Template talk:Trade designation

I propose that carefully kerned monospace be used as the default font style of this template. The code for this is in Template:Trade designation/sandbox.

Rationale

• Comic Sans is the most hated typeface in history.[1]. Aside from that, there's no guarantee it's on any given readers' systems, since it's not a default font in all OSes, and some people hate it so much they get rid of it anyway. So, it actually fails at the intended purpose, to consistently produce some kind of typeface alteration. The transition is also jarring.
• Regular, unkerned monospace is ill-suited to this task (see second example line in demo below). Its spacing between words and between characters is too wide, and in this form it is expected to represent computer input/output.
• Serif (roman) type does not work for the reason already given in the template's documentation - many readers override the whole Web and read it in serif. Unless you override it, Worse yet, all headings are in serif font by default since mid-2014 (though many of us override this in user style, non-logged-in readers don't).
• Smallcaps is fairly common in sources, but it's disfavored online in general, and particularly disfavored by Wikipedia (about the only use of it anywhere on WP is for the Tetragrammaton in Template:LORD, and in one citation style (Vancouver, I think) that hardly anyone uses, and there's been push-back against allowing it for that purpose on WP. Another problem with smallcaps is that some readers are apt to take it to mean that the entire trade designation should be written in capital letters, so it's misleading.
• Other fonts: We have no idea what fonts people have installed, and many of them are display fonts that are not readable at small sizes anyway.
• Other stylistic changes: Italics and boldface are used for other purposes, and cannot be certain to not be used in the same passage as this template. Underline is essentially verboten by MOS. All of these typeface changes also have the problem of being mistaken for emphasis.
• Kerned monospace is thus the most obvious choice. All systems have a monospaced font, and when kerned it does not look like computer code. It has a visual effect fairly similar to a change to serif or smallcaps, but less jarring. Even for any rare individuals who use local stylesheets to make the entire Web monospaced, our kerned use here will still succeed as a typeface alteration.

Demo

• Sandbox template, kerned monospace:
  • Choisya ternata Gold Fingers 'Limo', in which Gold Fingers is the trade designation
• Unkerned equivalent, like <tt>...</tt> output:
  • Choisya ternata Gold Fingers 'Limo', in which Gold Fingers is the trade designation
• Current template, Comic Sans:
  • Choisya ternata Gold Fingers 'Limo', in which Gold Fingers is the trade designation
• Current template, SmallCaps:
  • Choisya ternata Gold Fingers 'Limo', in which Gold Fingers is the trade designation

Technical notes

I've set up a CSS font stack, after significant testing in multiple browsers, using all commonly available (Windows, Mac, Linux) monospaced fonts, favoring sans serif ones with the most comparable letter size and best readability. See the sandbox page for tests, including a screenshot showing how it looks in each font (assuming you may not already have all of them). Basically, this should just plain work, cross-platform, with no display problems. The kerning also includes a hint of left margin, just a sliver, to keep the trade designation from being juxtaposed quite so close to right-slanted italic scientific names, without adding enough to make it look weird when used alone (see demo above where each case is used both after and not after italics).

 — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  22:43, 27 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

This seems an excellent approach to me, and a definite step forward. Peter coxhead (talk) 06:58, 28 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

Using virtual machines under Mac OS X, I've tested this in Windows 8.1, CentOS Linux with GNOME (out of the box), CentOS with KDE (out of the box), FreeBSD with KDE (and font upgrades recommended with the KDE install), and Ubuntu Linux with Unity (GNOME-based, out of the box). After some minor font-stack tweaks, all seems to be well. Same goes for display in iOS Simulator, and on a Samsung Android. Later, I'll try it in Chrome OS, just to be sure.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  18:52, 29 June 2015 (UTC)Reply

Proceeding with the current sandbox.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  06:00, 6 July 2015 (UTC)Reply

Update: Also consolidated the code to be less redundant, removed the unreliable serif option (so it now does the default style), added custom CSS option, applied the slight margin-left regardless of style, and rewrote the documentation.  — SMcCandlish ☺ ☏ ¢ ≽^ʌⱷ҅_ᴥⱷ^ʌ≼  08:00, 6 July 2015 (UTC)Reply