what technology would you use to build a webapp that requires the use of a special font?

Question

I'm planning a webapp. I have all the wireframes defined, the interfaces designed in photoshop, data structures etc. It will be built on php and mysql however I've been unable to decide on which technology to use as a GUI. All your insights are welcome.

The problem with going the html way is that the GUI makes use of a special font that is crucial to the visual aspect of the app. So this font is required. For headers and fixed sections I could do sfir or use images but being a webapp, the amount of dynamically generated content makes it imposible to use image replacements. Enter flash. Flash solves the font problem easily, it even adds font antialiasing and animations which makes it look even sexier. Another pro is being able to deploy as an air app to use local storage for users that have troublesome connections. This way when internet access is restored the app can sync with the main servers. BUT... flash is being ignored by major developers, this would mean the app wouldn't be accessible to mobile devices, ipads,search engines, etc and requires the installation of the flash plugin which is not that big a deal but should be considered.

I appreciate your insights, suggestions, comments :)

Answer 1

Have a look at Cufon. It's javascript-based and works in most browsers, including IE6.

Answer 2

With typeface.js you can embed custom fonts in your web pages so you don't have to render text to images.

http://typeface.neocracy.org/

That way you can use plain HTML/CSS for lighter faster clients and still use a special font.

Answer 3

The only problem with the JS solutions and/or the underlying css that makes them possible is that you still have licensing to deal with. Unless its a FOSS typeface its doubtful youll be able to get a license for web use in all the formats you need. Some of the larger foundries are supporting the IE based format (dont recall what its called at the moment) but they do not support the standard used by Mozilla or WebKit.

On the other hand with flash the font is embedded in a compiled swf so there shouldnt really be any licensing issues so long as you have the proper license to use it in the first place. That is assuming youre not distributing the fla source files.

Answer 4

You could use @font-face but it's a css3 feature and it takes a few extra steps to get it to work in all browsers.

Check out

http://webfonts.info/wiki/index.php?title=%40font-face_browser_support

http://blog.themeforest.net/tutorials/how-to-achieve-cross-browser-font-face-support/