Fonts dialogue in Firefox, what does that horizontal line indicate?

[Tim]

On Thu, 2007-10-11 at 13:47 +0100, Chris G wrote:
> When you go to the font selection dialogue in Firefox:-           
>           
>     Edit - Preferences - Content - Fonts & Colours/Advanced
>           
> There's a horizontal line in the list of fonts you get to select
> when you click on the Serif, Sans-serif or Monospace selection bar.
> Does anyone know what this horizontal line indicates?

I presume it's different types of fonts (postscript, truetype, bitmap,
or some other differentiation).
                                                                        
> It would actually make selecting a font much easier if there was some
> sort of indication against each font to tell you whether it's a
> monospace or proportional font.  Some are obvious but not all.

Yes, I know what you mean...  Many fonts have mono as part of their
name, others you just have to remember (e.g. Courier, Orator, etc.).
       
> Also, a final question, there are fonts one can select called
> 'monospace', 'serif' and 'sans-serif'.  Presumably if you use these
> then what you get is the system default which is defined somewhere in
> the build/distribution, there aren't actual font files with these
> names.  Have I got this right?                                   

Webpages can request specific fonts to be used on the page, or they can
use a generic family description.  If the style rule just says to use a
serif or sans-serif font, but not which particular one, it lets your
preferred sans or serif font be used.

Style rules can also give a list, so that the first one to match will be
used.

e.g. p {font-family: Georgia, Baskerville, Roman, serif;}

Paragraphs will use the Georgia font, if you have it.  If not, the next
choice would be Baskerville.  Then, if you don't have that, Roman will
do.  Finally, if you didn't have any of the other typefaces, just use
whatever serif font you can.

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