r96783 MediaWiki - Code Review archive

Repository:MediaWiki
Revision:< r96782‎ | r96783 | r96784 >
Date:15:09, 11 September 2011
Author:huji
Status:reverted (Comments)
Tags:
Comment:
Adding Persian (Farsi) web-fonts. Please see my comment on the MediaWiki/Special:Version on this commit
Modified paths:
  • /trunk/extensions/WebFonts/fonts/fa (added) (history)
  • /trunk/extensions/WebFonts/fonts/fa/DejaVuSans.eot (added) (history)
  • /trunk/extensions/WebFonts/fonts/fa/DejaVuSans.ttf (added) (history)

Diff [purge]

Index: trunk/extensions/WebFonts/fonts/fa/DejaVuSans.eot
Cannot display: file marked as a binary type.
svn:mime-type = application/octet-stream
Property changes on: trunk/extensions/WebFonts/fonts/fa/DejaVuSans.eot
___________________________________________________________________
Added: svn:mime-type
11 + application/octet-stream
Added: svn:executable
22 + *
Index: trunk/extensions/WebFonts/fonts/fa/DejaVuSans.ttf
Cannot display: file marked as a binary type.
svn:mime-type = application/octet-stream
Property changes on: trunk/extensions/WebFonts/fonts/fa/DejaVuSans.ttf
___________________________________________________________________
Added: svn:mime-type
33 + application/octet-stream
Added: svn:executable
44 + *

Follow-up revisions

RevisionCommit summaryAuthorDate
r96787Adding WOFF version of DeJaVuSans font, follow up to r96783huji15:33, 11 September 2011
r96788Removing the executable bit from font files, follow up r96783huji15:40, 11 September 2011
r96797Reverting r96783 r96787 and r96788; adding IranianSans font, which is not GPL...huji17:12, 11 September 2011

Comments

#Comment by Huji (talk | contribs)   15:27, 11 September 2011

This revision adds the free font DeJaVuSans as well as the EOT version of it to be used on Persian wikis. Conversion to EOT needs to be done with special tools, because the majority of convertors break the Persian fonts. I have not yet been able to create a WOFF version of the same font.

The DeJaVuSans comes with many Linux distros (including Ubuntu which I'm using). It is a rather large font (~600KB) but all convertors that compress this font break it (in terms of showing RTL Persian text correctly). Nevertheless, it is currently used in major Persian wikis as the default font for non-Windows machines. For Windows machines, Tahoma is used as default; regarding the looks and feel of Persian letters, DeJaVuSans and Tahoma are very close.

#Comment by Santhosh.thottingal (talk | contribs)   16:19, 11 September 2011

Using a generic , multi scripts font like DejavuSans does not look an appropriate way. The TTF and EOT has 670KB size , and most of the glyphs will be unnecessary for the page. Is there any free licensed fonts with only glyphs required for fa.wikipedia? What do you think about Nastaleeq fonts like this http://www.crulp.org/software/localization/Fonts/nafeesNastaleeq.html ?

#Comment by Huji (talk | contribs)   16:31, 11 September 2011

There are a number of free fonts available but their readability is a big issue. Many of them use a lot of vertical space or are too artistic (such as Nastaleeq) and not appropriate for the web. The majority of Persian website are currently using Tahoma, but because Tahoma is not a free font, there are issues with non-Windows machines.

I'm aware that this is not the optimal solution; however, it at least allows a single look and feel for the wikis using WebFonts extension on all platforms (regardless of OS).

One workaround can be to prune DejaVuSans and create another font which only contains ASCII characters and Persian glyphs. However, this is beyond my expertise at the moment. The solution is to create and use free fonts for Persian, something that has to be done by graphic artists.

#Comment by Huji (talk | contribs)   16:39, 11 September 2011

Btw, Nafees Nastaleeq fonts are almost exclusively used for Urdu, which is different from Persian.

#Comment by Huji (talk | contribs)   17:13, 11 September 2011

Actually, I just found another font which is much smaller (around 60KB), and is free (although not GPL). Therefore, I reverted my previous changes.

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