Please make Verdana the default font, not Arial

Report · Apr 15, 2009

Adobe Forums admin folks (John C, perhaps?), please have mercy on your users and make Verdana the default for posts, and not frickin' Arial. Verdana was designed for on-screen reading, while Arial was barely designed for reading at all. I'll set this same paragraph again in Verdana below, so you can see the difference. Assuming you can change the default font at all, of course.

That's the same point size in both paragraphs, btw. Isn't that better? Don't you wish this paragraph was in Verdana as well?

Cheers,

T

Report · Apr 16, 2009

Thomas Phinney wrote:
Well, first, most of the users of the forums are designers of one sort or another, and are sensitive to appearances. Adobe is supposed to be a design-sensitive company.

But more importantly, the choice of typeface is one of functionality as much as "appearance." It's precisely because the forums are supposed to be a tool for information exchange that I'd like them to be easier to read... for everyone. Sure, I can use the trick mentioned above so *I* will see the forums in Verdana, but that's not really the point.

Cheers,

T

Don't misunderstand me; I was in total agreement with you that the default font should be Verdana, I was deprecating the fuss that people will go to to arrive at a situation which will (we hope) be reached anyway when JC and Jive have knocked this interface into shape.

I am great disciple of Tufte and probably over-enthusiastic about good visual communication.

Report · Apr 16, 2009

John Joslin wrote:
As I said earlier, I support the choice of Verdana as a default font wholeheartedly (I am also a typography freak).

But I sometimes wonder at the lengths people will go to, and the discussions that go on, about what in effect is the just the appearance of the forums.
They are a tool for information exchange – not a way of life for godsake!
Do you worry about what colour a spanner is before you will deign to use it?

Would you use Comic Sans for a death certificate or a wedding invitation? (I've been seeing it used over the past week in chyron as the title font for an ongoing breaking news story about a high-profile date rape case, FFS!!!)

'Nuff said.

Report · Apr 16, 2009

Sorry to use copy and paste, but Quote Previous Message isn't working for me:

*******

But I sometimes wonder at the lengths people will go to, and the discussions that go on, about what in effect is the just the appearance of the forums.

They are a tool for information exchange – not a way of life for godsake!

***********

What the OP, and at least I, have been defending is not so much the appearance, as the legibility of these forums. Arial is much more difficult to read on screen than Verdana; and Arial 10 pt is very hard on old and weak eyes such as mine. So it does impair their efficiency as a tool for information exchange.

Also in my opinion, private solutions, as useful, intelligent, and successful as they may be, are not solutions; just workarounds. With this I am not ignoring their merits, but only saying that the real solution is that Adobe changes the default font of these forums.

Report · Apr 16, 2009

Sorry to use copy and paste, but Quote Previous Message isn't working for me

i've found copy and paste text into the rich text editor, then hilight the text, then select the double greater than signs (">>") and select "Quote" works pretty well... better than quoting the whole message, imo.

dave

Report · Apr 17, 2009

you can use the Quote Previous Message button for that but it only works like that when you have text selected in the editor

Report · Apr 16, 2009

Do you worry about what colour a spanner is before you will deign to use it?

I would say it is more the optical equivalent of using a spanner that didn't get smoothed down properly and has metal burrs all over it. You can still use it either way, but when you use it a lot, it rubs your hands (or eyes) raw.

Report · Apr 16, 2009

Eric, I think your fixes are great! But I won't be "smoothing the spanner" before the foundry has finished with it.

Report · Apr 16, 2009

John Joslin wrote:
Eric, I think your fixes are great! But I won't be "smoothing the spanner" before the foundry has finished with it.

On the other hand, there may come a time when when a lot of us will be finished with the Jive foundry.