Comment by danpalmer | Hacker News Reader

Comment by danpalmer | Hacker News Reader

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The typeface looks nice, but I first opened the site on mobile and it told me to use keys to navigate, effectively locking me out from browsing it.

I then opened it on desktop, tried to scroll and realised that it uses WASD keys which are all over my keyboard. The scroll wheel on my mouse/trackpad/etc don't work. As a user of a non-QWERTY layout this sucks.

Then I tried to use the text zoom and while it documents this as being controlled by + and -, it's actually controlled by _ and /. This suggests careless handling of input.

Why does this matter? I think a very important thing for typefaces is accessibility and coverage of edge-cases in language and usage. Covering characters that are used in different languages (even just punctuation that isn't common in English), ensuring readability for those without perfect vision, and so on, all require care and attention to a wide range of concerns.

This website doesn't instil confidence that the designers of the typeface have taken this approach, and in fact the interaction model (which I actually really like) gives the impression of style over substance.

It's an overly stylized affectation for a font website but everything here is mouse-accessible; I didn't use my keyboard at all. My scroll wheel works and you can click on the key buttons on the bottom and the categories on the top.

Looks like you're right. The first time you try clicking it shows a message telling you to use the keyboard to navigate and then flashes the list of keyboard controls. I didn't try clicking again after that.

Scrolling is completely broken for both trackpads and mice scroll wheel, so no, not everything is accessible. At least not in a non-buggy way. Scrolling on a web page should never be buggy.

It works perfectly fine on my MBP.

It was fixed. Before, there were nested scroll areas, interfering with each other. Now, at least from a quick test in the 02 and 03 pages, it works better.

It's not very nice for mobile views but I do like seeing something new every once in a while.

The top seciton names are clickable on mobile

I have a normal qwerty layout and opened it on a laptop and my first thought was "why the hell cant i scroll?"

It's a stupid website. It took more work to make it shittier to use. It's a loss for the author AND the viewer. Counterproductive.

The font seems decent but I closed the tab because I don't have this kind of time.

Minor frustration -- I'm reading the directions to install, but when I focus out (to update my VSCode settings as instructed), the screen goes into low contrast, making it harder to read the directions.

Also, section navigation by number works with the number row keys but not the num pad. I would have expected all number keys to work the same since it doesn't specify otherwise.

I gave up. What a terrible website.

Accessibility may matter, but terminal hipsterism is likely to matter more for the target audience, and thus reflect the values of the project better.

"terminal hipsterism"

That's a very apt way to put it, haha. Might steal that for future references, thanks!

Same feelings about it here. The font actually looks pretty nice, but I won't be using it because that website is utter garbage. I take no issue with the creator taking the time to code up a cute terminal-like interface, but there absolutely needs to be a link to a basic version of the site (and it needs to not require me to press a key to navigate to that link).

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