Test of Beta 5

[MikeGale]

I've run my first tests of Beta 5.

Observations follow:

1) Processing of a number of batch jobs in the tool (validation) proceded much as expected. (Icons for URL files still blank.)

2) When testing highly minified (i.e condensed) JavaScript it was not obvious where the indicated jslint warning applied. In batch reports there's a red character but it's often not at the site of the issue. In the UI the position is indicated by a flash of green within the indicated line. To get the flash of green again it appears that another warning must be selected, then return to the original warning to get another momentary flash. A good sample for seeing this is the file jquery-1.2.6.min.js. (This is a publicly released file from the jquery project.) This is a pretty unusual body of code, I think developers would want to jslint a more conventional source file.

3) Considering some of the @font-face information that Thacker recently commented on I suggest that a message about that tag be reviewed. The message is:

Code: Select all

msgidcfg id="2007100900" examplemsg="[608] The "@font-face" declaration is an official CSS2 (but not CSS2.1) declaration. Because this has been removed from CSS2.1 due to poor support, it is recommended that it not be used. This message is displayed only once.

The tag is now proposed for CSS 3 and there is a Safari implementation of it. I tested in IE 7 and found the IE and Safari implementations to be incompatible. (One probably only takes eot's the other ttf's.) (IE 8 may be different.)

Thanks for all you've done Albert. Looking good.

[Albert Wiersch]

I've run my first tests of Beta 5.

Observations follow:

1) Processing of a number of batch jobs in the tool (validation) proceded much as expected. (Icons for URL files still blank.)

Great! (I have not doing anything about the missing icons yet.)

2) When testing highly minified (i.e condensed) JavaScript it was not obvious where the indicated jslint warning applied. In batch reports there's a red character but it's often not at the site of the issue. In the UI the position is indicated by a flash of green within the indicated line. To get the flash of green again it appears that another warning must be selected, then return to the original warning to get another momentary flash. A good sample for seeing this is the file jquery-1.2.6.min.js. (This is a publicly released file from the jquery project.) This is a pretty unusual body of code, I think developers would want to jslint a more conventional source file.

Thanks. I had noticed something like this on certain files. I researched this and it appears to be a bug/limitation in JavaScript Lint. I suspect it is using an 8-bit value for reporting the column location, thus limiting it to 255 characters per line or so. I have reported this issue to the developer.

3) Considering some of the @font-face information that Thacker recently commented on I suggest that a message about that tag be reviewed. The message is:

Code: Select all

msgidcfg id="2007100900" examplemsg="[608] The "@font-face" declaration is an official CSS2 (but not CSS2.1) declaration. Because this has been removed from CSS2.1 due to poor support, it is recommended that it not be used. This message is displayed only once.

The tag is now proposed for CSS 3 and there is a Safari implementation of it. I tested in IE 7 and found the IE and Safari implementations to be incompatible. (One probably only takes eot's the other ttf's.) (IE 8 may be different.)

I'd be happy to review this message. What do you suggest? Should I just mention that it is proposed for CSS 3? Can you give me an example message that you are suggesting?

[MikeGale]

Here is a zeroth draft of some text. (It is off the cuff and leaves a lot unsaid.)

Code: Select all

The behaviour of "@font-face" currently differs between browsers.  This is part of CSS 3 specification and is expected to become more uniform and available on major browsers.  It is advisable to check the behaviour of your style sheet, using this feature, on different browsers.

I've skirted around the detailed issues of the specification, in part because I haven't tested exactly what exists at present.

The spec has some interesting features, which look well thought out and appear to cover the bases.

It says about the src property:

This descriptor is required for referencing actual font data, whether downloadable or locally installed. Name: src (Descriptor)
Value: [ <uri> [format(<string> [, <string>]*)] | <font-face-name> ] [, <uri> [format(<string> [, <string>]*)] | local(<font-face-name>) ]*
Initial: undefined
Media: visual


This is a prioritized, comma-separated list of external references and/or locally installed font face names. The external reference points to the font data on the Web. This is required if the WebFont is to be downloaded. The font resource may be a subset of the source font, for example it may contain only the glyphs needed for the current page or for a set of pages.

The external reference consists of a URI, followed by an optional hint regarding the format of font resource to be found at that URI, and this information should be used by clients to avoid following links to fonts in formats they are unable to use. As with any hypertext reference, there may be other formats available, but the client has a better idea of what is likely to be there, in a more robust way than trying to parse filename extensions in URIs.

The format hint contains a comma-separated list of format strings that denote well-known font formats. The user agent will recognize the name of font formats that it supports, and will avoid downloading fonts in formats that it does not recognize.

An initial list of format strings defined by this specification and representing formats likely to be used by implementations on various platforms is: String Font Format Examples of common extensions
"truedoc-pfr" TrueDoc™ Portable Font Resource .pfr
"embedded-opentype" Embedded OpenType .eot
"type-1" PostScript™ Type 1 .pfb, .pfa
"truetype" TrueType .ttf
"opentype" OpenType, including TrueType Open .ttf
"truetype-gx" TrueType with GX extensions
"speedo" Speedo
"intellifont" Intellifont

Looking at this it allows the CSS designer to cater for multiple browsers, even if they fail to implement the same formats. (Extra work of course.) Putting all that, and it's implications, in a short message doesn't seem possible.

It's interesting to see the ability to use a Panose number (and some selected parts of it) for font definition, in the CSS 3 specification. This is a step forward. (I know MS Publisher did something on this front some years ago, but it hasn't become widespread yet.)

[Albert Wiersch]

Here is a zeroth draft of some text. (It is off the cuff and leaves a lot unsaid.)

Code: Select all

The behaviour of "@font-face" currently differs between browsers.  This is part of CSS 3 specification and is expected to become more uniform and available on major browsers.  It is advisable to check the behaviour of your style sheet, using this feature, on different browsers.

Thanks Mike. How do you like this?

Code: Select all

The behavior of (and support for) "@font-face" currently differs among browsers. Furthermore, "@font-face" is in CSS2 and is planned for CSS3, but was removed from CSS 2.1 due to poor support. Because of these issues, it is recommended that "@font-face" not be used. If it is used, then be sure to check its behavior on different browsers. This message is displayed only once.

[MikeGale]

Yep that's a good message.

It will educate people who are not aware of the issues, but won't frighten off (those few) who use it knowingly.

[Albert Wiersch]

Yep that's a good message.

It will educate people who are not aware of the issues, but won't frighten off (those few) who use it knowingly.

Thanks. I'll go with that message then.