Updated Font Files for Pīnyīn Plus Resources

Back in 2014, the post “New Typeface for Pīnyīn and Pīnyīn-English Material” on this blog discussed the adoption of the typeface Gentium Basic for the Pīnyīn and Pīnyīn-English material that existed at the time.

As explained on the Gentium website, Gentium Plus is an expanded version of Gentium Basic. It seems that Gentium Plus will be the focus of future development work for the Gentium typeface family. Recently, a new version of Gentium Plus was released, and this has now been adopted on all existing Pīnyīn Plus resources. As a reminder, the short link listing all existing Pīnyīn Plus resources is:

• tiandi.info/pyp

Besides benefiting from design improvements, Gentium Plus is also available in the WOFF2 format, which uses advanced compression to reduce font file sizes, resulting in the font files downloading faster. To further improve download speeds, the Gentium Plus font files now used in the Pīnyīn Plus resources have also undergone font subsetting, which involves removing information for glyphs (characters of symbols) and/or font features that are not required. The resulting subsetted WOFF2 Gentium Plus font files weigh in at only about 131 KB in total, meaning that they can be downloaded in about 20% of the time required for the modified Gentium Basic font files (about 667 KB) that the current Gentium Plus files replaced, and in about 13% of the time required for the original Gentium Basic font files (about 1 MB).

While users with relatively new devices and fast Internet connections may not notice much of a difference, users with older devices and/or relatively slow Internet connections should especially benefit from the Pīnyīn Plus web pages downloading and rendering more quickly. This especially applies when these pages are loaded for the first time, before web browser file caching can take effect.

The Truth Will Set You Free from Unnecessary Ceremony

Ben Cohen, manager of the Swift team at Apple, speaks of their core design goal of making the Swift programming language ceremony-free.

Chinese characters have lots and lots and lots of ceremony, especially compared to _Pīnyīn_.https://t.co/vPLUThxUYp pic.twitter.com/aDOlKOIbWt

— Troubadour WW (@troubadourww) June 25, 2022

What’s Possible According to First Principles?

To serve Jehovah in the best way possible, look beyond mere human tradition, the way people have “always” done things—look for what is possible according to the first principles of this universe that Jehovah created.

That is the design approach behind _Pīnyīn_ Plus material.

— tiandi, Links News (@TiandiLinksNews) June 2, 2022

“First Principles Thinking (FPT) is starting from unequivocal base facts and building up toward some vision or explanation of reality. It involves reasoning by deduction rather than by analogy or appeal to authority.” (source)

What Writing System Should the “Young” Pīnyīn Writing System Learn From?

A reply has been posted in response to SB’s thought-provoking reply to the MEotW post on “_Jìniàn Jùhuì_”.

What more “experienced” writing system should the “young” _Pīnyīn_ writing system learn from and emulate, if any? https://t.co/LYPqYvEwub pic.twitter.com/bJLCaggTBS

— tiandi, Links News (@TiandiLinksNews) May 21, 2022

Publication-based Pīnyīn Plus Web Material Now Has Maximum Line Lengths for Better Readability

The website Butterick’s Practical Typography points out the following:

Shorter lines are more com­fort­able to read than longer lines. As line length in­creases, your eye has to travel far­ther from the end of one line to the be­gin­ning of the next, mak­ing it harder to track your progress vertically.

—Line length | Butterick’s Practical Typography

The iBooks iOS app already applies the above principle when rendering EPUB files, and now the existing publication-based Pīnyīn Plus web material applies the above principle as well. Whereas it previously would allow lines of text to be as long as their displaying window’s margins allowed, now, to preserve readability, lines of text will only grow in length up to a predetermined maximum, even if the window’s size would previously have allowed for longer line lengths.

This new behaviour can currently be seen in action in the following resources, especially as text sizes and/or device orientations get changed:

