Gif type useless on responsive sites?

Freeway
1

I’m getting very disenchanted with responsive sites. I’ve been using Freeway for a number of years, but I’m working on my first responsive site, and I find major design tricks I used to use don’t work at all on responsive sites.
Maybe I’m wrong here, but on a conventional site when I want a big bold heading, I use gif type as the option of HTML fonts is too limiting. I can find no way of changing a gif heading for a given break point without it being the same everywhere, rendering this option useless as far as I can see.
It’s the same with using photos as pass through. I can’t change the size, rotate it, or anything except move it.

What is supposed to be a timesaver is taking me an eternity to produce something I don’t like, because I’m spending all my time trying to conform to specifications and sacrificing too much along the way.

If I’m missing the obvious here with the type problem, can somebody please enlighten me?

As it stands at the moment, no wonder most responsive sites are looking the same - they can’t do that much it seems.

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2

Hi Steve,

The main thing is, if you’re creating heading as gif text, it might work visually but won’t be working as hard for you for SEO and accessibly of the site. Meaning the search engines will find it harder to understand out the context of your page and list is lower in the results.

The Basic set of Freeway HTML fonts are limiting, have you tried including google fonts in a Freeway page? See https://fonts.google.com.

I hope you’re creating a semantic page with HTML text for h1 headings, H2 sub headings etc. Try adding your page URL in here to see if the page information makes any sense… Decommission Semantic Data Extractor

David Owen { Freeway Friendly Web hosting and Domains }

http://www.ineedwebhosting.co.uk | http://www.PrintlineAdvertising.co.uk

On 7 Oct 2017, at 10:16, Steve Fermor email@hidden wrote:

I use gif type as the option of HTML fonts is too limiting. I can find no way of changing a gif heading for a given break point without it being the same everywhere, rendering this option useless as far as I can see.

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3

Hello David,

I have been away for a while experimenting with Adobe Muse, as I can’t get my head around using code with fonts in Freeway. Unfortunately, Muse is an utter disaster, so I have returned to Freeway.

I did learn a little about responsive sites in Muse though, and have applied that knowledge to Freeway and have a much better result thus far. But I have crashed into the font issue again.

I am trying to create a strap line in a footer which will need to reformat as the page gets narrower. Gif type won’t do this, and if I change it for the next breakpoint down, it ruins it for the first one. The only way I can see around it is to have separate text blocks for each size, and only allow the correct one to publish at a given size. That’s a lot of faffing around. Hence I have looked at your suggestion again.

I need a decent bold display font, just one. My site is to promote my services as a graphic designer, and I need something more adventurous than Helvetica to put some punch into the page.

I have looked at the Google fonts as you suggest, and there are some in there that will work, but on the overview the very first line says “Here’s an example. Copy and paste the following HTML into a file:” and I am immediately lost! Where and how do I paste it? Sadly I am allergic to code and have no idea what I’m doing.
I would appreciate any further help on this you are able to give. Treat me as the village idiot on this, I won’t mind.

Thanks in advance.

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Hi Steve,

As a designer for many years I’ve always had a soft spot for Helvetica especially at larger point sizes and tight letter spacing. http://davidowendesign.com

How to use a Google font in Freeway… Using Google Web Fonts - Freeway - Softpress Talk

This is how I do it…

Downloading the fonts

  1. Visit Google Fonts Roboto - Google Fonts

  2. Select this font (top right)

  3. Click Family Selected Box (bottom)

  4. Click Customise > select the fonts you need for your project > download the font using the down arrow top right of Family selected box its a zip file.

  5. Load the downloaded fonts to your Mac so Freeway can give you better preview (I use Suitcase) with a quit/re-start for Freeway.

Adding the fonts in Freeway

  1. In Google fonts click the “Family Selected” box > Embed > @IMPORT > Select the code
@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Roboto');

(I use the @import as it’s more reliable on iOS devices)

  1. In Freeway go to Page > HTML Markup > Before H/head paste…
@import url('https://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Roboto');
  1. Back to Google Fonts in “Specify in CSS” copy just….

‘Roboto’, sans-serif

4.1 In Freeway go to Edit > Fonts Sets

4.2 Click the + to add a new font. Name it… Roboto

4.3 Next select the "screen font” as Roboto (you’ve already loaded to the Mac)

4.4 In the Alternative fonts add just… ‘Roboto’, sans-serif

Adding the fonts to your Freeway project

Creating a body font…

  1. Create a new style

  2. In the tag field type… body

  3. Tab out of the second name field so that nothing is in there

  4. In the Character > Font choose “Roboto”

Here’s the clever bit…

  1. Click the Extended button…

  2. In the name field add… font-weight

  3. In the second value field add… 400 (which is one of the fonts you selected earlier)

Creating a headline font…

  1. Right click the h1 style

  2. In the Character > Font choose “Roboto”

Here’s the clever bit…

  1. Click the Extended button…

  2. In the name field add… font-weight

  3. In the second value field add… 700 (which is one of the fonts you selected earlier)

David Owen { Freeway Friendly Web hosting and Domains }

http://www.ineedwebhosting.co.uk | http://www.PrintlineAdvertising.co.uk

On 30 Nov 2017, at 18:48, Steve Fermor email@hidden wrote:

Hello David,

I have been away for a while experimenting with Adobe Muse, as I can’t get my head around using code with fonts in Freeway. Unfortunately, Muse is an utter disaster, so I have returned to Freeway.

