The thing I hate on the Internet!

Believe it or not, it comes from Mac users. Grr! Why do we allow a tiny minority to screw up our website viewing pleasures? The web is supposed to be for everyone. Have these people not heard of “cross-platform compatibility”? I code for them… why can’t they code for me?

To wit:

When someone codes a stylesheet or font tag in HTML, they can specify the fonts to be used, in order of preference. This allows us KIND-HEARTED Windows-based designers to accommodate the Mac users, thusly (a classy CSS example) (that’s a pun):

font-family: arial, helvetica, sans serif;

This has the effect of initiating a dialog between the stylesheet and the browser: “Does your computer have Arial? No? Well, then, how about Helvetica? Yes? Let’s use that.” Arial is on PCs, Helvetica on Macs. Though I believe Apple has (wisely) encouraged users to have the web standard fonts that Windows and Linux use as well.
Now, when some UNFEELING MAC BASTARD thinks they’re going to design a website (go back to your iPods, losers. Or iPhones. Or whatever Steve Jobs has pimped out to you lately, you faux-hipster consumers! Sorry, I got carried away.) they write a stylesheet thusly:

font-family: helvetica, arial, sans serif;

There, they think. I have made my site compatible with the rest of the world, but Macs come first.

No, no, no. No!

Plenty of Windows users have Helvetica. It’s one of the most common, non-system fonts in the world. THE WORLD. Every damn sans serif type you see has a good chance of being Helvetica, the king daddy of them all. Particularly users who do design work have Helvetica in a hundred flavors. It’s a print font.

So.

When I go to someone’s site and they have specified Helvetica as the text font, it looks like KA KA. I can barely read it. Thank goodness Firefox allows me to up the size to the point that the font becomes readable.

I got slapped down a lot when first designing websites on a Mac, and for good reason. I was doing non-standard things that 95% of the world can’t see. For a medium of communication, that means FAILURE.

Mac designers, please, STOP WITH THE FAILING.

// rant off