Minima|eesm updated

Okay I’ve done 2 minor changes again to my Minima|eesm theme — font embedding and scroll follow.

I will explain in detail because I thought those interested in web design and development might want to know more.

Font embedding

I dodge sIFR and go for CSS font embedding instead.

Initially, I’m willing to give up any usability issues just to get the beautiful headings displayed in Helvetica Neue Thin. I have had enough of web safe fonts already.

I had to use sIFR to replace the headings with flash because I can’t embed Helvetica Neue due to copyright issue.

However, the solution was far from perfect due to,

1. You can’t right click on the headings to bring out the context menu
2. You can’t middle click on the headings to open the link in a new tab or windows
3. Safari runs JavaScript and replace the headings after every single image is loaded
4. iPhone doesn’t support flash

Those are the prices I have to pay just to get beautiful headings. Not much options I have.

But everything changed when I stumble upon the article 20 New High Quality Free Fonts from Smashing Magazine yesterday.

I found a free font that is very close to Helvetica Neue Thin which is the Vegur Light from dot colon.

Vegur is a really beautiful and high-quality font designed by a Japanese designer goes by the name Arro. And the best part is it’s free!

Vegur Light looks somehow similar to Helvetica Neue Thin and I think most people won’t even notice I’ve changed it if I don’t mention it here. I embeded the font with CSS and all the issues I mentioned above solved.

One drawback is that older browsers do not support CSS font embedding (see @font-face browser support). Besides, Internet Explorer doesn’t support TrueType or OpenType fonts.

But I think I can live with that considering most of my blog readers are intelligent enough to stay away from Internet Explorer and upgrade their browsers frequently (I think).

Scroll follow

Besides font embedding, I changed the scroll follow as well.

So yes, I heard you. Scroll follow is annoying. Well, I kind of expected that.

Initially I already planned to include a button that says “Stop following me will ya?” but I didn’t do that because I want to make it easy for people to comment.

After considering all the feedback I got, I try to disable the animation as suggested by Kevin but there’s just no easy way to achieve the effect I wanted.

I was searching Google up and down but without much luck because it seems like no one is actually doing this.

So I modified the scroll follow JavaScript and I’m glad I finally managed to do it. If you still think that it’s annoying, let me know.

After all these changes, I think I’m more or less happy with the theme already. I can finally concentrate on writing all the pending posts.

Not forgetting to thank those who took their time to comment and feedback on the previous post.