• Good News Br.
  (Pīnyīn Plus, Scriptures, Web)
  (2016-03 Printing, proofread, mobile-friendly,
  flashcards integrated with the text,
  context-appropriate English translations
  with literal & effective meanings,
  Simplified & Traditional characters,
  📖 Reveal All, 📄 Reveal Advanced,
  and 📘 Reveal None controls for
  all the “flashcards” in a lesson, paragraph, etc.,
  links for getting around,
  picture links, audio links, video link,
  Night Theme that can be turned on or off
  using the ☀️/🌙 button at the top right,
  adjustable text size)
  (Info re offline viewing and printing)
• Short Links:
  Links ▶ Publications ▶ Brochures ▶
  Good News Brochure Links (tiandi.info/fg)
• NWT Bible (Pīnyīn Plus, Web)
  (2007 Printing, proofread, mobile-friendly, unofficial,
  incomplete but with many often-used scriptures,
  flashcards integrated with the text,
  context-appropriate English translations
  with literal & effective meanings,
  Simplified & Traditional characters,
  📖 Reveal All, 📄 Reveal Advanced, and
  📘 Reveal None controls
  for all the “flashcards” in a chapter, paragraph, etc.,
  extensive links for getting around, audio links,
  Night Theme that can be turned on or off
  using the ☀️/🌙 button at the top right,
  adjustable text size)
  (Info re offline viewing and printing)
  
• Short Links:
  Links ▶ Publications ▶
  New World Translation Bible Links (tiandi.info/bi)

homenet.org No Longer in Operation, Short Link Pages Refreshed

homenet.org, which had been used to direct people to the Referenced Theocratic Expressions (RTE) and Pīnyīn/Sidney Lau WOL resources, is no longer in operation. Thus, new redirects to those resources have been created, and the URLs (web addresses) in the affected tiandi.info short link pages, e.g. Referenced Theocratic Expressions (RTE) Links (tiandi.info/rte), Good News Brochure Links (tiandi.info/fg), etc., have been updated.

While I was at it, I took the opportunity to refresh the information in and the formatting of the tiandi.info short link pages.

Title Pages for Pīnyīn Plus Publication Resources Revised for Better First-Time Experiences

Pīnyīn Plus material involves a whole new way of interacting with the various dimensions of material that can be helpful to those learning Mandarin for the Mandarin field. Whereas the official 2-line and unofficial 3-line material that has become traditional always shows all of its characters, romanization, and English (if available) material, like material printed on paper has to, Pīnyīn Plus material takes advantage of the power of modern mobile devices to enable dynamic showing and hiding of its available additional material.

This new dynamic ability in principle provides users with the benefits of flashcards in context, and it empowers users to customize the material to best suit them. It also frees material producers to make the additional material richer and more completely informative, since it will only take up display real estate if and when the user chooses. However, the newness of this ability to show or hide material at will means that many new users are unaware that this ability even exists—they naturally still assume that what you see is all you get, like it always used to be.

This situation presents a challenge when it comes to how the title page for a Pīnyīn Plus resource should be designed. At first, to show users the pure, clean reading experience that is possible with Pīnyīn Plus material, only the Pīnyīn was shown by default, with no flashcards visible, in hopes that users would discover from reading the explanatory material or from their own exploration that additional material for any Pīnyīn expression is just a tap or click away. Unfortunately, most people don’t read explanatory material, even blinking or pulsing explanatory material (generally considered horrible by web designers), and not everyone’s an explorer—apparently many users would just take one look, only see Pīnyīn, and then assume that that was all that was available.

The next approach that was tried involved revealing the “flashcards” for a few selected relatively advanced expressions the first time a Pīnyīn Plus material page is loaded. This instantly shows new users that, yes, rich additional information is available. While this approach still seems to have good aspects, including pre-revealing information that most users probably want to see anyway, on reflection it may not be good to pre-reveal the “flashcard” for the big title on a title page, which title shows the name of the official publication that the Pīnyīn Plus material is based on. In Pīnyīn Plus material, the “flashcard” for the name of an official publication is generally going to be a complex compound affair, showing both the literal meanings of the expressions involved, and also the actual official English name of the publication that those literal meanings effectively represent. While there is value and richness in all that information, the different parts of which are rendered in different colours for easier differentiation, if that complex compound “flashcard”—in big, title font text, no less—is the first thing a new user sees, it can be understandable if that new user then runs away screaming. 😱

So, in summary, while on the positive side Pīnyīn Plus material allows both showing less information and showing more information than traditional material does, allowing for more flexibility and fewer compromises, if approached without this understanding, Pīnyīn Plus material can seem to new users to be either disappointing (“What? No English or characters?”) or intimidating (“Eek! So much stuff all at once!”).

