digest for 2023/11/27" two days ago that listed this forum topic as the top item.

I did not visit the forum that day, but I thought to myself: "someone posting about the forum itself? and its font? that's... unusual"

So today I visit the forum and lo and behold (WTF!) my eyes are also boggled by this newsprint-looking font.

For the record, I am using:

Firefox 119.0.1 (as Snap for Ubuntu)
Ubuntu 22.04.3 LTS Jammy

SGaist

Hi,

Well... For some days I had something looking like Times New Roman as well but since yesterday, I think, it got back to normal.

JonB

@SGaist said in Forum font gone walkies (2):

but since yesterday, I think, it got back to normal.

But how??!! :)
(And I think you are a Mac anyway, so doubtless it won't help me!)

hskoglund

I just tried on my Mac (running Sonoma 14.1.1)
This forum post on Safari: Screenshot 2023-11-29 at 19.20.02.png
On Chrome:

On Firefox:
Screenshot 2023-11-29 at 19.21.46.png

JonB

@hskoglund
I am Chrome-only and Windows-only. But my Chrome looks like your Firefox. :(
2 are Windows 11 and bad, one is Windows 10 and is good but that might be Chrome settings, I don't know.

SGaist

@JonB Sorry, I forgot to say that I was using Firefox when it happened.

JonB

@SGaist
Yes, but you are using Mac, and all my artistic friends who do tell me Macs just work (unlike PCs/Windows) ;-)

Whichever, the problem is happening to a variety of people on a variety of platforms/browsers. I wouldn't normally be a pain about this sort of thing, but I really find the serif font difficult for a forum and my eyes.

SGaist

@JonB You're not a pain. One of the goal of the forum them is to be as pleasing as possible for everybody.

Redman

@JonB Win11 Microsoft Edge. Same problem.

JonB

Any comment from anyone involved in Qt.io webservices? :)

Chris Kawa

It was ok for me until I read this topic and pressed Shift+F5 to reload without cache and now the fonts are missing for me too. Looks like some problem with cross domain references.

JonB

Yay, I seem to have a sans-serif font back! Windows/Chrome.