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A comment on Show HN: Neat, the Minimalist CSS Framework. Parent comment

Re:Show HN: Neat, the Minimalist CSS Framework by alwillis on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @08:32AM (#35712646)
> font-family: sans-serif;

> Thank you for a sensible font-family.

Not sure this is sensible in 2023.

I'd suggest:

    font-family: system-ui, sans-serif;
After all, the purpose of system-ui [1] "is to allow web content to integrate with the look and feel of the native OS". Seems like a natural for something that's supposed to be minimalist.

system-ui [2] is supported by 96% of web users, so there's no reason not to use it.

[1]: https://w3c.github.io/csswg-drafts/css-fonts-4/#system-ui-de...

[2]: https://caniuse.com/?search=system-ui

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Re:Show HN: Neat, the Minimalist CSS Framework by chrismorgan on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @10:28AM (#35714178)
system-ui is not suitable for general web content. Apps might have an argument for using it, but general web content should not use it. https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/3658 has some details (mostly by others, but I chip in towards the end), and I’ve written more in other threads here on HN too which you can search for.

(That `box-sizing: content-box` is a good default might be my most unpopular CSS opinion, but writing off system-ui is probably not too far off it. But I care more about it because it’s one that actually affects users, not just developers. Maybe I should get round to pestering browser makers to improve their defaults for the sans-serif generic family so that “proxy for a maybe-prettier sans-serif” goes away as a reason to use system-ui.)

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Re:Show HN: Neat, the Minimalist CSS Framework by alwillis on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @04:42PM (#35719710)
> system-ui is not suitable for general web content. Apps might have an argument for using it, but general web content should not use it.

I emphatically disagree.

On most platforms, font-family: sans-serif results in Helvética or even worse, Arial, which weren’t created with with the web or screens in mind.

One could argue that a website that has any interactive elements is an app; in 2023, that’s a distinction without a difference. system-ui would work fine for an app or a website.

system-ui also gets a developer great typographical features—optical sizing, extensive internationalization support, small caps, ordinals, etc.—“for free” on current platforms without breaking anything and without downloading a font.

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Re:Show HN: Neat, the Minimalist CSS Framework by SquareWheel on Wednesday April 26, 2023 @11:37PM (#35723039)
This is a weirdly contentious issue by web devs, but in my experience, system-ui is fine. It's used as the default in popular frameworks like Bootstrap[1], and most of the teething issues have been solved for a while now.

[1] https://github.com/twbs/bootstrap/blob/adf7b8dc4083b6ddc318e...

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