I did learn a little about responsive sites in Muse though, and have applied that knowledge to Freeway and have a much better result thus far. But I have crashed into the font issue again.

I am trying to create a strap line in a footer which will need to reformat as the page gets narrower. Gif type won’t do this, and if I change it for the next breakpoint down, it ruins it for the first one. The only way I can see around it is to have separate text blocks for each size, and only allow the correct one to publish at a given size. That’s a lot of faffing around. Hence I have looked at your suggestion again.

I need a decent bold display font, just one. My site is to promote my services as a graphic designer, and I need something more adventurous than Helvetica to put some punch into the page.

I have looked at the Google fonts as you suggest, and there are some in there that will work, but on the overview the very first line says “Here’s an example. Copy and paste the following HTML into a file:” and I am immediately lost! Where and how do I paste it? Sadly I am allergic to code and have no idea what I’m doing.
I would appreciate any further help on this you are able to give. Treat me as the village idiot on this, I won’t mind.

Thanks in advance.

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5

Hello David,

Thank you so much for such a rapid and detailed response. I will go through this very carefully later and get back to you.
I didn’t realise there was so much to it – I would never have found this on my own.

Thanks again.

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6

Hi Steve,

I’m sure if Freeway resurrects itself this stuff will be built in.

But then in the long term I’ve learnt so much more, fending for myself, having to work with and understand code, it’s been more benefit overall then if say Freeway (like other apps) hid all this and made it all automated.

David Owen { Freeway Friendly Web hosting and Domains }

http://www.ineedwebhosting.co.uk | http://www.PrintlineAdvertising.co.uk

On 1 Dec 2017, at 11:35, Steve Fermor email@hidden wrote:

Thank you so much for such a rapid and detailed response. I will go through this very carefully later and get back to you.
I didn’t realise there was so much to it – I would never have found this on my own.

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7

An off-topic “thanks.” David, as an old geezer (74) who at best is only mid-level technologically, I sincerely appreciate you and the other advanced webmasters who help the rest of us so willingly. We out here do not take it for granted. Much appreciated! With massive, volunteered help from this forum I’ve been able to overcome my tech amateurism and build a nonprofit website (www[dot]jimfeeney[dot]org) that is now getting about 40K unique visitors a month. I absolutely could not have done this without the ongoing support of the experts on this board. Thanks again.

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8

I couldn’t agree more!

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9

Hello David,

I’m almost there with this. I have a functioning HTML font (I chose ‘Anton’), but my screen representation is huge courier - much bigger than the size I have chosen. I can only see the font as it would appear at preview stage.
I’m sure this is my fault as I came a little unstuck over the last two parts of you instructions, specifically the 400 and 700 bits, which I didn’t understand. I think I got the 400 part done ok. I can’t see any facility here to send you screenshots so show what I have done though.
If you can offer any further assistance I would be very grateful. If you wish to see some screenshots I can send you some, and can be contacted on email@hidden

I am clearly very close now, it’s only the on screen representation that is proving problematic. I did install the font via suitcase, and have quit and restarted both Freeway and the computer.

Many thanks.

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10

Hi Steve,

The default screen font for Freeway is Courier. What have you got in the Freeway Screen font?

Menu > Edit > Font Sets > Screen font

You should have… Anton (not courier)

David Owen { Freeway Friendly Web hosting and Domains }

http://www.ineedwebhosting.co.uk | http://www.PrintlineAdvertising.co.uk

On 3 Dec 2017, at 09:30, Steve Fermor email@hidden wrote:

Hello David,

I’m almost there with this. I have a functioning HTML font (I chose ‘Anton’), but my screen representation is huge courier - much bigger than the size I have chosen. I can only see the font as it would appear at preview stage.
I’m sure this is my fault as I came a little unstuck over the last two parts of you instructions, specifically the 400 and 700 bits, which I didn’t understand. I think I got the 400 part done ok. I can’t see any facility here to send you screenshots so show what I have done though.
If you can offer any further assistance I would be very grateful. If you wish to see some screenshots I can send you some, and can be contacted on email@hidden

I am clearly very close now, it’s only the on screen representation that is proving problematic. I did install the font via suitcase, and have quit and restarted both Freeway and the computer.

Many thanks.

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Information for existing FreewayTalk / Groups.io users - Site Feedback - Softpress Talk

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