I remember this kanji having the "animal horns" over it in July when I last reviewed it. However, suddenly, it has changed to "eight/enter". What's the deal? I know I'm not just imagining things, because every single story, including the one I'm using, uses horn.
http://kanji.koohii.com/study/kanji/酋

Even Jisho.org shows this new way of drawing:
http://jisho.org/search/酋 %23kanji

Is this just a styling difference, or is there some kind of mistake going on here?

I see the horns. Did your computer/phone/etc switch to a Chinese font somehow? Kanji look odd with Chinese fonts sometimes.

In my case, jisho.org shows both : "horns" for the print form (upper left), but "eight" for the stroke animation (lower left) and the static stroke sequence frames (center). Obviously the latter two cannot be a font issue and, since jisho is devoted to Japanese script, you expect it to give the proper Japanese glyph.
My guess would be that this is a case where characters differ slightly in print and in handwriting (see 冷 also in jisho.org).

If you never get the "horns", then perhaps you have the Chinese font issue in addition.

Can anybody confirm?

It's not a Chinese/Japanese font issue, it's an old Japanese/new Japanese font issue. That character along with 167 others got changed with JIS X 0213:2004 11 years ago, the new standard: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/JIS_X_0213...9.E6.AD.A3

What operating system are you guys using and which default Japanese font do you have set to have it shown with the old "horns" style instead of the new "eight" style? I recommend you change your default font to a modern one.

toshiromiballza Wrote:It's not a Chinese/Japanese font issue, it's an old Japanese/new Japanese font issue. That character along with 167 others got changed with JIS X 0213:2004 11 years ago, the new standard: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/JIS_X_0213...9.E6.AD.A3

Did the introduction of that new standard somehow affect the way people write those kanji by hand, and/or the way they are taught at school ?
How about the particular kanji mentioned by the OP?

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Interesting, in both Google Chrome and Firefox under Windows 7, I also see the "enter" version in the story edit area, and the "horns" version in the Shared Stories list area of the page. The first one uses lang="ja" which is supposed to hint the browser to pick the correct font.

jmignot Wrote:Did the introduction of that new standard somehow affect the way people write those kanji by hand, and/or the way they are taught at school ?
How about the particular kanji mentioned by the OP?

Yes, most likely. 23 of those are also joyo kanji now (僅,嘲,捗,梗,淫,溺,煎,牙,箸,茨,葛,蔑,蔽,詮,謎,賭,遜,遡,釜,鍵,隙,餅,餌), so writing them the old way would be "incorrect."

Fonts on Windows since version 7 should be updated to the new standard, so you shouldn't be seeing the old variants, unless you still have Vista or XP. On Mac/iOS, you might have to manually change the font to the newer one (eg. "Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProN", the old one is "Hiragino Kaku Gothic Pro"). Fonts for Android still use the old standard last time I checked.

Woah, I didn't know that! So I've been writing it the old way? Interesting... If only there was an Anki deck with the new ways of writing the kanji which changed.
I'm using an Android tablet right now (as with my first post in this thread), so I guess there's no way to fix it there. From the Wikipedia article it looks like they updated Windows to the new standard when they released Vista, so my computer should be fine.

toshiromiballza Wrote:Fonts on Windows since version 7 should be updated to the new standard, so you shouldn't be seeing the old variants, unless you still have Vista or XP.

I switched from Windows XP to Windows 8.1, so I guess that explains everything.

I have experimented using Firefox where the handling of fonts can be controlled through the preference panel.

Surprisingly, the old ("horns") form of the above kanji 酋 was displayed on the jisho page. But this could be changed by unchecking the "Allow web pages to use their own fonts…" option in the Content/Advanced section ("Japanese fonts" in dropdown menu).

To me this seems to imply that the site attempts to enforce the use of a deprecated font, whereas the system (Maverick in my case) is aware of the new specifications and actually uses one of the "N" fonts.

Does anybody else observe the same behavior?

Bokusenou Wrote:From the Wikipedia article it looks like they updated Windows to the new standard when they released Vista, so my computer should be fine.

You are right, sorry, still, you should upgrade Vista to a newer version. Windows 10 ain't that bad, actually...

jmignot Wrote:To me this seems to imply that the site attempts to enforce the use of a deprecated font, whereas the system (Maverick in my case) is aware of the new specifications and actually uses one of the "N" fonts.

Yes, some websites (Koohii too) use a preferred list of fonts, and in case of Mac, I know this is due to having the old non-N Hiragino font being listed first. I've already mentioned this to Fabrice in the Feedback forum once.

jmignot Wrote:

toshiromiballza Wrote:It's not a Chinese/Japanese font issue, it's an old Japanese/new Japanese font issue. That character along with 167 others got changed with JIS X 0213:2004 11 years ago, the new standard: https://ja.wikipedia.org/wiki/JIS_X_0213...9.E6.AD.A3

Did the introduction of that new standard somehow affect the way people write those kanji by hand, and/or the way they are taught at school ?
How about the particular kanji mentioned by the OP?

Is it just me or does 牌 in the 字体の変更前後の比較 not change a single pixel? I know the difference, but if you can't see it, what's the point? The only place this might be a problem is in 漢検（準）一級, and even then they're quite lenient.

