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Show HN: A designer friend and I made ffffallback.com for testing fallback fonts

56 points by markchristian 16y ago

sinaiman 16y ago
Couldn't quite figure out how to use the tool, but it did manage to create a pretty rad 3D version of my site (using the "Both" setting and varying font sizes on each). I'll probably have another go when I've got less homework.
derekdahmer 16y ago
It took me a bit to figure out what exactly it was doing on your site, especially with it turning purple. Having a three step sample use-case guide on your homepage would be helpful. Also, rather than specifically tell it what font to fallback to, I'd love to be able to just choose an operating system and have it show me what font would have been used by a user on a default installation of that OS.
- chrislomax 16y ago
  I agree, I don't know what to do so I got bored and didn't bookmark it. It's not intuitive. Good idea but it would be better if it was easier to understand. The drop arrows look like they are going to drop some fonts out, they don't they drop more options out. More options I don't understand.
drivebyacct2 16y ago
I'm sorry if this is not the world's best HN comment, but I really enjoy the aesthetics of this site. The colors and font choices are fantastic, at least to me. Thumbs up.
- Groxx 16y ago
  This comment essentially got me to click the link, and I agree (with the exception of the animated-on-hover bookmarklet... that's nasty). I was curious, but not overly. speaking of magical unicorns and javascript rainbows... (might take a moment for the first run to work) javascript:(function(){var d=document,j=d.getElementById('__cornify_nodes'),k=null;var files=%5B'http://cornify.com/js/cornify.js','http://cornify.com/js/cornify_run.js'%5D;if(j){cornify_add();}else{k=d.createElement('div');k.id='__cornify_nodes';d.getElementsByTagName('body')%5B0%5D.appendChild(k);for(var l=0;l<files.length;l++){j=d.createElement('script');j.src=files%5Bl%5D;k.appendChild(j);}}})();
safarimong10 16y ago
It would be helpful if you just had a demo video (short video), showing what the site does. It took me a few seconds to even understand the concept fully. In those seconds, you could lose many potential users.
RossM 16y ago
I think this would be easier if: - You could click a font's name to set it as the fallback font for that element, - and to display the selector that font applies to (I assume you're getting this from the CSS). However, this is a very useful tool, and saves having to pop them out by hand; kudos.
- tm65atcolumbia 16y ago
  Second on all the requests above. Looking forward to the update to this soon-to-be frequently used tool of mine. Great start!
slevcom 16y ago
Was fffallback.com taken already? Nice site.
- markchristian 16y ago
  It's an homage to http://ffffound.com/ http://ffffound.com/, a wonderful site for finding inspiration.
udfalkso 16y ago
Cool, thanks!

56 points by markchristian 16y ago

Couldn't quite figure out how to use the tool, but it did manage to create a pretty rad 3D version of my site (using the "Both" setting and varying font sizes on each). I'll probably have another go when I've got less homework.

derekdahmer 16y ago

It took me a bit to figure out what exactly it was doing on your site, especially with it turning purple. Having a three step sample use-case guide on your homepage would be helpful. Also, rather than specifically tell it what font to fallback to, I'd love to be able to just choose an operating system and have it show me what font would have been used by a user on a default installation of that OS.

chrislomax 16y ago
I agree, I don't know what to do so I got bored and didn't bookmark it. It's not intuitive. Good idea but it would be better if it was easier to understand. The drop arrows look like they are going to drop some fonts out, they don't they drop more options out. More options I don't understand.

drivebyacct2 16y ago

I'm sorry if this is not the world's best HN comment, but I really enjoy the aesthetics of this site. The colors and font choices are fantastic, at least to me. Thumbs up.

Groxx 16y ago
This comment essentially got me to click the link, and I agree (with the exception of the animated-on-hover bookmarklet... that's nasty). I was curious, but not overly. speaking of magical unicorns and javascript rainbows... (might take a moment for the first run to work) javascript:(function(){var d=document,j=d.getElementById('__cornify_nodes'),k=null;var files=%5B'http://cornify.com/js/cornify.js','http://cornify.com/js/cornify_run.js'%5D;if(j){cornify_add();}else{k=d.createElement('div');k.id='__cornify_nodes';d.getElementsByTagName('body')%5B0%5D.appendChild(k);for(var l=0;l<files.length;l++){j=d.createElement('script');j.src=files%5Bl%5D;k.appendChild(j);}}})();

safarimong10 16y ago

It would be helpful if you just had a demo video (short video), showing what the site does. It took me a few seconds to even understand the concept fully. In those seconds, you could lose many potential users.

RossM 16y ago

I think this would be easier if: - You could click a font's name to set it as the fallback font for that element, - and to display the selector that font applies to (I assume you're getting this from the CSS). However, this is a very useful tool, and saves having to pop them out by hand; kudos.

tm65atcolumbia 16y ago
Second on all the requests above. Looking forward to the update to this soon-to-be frequently used tool of mine. Great start!

slevcom 16y ago

Was fffallback.com taken already? Nice site.

markchristian 16y ago
It's an homage to http://ffffound.com/ http://ffffound.com/, a wonderful site for finding inspiration.

udfalkso 16y ago

Cool, thanks!