WebFonts should have not set any font explicitly prior to user selecting one
from list.

If we don't set any font by default, the purpose of this extension will get defeated. If new readers, new visitors coming to any wiki and if they are not able to see the content properly, it is an issue. That is what we are trying to address. For eg, most of the time, a visitor to or.wikipedia.org will see just boxes when they land first time. They wont bother to select a font and solve this issue. If we dont set a default font, see how ml wiki is rendered with IE8 http://thottingal.in/tmp/ml-wiki-winxp-IE8.png We have seen so many news paper, tv reports about ml wiki using windows xp, kartika font. So definitely a default font is must. Once familiar with the wiki pages, a user can change the font or make the font to none, or even remove the menu itself.

In short, the idea is to avoid any squares/questionmarks from the wiki page for a visitor without expecting any extra clicks from him/her.

junu.pv+public wrote:

OK.

Another issue related to cookies are found, that I will report in a new one.

This is a valid use story and needs to be implemented.

We in Tamil Wikipedia want Webfonts extension but the free fonts that are included as part are poorer than what fonts most people(including anons) who are visiting us already have.So if we set any of the fonts as default, that would be a giving like delivering "bad experience fontwise" to users who already have better fonts on system and they have to take the pain of resetting manually which most wont be aware off. So for the default user nothing changes, if one sees boxes / issues with font rendering, the font help page will point to choose webfont and those people alone would benefit out of webfont and others neednt know the difference / existance of webfont at all

(In reply to comment #3)

We in Tamil Wikipedia want Webfonts extension but the free fonts that are
included as part are poorer than what fonts most people(including anons) who
are visiting us already have.So if we set any of the fonts as default, that
would be a giving like delivering "bad experience fontwise" to users who
already have better fonts on system and they have to take the pain of resetting
manually which most wont be aware off.
So for the default user nothing changes,

Lohit Tamil is the default font of all the GNU/Linux distros I am familiar with. So are you saying that Lohit is not good for a default Tamil wiki reading? Is it a general opinion of Tamil community?

if one sees boxes / issues with font rendering, the font help page will point
to choose webfont

One of the objective of this extension is to avoid any such 'Can't you see the content? click here" banners seen in many non-latin wikis. Having the webfonts extension and still showing it defeat the purpose of the extension.

Do you think users seeing square or question marks everywhere will take pain to find out an English word "Font Help" from the page?

and those people alone would benefit out of webfont and
others neednt know the difference / existance of webfont at all

They will know the existence since every page has top menu, and help page to use webfonts if you don't see Tamil. We don't have a technique to identify whether the user has fonts already and then showing the tool. Browsers won't spy the users local computer.

We have a setting - $wgWebFontsEnabledByDefault; if set to false, this will provide webfonts extension only to logged in users. And for anonymous users, there is no webfonts. Then there is another option - $wgDefaultUserOptions['webfontsEnable'] , if set false, this will not enable webfonts for for logged in users, unless the manually select it using Preferences page.

If the existing fonts are not good enough for a reasonable Tamil reading, Is it better to wait till we have good fonts? According to you all the fonts we give(Added in Bug 31889) bad experience and most people, including anons has better proprietary fonts. And I know that unlike any Indic languages, Tamil has better support in any OS, browser. The issue Tamil is having is not non-availability of fonts, but non availability of good free licensed fonts. And whether the fonts are good or bad is quite subjective topic.

So I am yet to get convinced that Tamil should have a setting to avoid a default font. Similarly if Tamil community think that all free licensed fonts we have is not good enough for reasonable Tamil reading, I am wondering why we should have these fonts in Webfonts extension.

I appreciate with your intention of best Tamil reading with best free licensed font for Tamil wiki projects.

ps: I see that the font help page in Tamil wiki is outdated.

Since the discussion moved specific to Tamil and doesnt add value on this bug, replied at bug 31936.

WONTFIX per comment 2 and comment 4. Disabled by default for anonymous users completely defeats the purpose of the extension.