Do not use Helvetica Neue/Arial, use a open-source font.

[Secret-chest]

Also applies to scratch-www

So, I know you like Helvetica. It looks clean. But it's strange for an open-source project to use a proprietary font. And there's another problem. On my Linux system, Scratch simply fallbacks to a ugly font called "Liberation Sans". You may not call it ugly, but fonts affect a website's experience. The "a"'s tail is very long and it almost goes into the next character. The bold weight is very stretched. I tried to change it using Stylus, but the text from the paint editor did not completely show up on the stage.

Some alternatives for Helvetica:

• Roboto (best match)
• Lato (VERY pleasing to look at, but use the Typekit version, it has better language support)
• Source Sans Pro.

What NOT to use:

• Montserrat - too wide and too bold.
• Any serif font - does not fit.

[SheepTester]

I think they use system fonts to avoid having to load entire font files, which can get large for non-Latin scripts. I believe your browser should allow you to change the font used for sans-serif if you believe it's ugly

[Secret-chest]

I think they use system fonts to avoid having to load entire font files, which can get large for non-Latin scripts. I believe your browser should allow you to change the font used for sans-serif if you believe it's ugly

I can't. I used Stylus to change it and text from the vector editor does not completely show up on the stage.

[mxmou]

I think they use system fonts to avoid having to load entire font files, which can get large for non-Latin scripts. I believe your browser should allow you to change the font used for sans-serif if you believe it's ugly

I can't. I used Stylus to change it and text from the vector editor does not completely show up on the stage.

Which browser do you use?

[Secret-chest]

I think they use system fonts to avoid having to load entire font files, which can get large for non-Latin scripts. I believe your browser should allow you to change the font used for sans-serif if you believe it's ugly

I can't. I used Stylus to change it and text from the vector editor does not completely show up on the stage.

Which browser do you use?

Chrome on linux mint 20.1

[mxmou]

@Secret-chest In Chrome, go to Settings → Appearance → Customize fonts and change the sans serif font.

[Secret-chest]

@Secret-chest In Chrome, go to Settings → Appearance → Customize fonts and change the sans serif font.

@mxmou Arial is automatically replaced by Liberation Sans in Linux. My sans-serif font is Roboto.

[Secret-chest]

And Scratch uses:

font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif;

[mxmou]

@Secret-chest In Chrome, go to Settings → Appearance → Customize fonts and change the sans serif font.

@mxmou Arial is automatically replaced by Liberation Sans in Linux. My sans-serif font is Roboto.

I think fallback fonts can be changed in the fontconfig configuration.

[benjiwheeler]

Even if @Secret-chest can use their browser settings to adjust the font, the issue could still remain for any users without access to these particular fonts.

Maybe we could add Roboto to the list, before sans-serif?

[mxmou]

Maybe we could add Roboto to the list, before sans-serif?

If this is done, Roboto should be before Helvetica (Liberation Sans is configured as a fallback for Helvetica on most systems).

[Secret-chest]

@benjiwheeler @SheepTester @mxmou Then, the font stack could look like this:
system-ui, apple-system, Roboto, "Noto Sans", "Segoe UI", Arial, sans-serif, "Segoe UI Emoji", "Noto Color Emoji", "Apple Color Emoji".

Notice the first two items in the stack. This way it would look native on every platform.

• Set by user on Linux (Ubuntu is most common)
• Segoe UI on Windows
• San Francisco on Mac and iOS/iPadOS
• Roboto on Android

[Secret-chest]

Maybe we could add Roboto to the list, before sans-serif?

If this is done, Roboto should be before Helvetica (Liberation Sans is configured as a fallback for Helvetica on most systems).

@mxmou True. Liberation Sans is really ugly.

[Secret-chest]

I think they use system fonts to avoid having to load entire font files, which can get large for non-Latin scripts. I believe your browser should allow you to change the font used for sans-serif if you believe it's ugly

Well, they can load the Latin font first, then Extended Latin, and then all other scripts.