Helvetica Neue broken in Firefox on Windows 7

[toscho]

Helvetica Neue is used now for the admin bar and the headings. It doesn’t look clean in Firefox, see screenshot. Since there is no font with the exact name »Helvetica Neue« on my system, Firefox seems to use a font with a similar name like »Helvetica 65 Medium«. Other browsers use just the default sans-serif font, which is fine. I suggest to remove the Helvetica from the font stack and to use just the generic family »sans-serif«.

OS: Windows 7, 64 bit
Installed Fonts: Helvetica Neue from Adobe and Linotype

[toscho]

Firefox Aurora 9.0a2 (2011-11-03) vs. Opera 11.52

[ocean90]

Other browsers use just the default sans-serif font, which is fine.

Isn't it then a browser bug? Why Firefox choose another font?

[toscho]

I’m not sure if Firefox’ behavior really violates the ​Font matching algorithm. It is a variant of Helvetica Neue, it just doesn’t look good.

[linuxologos]

Aurora is an early version of Firefox. Are we sure it will have the same behavior when stable?

Firefox 7.0.1 does not seem to have such problems.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Looks like this was missed in #18020?

[SergeyBiryukov]

19145.patch​ would allow those classes to inherit the generic sans-serif family from body.

19145.2.patch​ just removes Helvetica from the font stack, without removing font-family.

[ocean90]

SergeyBiryukov, Admin Bar is missing in your patch.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Replying to ocean90:

Admin Bar is missing in your patch.

Thanks, added 19145.admin-bar.patch​.

[ocean90]

Background #18020. And with the new welcome screen it comes back. Needs review.

[azaozz]

Not sure if this was intentional, assigning to @koopersmith for confirmation.

[koopersmith]

This was intentional — we use Helvetica Neue for accent headings (most noticeably, the h2s) and sans-serif for the rest of the admin. I think that by adding some font-weight declarations, recent versions of FF will fall in line. From that screenshot, it also looks like the admin bar is also affected; if it is, that should be fixed.

After speaking to MT, I'm inclined to think that this is a browser bug in the FF Aurora build, and that we should stay the (neue) course. If it's not, let's reopen the ticket and reëvaluate.

[koopersmith]

In [19221]:

Remove Helvetica Neue from the admin bar font stack. see #19145.