Moodle Community Sites

Attaching my screen for you to see.

Here is how http://moodle.org looks on different browsers:

http://browsershots.org/http://moodle.org/

I'd appreciate some screenshots of your own, or refer to these, when talking about which fonts are better (and why) because fonts seem to be highly variable and subjective as well.

http://www.ampsoft.net/webdesign-l/WindowsMacFonts.html has some more info (from the older systems) and particularly screens like http://www.ampsoft.net/webdesign-l/img/Font-list-WinXP-Firefox.png

To my eye
Lucida Sans Unicode, Lucida Grande, sans-serif
and
Comic Sans MS, Comic Sans MS, cursive
seem to be the only font families in this example that are pretty similar even when only basic font smoothing is enabled (no ClearType)

Have you tested Lucida Sans Unicode, Lucida Grande, sans-serif ?

In most browsers all those thin fonts should be fine - there may still be some moodlers using Windows XP ClearType off.

I can live with any font family you choose - except that horrible

Impact, Impact, Charcoal, sans-serif ...

Honestly I must say that compared to all these others

Comic Sans MS, Comic Sans MS, cursive

looks sweet, fresh and different - and it is just as cross browser campatible as these others!

(more like handwritten maybe but what ever font you take somebody complains about it - some fonts are too thin, some too bold etc.)

A test page with some screenshots about the same content shown with different font families might help decision (probably the good old xxxxx...)

Some more good links (comparisons):

http://web.mit.edu/jmorzins/www/fonts.html

http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/res_fonts.htm

http://www.upsdell.com/BrowserNews/res_fontsamp.htm

http://www.codestyle.org/css/font-family/AnchorPoints.shtml

I've just switched (temporarily) to: "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Grande", sans-serif;

Is that better? Looks a little different on Windows Vista but OK for me, and Linux seems unaffected.

I tried to reproduce wrinkled and thin fonts in XP without ClearType but it's hard to find any font where letters like W or M don't look wrinkled without smoothing. Lucida Unicode is using a little more box like letters and is probably a little bolder than for example Arial...

Some letters and numbers do look different - gGJKMQ123... - letter spacing is different - and tastes are different. I like all the "good old fonts like Arial or "tight" Trebuchet but probably only because so many web sites use them. If ClearType is enabled in XP all fonts look good.

One more test - I forced default font change also in Tracker and in Lucida Sans Unicode BOLD fonts look too odd.

My final vote goes for Arial - after some years Windows XP will be history and all those users that still have not enabled ClearType in XP can enable it or suffer from unsoftened fonts for ever... l_o_l

Thanks so much for all the info and feedback, Mauno. it would be great to get some opinions from others as well before we make a final decision.

Indeed - Ray gave some related comments in http://tracker.moodle.org/browse/MDLSITE-597

and if users can choose in the future their prefered theme from a couple of user themes in their user profile everybody might be happy - no matter what the default font is.

That will help on http://moodle.org but not on all of the other sites ... still would like the best default default!

I tried using Arial only on moodle.org for a while and it looks very plain (changes the design a surprising amount).

I think my vote is with the "Lucida Sans Unicode", "Lucida Grande", sans-serif;

It's a good choise really - and nobody has complained. Since we have only two votes (1-1) the chairman shall have the casting vote... so let's use Lucida family.

By the way - was it plain arial that you tested or some font family like "Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif". Main site of moodle.org has looked good all the time with Lucida, only Tracker (with forced Lucida in brower settings) looked "odd" to my eye - but current tracker is using arial, isn't it?