I read today about typeface.js and it’s exactly the lightweight replacement that sifr could use. If you are not familiar with sifr, in a nutshell: use whatever font you want, regardless of whether it is installed on your visitors’ computers or not.

Of course, these days, Flash is more popular than ever but if you are a purist, typeface allows you to do without Flash, using the Canvas element. And, even better, since it’s not Flash, it works on iPhone.

If you are looking for a pixel-perfect solution, however, it is not quite ready yet. Not far, but not quite:

• Text replacement does not allow the user to select text in either FireFox or Safari
• font-stretch support is not rendered correctly in Opera

Now, these weaknesses are, I am sure, only temporary and they are the price to pay for being able to specify your text’s rendering using pure CSS (font-stretch: normal)

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About Chris Ravenscroft

Too many ideas, too little time... :(

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• Chris says:

  October 28, 2008 at 2:49 am

  I have experimented with this, and I can honestly say it is a walk in the park compared to using sIFR. Converting fonts is a breeze, installing the scripts effortless, and watching a transformed page gratifying.

  Use this script!

  Reply

Trackbacks/Pingbacks

• Ajaxian » Typeface.js: A potential replacement for sIFR says:

  October 27, 2008 at 7:58 am

  [...] Thanks to Nexus I saw a new project called typeface.js that offers a solution to typeface management (where you can use any typeface that you want, whether it be on the users system or not) without using Flash (which the popular, oft-mentioned sIFR uses): Instead of creating images or using flash just to show your site’s graphic text in the font you want, you can use typeface.js and write in plain HTML and CSS, just as if your visitors had the font installed locally. This is a work in progress, but functional enough at least to render the the graphic text on this site. Here’s what it takes to get going: load the typeface.js library and some typeface.js fonts, then proceed like normal: PLAIN TEXT HTML: [...]

  Reply
• Good Idea, Bad Idea » Blog Archive » Typeface.js: A potential replacement for sIFR says:

  October 28, 2008 at 1:31 am

  [...] Thanks to Nexus I saw a new project called typeface.js that offers a solution to typeface management (where you can use any typeface that you want, whether it be on the users system or not) without using Flash (which the popular, oft-mentioned sIFR uses): Instead of creating images or using flash just to show your site’s graphic text in the font you want, you can use typeface.js and write in plain HTML and CSS, just as if your visitors had the font installed locally. This is a work in progress, but functional enough at least to render the the graphic text on this site. Here’s what it takes to get going: load the typeface.js library and some typeface.js fonts, then proceed like normal: PLAIN TEXT HTML: [...]

  Reply
• Typefaces.js: a lightweight sIFR replacement ~ intangiblestyle says:

  October 29, 2008 at 1:12 pm

  [...] Over on nexus.zteo.com, there’s a post about typefaces.js, a potential lightweight replacement for sIFR. Like sIFR, typefaces.js allows you to use any typeface you want, whether it’s on your visitor’s system or not. However, instead of using Flash, typefaces.js generates fonts using the <canvas> element. It’s not just a lighter solution, but going Flash-free means it can potentially work on mobile platforms as well as for desktop browsers. [...]

  Reply