[Python-Dev] Playing with a new theme for the docs, iteration 2 (original) (raw)

Terry Reedy tjreedy at udel.edu
Mon Mar 26 06:22:30 CEST 2012

On 3/25/2012 8:37 PM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:

For what it's worth, it wouldn't surprise me if the problem is the fallback font. If I'm reading the CSS correctly, the standard font used in the new docs is Lucinda Grande, with a fallback of Arial. Unfortunately, Lucinda Grande is normally only available on the Apple Mac, and Arial is a notoriously poor choice for on-screen text (particularly in smaller text sizes).

Testing in LibreOffice, I think Ariel may be easier as it has a consistent stroke width, whereas Lucida has thin horizontals. It does look a bit more elegant, though. In any case, Ariel seems to be the basic text font I see in Firefox and Windows help and I have no problem with it.

The particular entries I have discussed are class="reference internal" There have light serifs. Testing in LibreOffice, it seems to be Courier New. It was previously Courier New 'bold'. I put that in quotes because Courier New is a 'light' font, so that the 'bold' is normal relative to Ariel. In other words, Courier bold matches normal Ariel in stroke weight, so that is looks right mixed in with Ariel, whereas the Courier light is jarring.

In a sentence like "this returns False; otherwise it returns True. bool is also a class, which is a subclass of int" False, True (which use light-weight black rather than light-weight blue Courier), bool, and int all stand out (or stand in) because they have a lighter stroke weight as well as a different (serif versus non-serif) font. These are important words and should not be made to recede into the background as if they were unimportant and optionally skipped. To me, this is backwards and poor design.

False,false are marked up like this: False bool,in are like so:

Does the css specify Courier New or is this an unfortunate fallback that might be improved? Perhaps things look better on max/*nix?

-- Terry Jan Reedy

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