Re: [Worg] Proposing a few CSS changes

[Adam Porter <adam@alphapapa.net>]

Hi Timothy,

Timothy <tecosaur@gmail.com> writes:

> I’m a big fan of the shift to a fixed em-based max width. However, I’m not quite
> sold on a few of the other changes, for instance the font change. While it does
> vary, I must say than in particular I find the default serifed font of browsers
> somewhat unattractive. Have you considered instead a sans-serif system font
> stack? For example, this is what I used on the homepage:
> ┌────
> │ -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, San Francisco, Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Ubuntu, Roboto, Noto, Segoe UI, Arial, sans-serif;
> └────

I think the default serif font varies by platform, e.g. MacOS browsers
will use a much different one than Windows ones.  As well,
platform-based differences in font rendering (especially between MacOS,
Windows, and GNU/Linux) have a significant effect on the end result.

IMHO, I prefer not to "chase" issues like this by trying to account for
them in CSS.  This is why I prefer to remove font specifications for
documentation pages: let the user decide.  I find it frustrating when
I've configured my browser to use a readable font for long documents,
but the site "commandeers" the font to something that may only look nice
and readable on the author's system.

As for serif vs sans-serif, I think serif fonts are much easier to read,
and AFAIK "research" backs this up.  :)  That's not the only
consideration, of course, and I wouldn't suggest changing the main Org
site to use a serif font.  But for wiki/documentation sites, I think
serifs are a better choice.

But if we remove the font specification altogether, users who prefer
sans-serif fonts and use that setting in their browsers will see
sans-serif.  I think that, for long texts and documentation, it's
important to let the user control the appearance of main body text as
much as possible.

> Regarding the header colour, while I’m not much of a fan of the original grey,
> perhaps this would be a chance to introduce some visual ties with the rest of
> the site and the logo, for example by setting the heading colour to `#587e72' (the
> dark gree from the Org logo).

I think that'd be nice, yes.

> I also tend to find the default font size slightly to small on most browsers.
> I’d be in favour of bumping up the base fontsize to `1.2rem' and changing the
> width restriction from `60em' to `60rem' so it remains constant.

I'll push back on this change strongly.  :)  I really hate it when sites
increase the default font size for body text.  I've configured my
browsers to use the font size that's most readable and useful for me.
There seems to be an "epidemic" of sites increasing the default font
size nowadays; sometimes only one or two paragraphs are visible on a
single screen of text.  Again, I think this is an attribute we should
leave entirely to the users to configure.

> Lastly, on padding, I feel you may have been a bit over-zealous in your removal
> of padding from headlines. IMO a bit more space helps visually separate sections
> and let them “breath”, and browsers defaults tend to pack things a bit more
> densely than I would.

I could live with adding a little bit of padding back, but not too
much.  There's already way too much whitespace on the Web.  ;)

If you like, I'll prepare a new "patch" and post screenshots so we can
try to reach consensus.

-- 
Thanks,
Adam