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firefox 9 doesn't handle the css font stack properly

  • 5 replies
  • 28 have this problem
  • 18 views
  • Last reply by krakrjak

dan34
dan34
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The style body{font:13px/1.231 arial,helvetica,sans-serif;*font-size:small;*font:x-small} should cause the browser to work through the stack and use sans-serif if arial and helvetica are not available. This is how it worked in Firefox 8 and how it works in other browsers.

With Firefox 9 if the first font is unavailable it just substitues one of it's own instead.

If I remove arial and helvetica from the list then FF9 uses the system sans-serif as it should.

I would paste in some sample code, but this forum doesn't seem to support code snippets.

The style body{font:13px/1.231 arial,helvetica,sans-serif;*font-size:small;*font:x-small} should cause the browser to work through the stack and use sans-serif if arial and helvetica are not available. This is how it worked in Firefox 8 and how it works in other browsers. With Firefox 9 if the first font is unavailable it just substitues one of it's own instead. If I remove arial and helvetica from the list then FF9 uses the system sans-serif as it should. I would paste in some sample code, but this forum doesn't seem to support code snippets.

All Replies (5)

krakrjak
krakrjak
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This is a HUGE deal. You've broken many sites internally that my company uses and that I maintain. This is a problem that affects all pages and breaks how CSS behaves. Here's a link to a site with a specific code example that shows off this bug: http://krakrjak.blogspot.com/2012/01/firefox-901-font-css-bug.html

Please fix this so I can quit answering questions about why our sites are broken in what appears to be the most popular browser at the company.

Thank you!

krakrjak
krakrjak
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No one from Mozilla has responded to this even though it continues to be a PITA. A bug has been opened on this issue at https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=718016

If you are interested in getting this bug fixed please go to bugzilla.mozilla.org and vote for bug 718016.

knorretje
knorretje
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The css in the blogpost http://krakrjak.blogspot.com/2012/01/firefox-901-font-css-bug.html is wrong, and that is why this does not work in Firefox. To access a class you must use the class selector (a dot). For example: .p-inner p { }
You can go to Mozilla Developer Network to learn CSS.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/learn/css

krakrjak
krakrjak
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I see what you mean. So using the # notation (id selector) instead of using the correct . notation (class selector) lead to this issue for me. It just appears that FireFox got a little more strict around the standard and that means the code I am maintaining is full of non-standard CSS that I will have to fix up now... ooh well.

Interestingly enough this worked up until 9.0. I do see that this is not valid CSS now. Thanks for the link.

There still seems to be an issue that Dan is tracking down that is separate from my misuse of CSS.

krakrjak
krakrjak
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I have updated the blog post to show what the issue with my CSS is and how to avoid the issue and write correct CSS in this respect.

http://krakrjak.blogspot.com/2012/01/firefox-901-font-css-bug.html

Modified by krakrjak