6

To be completely honest, I think the current font family sequence is dictated by the Ubuntu Identity Guidelines. I still think that, right now, it's kind of silly:

  font-family: "Ubuntu Beta",
                UbuntuBeta,
                Ubuntu,
               "Bitstream Vera Sans",
               "DejaVu Sans",
                Tahoma,
                sans-serif;

Is Ask Ubuntu still using the Ubuntu Beta font and if so, why?

2
  • Posted by request.
    – badp
    Nov 23, 2010 at 22:36
  • 2
    @NickCraver I think you broke the tag there. ;)
    – user98085
    Jul 7, 2013 at 17:46

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
8

Yes, Askubuntu.com is still using the Beta font. I'm using the exact same css font-stack as Ubuntu.com. If the official Ubuntu site stops using the Beta font, please let me know. Until then, I want to make sure the styling on this site reflects the official site.

1
  • Yep, thought so. That's why I wasn't going to ask this here :)
    – badp
    Nov 24, 2010 at 7:03
4

The current Design Guidlines are as follows:

font-family: ‘Ubuntubeta’, ‘Ubuntu’, ‘Bitstream Vera Sans’, ‘DejaVu Sans’, Tahoma, sans-serif;

From the Ubuntu Web Guidelines

It would appear Ask Ubuntu is following the appropriate font-family line up and fall-backs.

3

Beacuse the Ubuntu font is still under development, having Ubuntu Beta in the CSS before plain Ubuntu means that testers of new versions of the font will get the new vesrion they are testing, not the old version.

(Though don't ask me why they don't just release Beta versions with Ubuntu as the font name...)

2
  • 1
    Fonts have a habit of spreading in the wild. These get copied, stuck in ~/.fonts and forgotten about. Having the status of the font right there in the title speeds up debugging when testers are looking at the wrong font, avoids issues with embedding and text-reflow, and increases the likelihood that people will actually update and replace their stale broken alpha .ttfs. More information at: wiki.ubuntu.com/Ubuntu_Font_Family#Phased%20beta .
    – sladen
    Jun 15, 2011 at 1:46
  • 2
    @sladen that is exactly why the Ubuntu font is installed through a PPA so it can be updated - rather than being manually installed and experiencing the problems you mentioned.
    – 8128
    Jun 15, 2011 at 10:22

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