2012-04-28, 13:28:41
I have been puzzling for a while why the text in the sidebar buttons in GS admin renders differently on different computers. On one of my PCs it renders nicely (as it should), but on another the text is too fat and the outlines are rough/aliased. It also causes the Uploadify button to break over two lines so part of the button is unclickable (due to the Flash overlay), and probably other line length problems too.
After some investigation it turns out the culprit is the style rule "font-weight:800" - depending on the version of Arial that is installed this can trigger the "Bold" weight or the "Black" weight (the Black weight is the one that renders poorly).
My question is: what is the intention of this particular style rule? If it is to trigger "Arial Bold" then it would be better written as "font-weight:bold". If the intention is to trigger "Arial Black" (which I don't think is a good idea given the poor rendering at small sizes) then the font-family stack should be written as "Arial Black", Arial, sans-serif. This is because on many systems "Arial Black" is a separate family.
After some investigation it turns out the culprit is the style rule "font-weight:800" - depending on the version of Arial that is installed this can trigger the "Bold" weight or the "Black" weight (the Black weight is the one that renders poorly).
My question is: what is the intention of this particular style rule? If it is to trigger "Arial Bold" then it would be better written as "font-weight:bold". If the intention is to trigger "Arial Black" (which I don't think is a good idea given the poor rendering at small sizes) then the font-family stack should be written as "Arial Black", Arial, sans-serif. This is because on many systems "Arial Black" is a separate family.