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@toshiromiballza The problem is that it affects a very small set of characters on the site, and since I'm not an expert in the language, it is really difficult to have a clear goal, with a clear before and after. I hate programming things when I don't know with 100% certainty what it fixes. If there was one webpage that gives me a clear before, after, and that I can test it, then I'd love to do it. There ought to be a definitive article on how to handle Japanese fonts in Western websites, but all I found after spending hours is just lots of articles, each having their own suggestions as to what font to use, or what html to use, without anything truly conclusive. Plus it's really hard to test with so many systems out there and default fonts. I wish someone just made a plugin stylesheet for that, the same way there are so many plugin Js / Css for standardized grids and the like.

toshiromiballza Wrote:

Bokusenou Wrote:From the Wikipedia article it looks like they updated Windows to the new standard when they released Vista, so my computer should be fine.

You are right, sorry, still, you should upgrade Vista to a newer version. Windows 10 ain't that bad, actually...

Ehh, PCs which can run Photoshop & other memory-heavy Adobe software well (which is absolutely necessary for me being able to do work) don't come cheap, and Vista's still supported for another two years. Vista runs fine for me (I'm guessing the bugs were ironed out by the time I got it), and I'm saving up to get a new PC by then. ^-^

ファブリス Wrote:There ought to be a definitive article on how to handle Japanese fonts in Western websites, but all I found after spending hours is just lots of articles, each having their own suggestions as to what font to use, or what html to use, without anything truly conclusive. Plus it's really hard to test with so many systems out there and default fonts. I wish someone just made a plugin stylesheet for that, the same way there are so many plugin Js / Css for standardized grids and the like.

I know exactly what you mean, I've been reading the same articles and suggestions as you, so I've done my own research some time ago. So here's an up-to-date web-safe font stack supporting all devices (OS X/iOS, Windows, Linux, Android):

Quote:ヒラギノ角ゴ ProN W3, HiraKakuProN-W3, Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProN, Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProN W3, ＭＳ Ｐゴシック, MS PGothic, Meiryo UI, TakaoEXゴシック, TakaoExGothic, IPAexゴシック, IPAexGothic, Source Han Sans JP Regular, Source Han Sans JP Normal, Noto Sans Japanese Regular, Noto Sans Japanese DemiLight, Takao Pゴシック, TakaoPGothic, IPA Pゴシック, IPAPGothic, Takaoゴシック, TakaoGothic, IPAゴシック, IPAGothic, VL Pゴシック, VL PGothic, VL ゴシック, VL Gothic, モトヤLマルベリ3等幅, モトヤLマルベリ, MotoyaLMaru W3 mono, MotoyaLMaru, モトヤLシーダ3等幅, モトヤLシーダ, MotoyaLCedar W3 mono, MotoyaLCedar, Droid Sans Japanese, DroidSansJapanese, sans-serif

toshiromiballza Wrote:

ファブリス Wrote:There ought to be a definitive article on how to handle Japanese fonts in Western websites, but all I found after spending hours is just lots of articles, each having their own suggestions as to what font to use, or what html to use, without anything truly conclusive. Plus it's really hard to test with so many systems out there and default fonts. I wish someone just made a plugin stylesheet for that, the same way there are so many plugin Js / Css for standardized grids and the like.

I know exactly what you mean, I've been reading the same articles and suggestions as you, so I've done my own research some time ago. So here's an up-to-date web-safe font stack supporting all devices (OS X/iOS, Windows, Linux, Android):

Quote:ヒラギノ角ゴ ProN W3, HiraKakuProN-W3, Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProN, Hiragino Kaku Gothic ProN W3, ＭＳ Ｐゴシック, MS PGothic, Meiryo UI, TakaoEXゴシック, TakaoExGothic, IPAexゴシック, IPAexGothic, Source Han Sans JP Regular, Source Han Sans JP Normal, Noto Sans Japanese Regular, Noto Sans Japanese DemiLight, Takao Pゴシック, TakaoPGothic, IPA Pゴシック, IPAPGothic, Takaoゴシック, TakaoGothic, IPAゴシック, IPAGothic, VL Pゴシック, VL PGothic, VL ゴシック, VL Gothic, モトヤLマルベリ3等幅, モトヤLマルベリ, MotoyaLMaru W3 mono, MotoyaLMaru, モトヤLシーダ3等幅, モトヤLシーダ, MotoyaLCedar W3 mono, MotoyaLCedar, Droid Sans Japanese, DroidSansJapanese, sans-serif

Woah, thanks for posting that! That list could be really useful!

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@toshiromiballza
That's great thanks.

Now I remember one of my apprehension is that it also changes from serif to sans-serif, and also from medium to bold, depending what font is available.

I've always thought the serif looks nicer, from a design standpoint, for the larger font sizes, such as in the edit story area.

Is it possible to separate this list in serif and sans-serif or is it the case that some devices include sans-serif versions and don't necessarily have the serif alternative? (that would seem likely on low spec tablets that are limited in storage or memory).

TLDR I would like to keep serif in the edit story area which uses a ~66px font size and also the flashcards which uses an even larger font size. Sans serif is ugly in large size (imho) and less informative. Sans serif has thick strokes that have no clear beginning or end, whereas serif suggests the direction of individual strokes and I think is more useful for those users who want to write the character when reviewing.

edit started a new topic to discuss the font list specifically

Sorry, should have mentioned the list is partly with my own preference in mind (sans-serif). For serif fonts, the font stack would need to include other fonts, but I didn't make a serif font stack, because I don't really care about them...

Aside from the experts' discussions, would you recommend a simple minded user like me just to keep the the "Allow web pages to use their own fonts…" option unchecked in Firefox and rely on the MacOs system to pick up the proper font, as it seems to do in the case of jisho.org? Or are other side effects to be expected?

By the way, does anyone know if there is a similar option available in Safari?

I don't think there should be any problems, but you might notice some websites you frequent will seem different due to the new fonts.