A new approach will now be tried re the presentation of the big title on a title page of Pīnyīn Plus material. To avoid possibly intimidating new users, the complex compound “flashcard” of the publication name will not be revealed by default. Also, to effectively, reliably, and quickly guide new users away from possible unnecessary disappointment, while introducing them to the defining new aspect of using and getting the intended benefits from Pīnyīn Plus material, there will be more pulsing, coloured text! While generally a big design no-no, in this situation, with new users needing to realize that something invisible but significantly new and powerfully beneficial—and under their control!—is available, it seems appropriate. This pulsing text will follow immediately after the title and say, “← Tap/click to show/hide the ‘flashcard’”, and hopefully, this will cause new users to say, “Cool!”

Check out the new title page implementations for the existing Pīnyīn Plus publication resources below:

• Good News Br.
  (Pīnyīn Plus, Scriptures, EPUB)
  (2016-03 Printing, proofread, mobile-friendly,
  flashcards integrated with the text,
  context-appropriate English translations
  with literal & effective meanings,
  Simplified & Traditional characters,
  📖 Reveal All, 📄 Reveal Advanced,
  and 📘 Reveal None controls for
  all the “flashcards” in a lesson, paragraph, etc.,
  links for getting around,
  picture links, audio links, video link,
  supports offline use & annotation)
• Good News Br.
  (Pīnyīn Plus, Scriptures, Web)
  (2016-03 Printing, proofread, mobile-friendly,
  flashcards integrated with the text,
  context-appropriate English translations
  with literal & effective meanings,
  Simplified & Traditional characters,
  📖 Reveal All, 📄 Reveal Advanced,
  and 📘 Reveal None controls for
  all the “flashcards” in a lesson, paragraph, etc.,
  links for getting around,
  picture links, audio links, video link,
  Night Theme that can be turned on or off
  using the ☀️/🌙 button at the top right,
  adjustable text size)
  (Info re offline viewing and printing)
• Short Links:
  Links ▶ Publications ▶ Brochures ▶
  Good News Brochure Links (tiandi.info/fg)

• NWT Bible (Pīnyīn Plus, Web)
  (2007 Printing, proofread, mobile-friendly, unofficial,
  incomplete but with many often-used scriptures,
  flashcards integrated with the text,
  context-appropriate English translations
  with literal & effective meanings,
  Simplified & Traditional characters,
  📖 Reveal All, 📄 Reveal Advanced, and
  📘 Reveal None controls
  for all the “flashcards” in a chapter, paragraph, etc.,
  extensive links for getting around, audio links,
  Night Theme that can be turned on or off
  using the ☀️/🌙 button at the top right,
  adjustable text size)
  (Info re offline viewing and printing)
  
• Short Links:
  Links ▶ Publications ▶
  New World Translation Bible Links (tiandi.info/bi)

New Typeface for Pīnyīn and Pīnyīn-English Material

After much research and consideration, I have decided to change the default typeface for the Pīnyīn and Pīnyīn-English material from Helvetica Neue/Arial to Gentium Basic. (Helvetica Neue, Helvetica, Arial, and “sans-serif” will be set as the fallback typefaces.)

Some reasons for this are:

• While Helvetica Neue, Arial, etc. would be rendered using local font files (ones residing on the client device itself), the Gentium Basic font files will be served from a web server. This will help eliminate dependence on certain font files (and certain versions of those font files) being available on users’ devices.
• Most modern web browsers now support this capability, making it workable for web users.
• With the right programming code, EPUB files can also support included font files.
• Gentium Basic’s licence allows for such usage for free, whereas the licences of Helvetica Neue, Arial, etc. do not.
• Increased certainty about what font file will be used to render certain material makes it more certain that that material will be rendered properly on users’ devices—that certain things will line up properly, etc.
• Helvetica Neue, Arial, etc. have a clean, neutral appearance that many like (Interestingly, “Helvetica” means “Swiss” in Latin.), but Gentium Basic should prove to be more readable. For example, it makes it easier to tell similar-looking characters apart from one another, such as “i”, “I”, and “l”.
• The website of Gentium Basic’s designer has information that shows that he has thought and researched deeply about the design of diacritics, which is what Pīnyīn tone marks are. Indeed, the increased size and clarity of Gentium Basic’s Pīnyīn tone marks should especially help to make Pīnyīn text easier to read.
• While Helvetica Neue, Arial, etc. can seem a little sterile, Gentium Basic has a more “artful”, yet friendly style. Hopefully this will make the Pīnyīn and Pīnyīn-English material even more appealing.

Some Pīnyīn and Pīnyīn-English material has already been converted to use the Gentium Basic typeface, and eventually more of it will be so converted.

About Links News Page Added

The About Links News page has been added to this blog. A link to it now appears at the top of the column on the right.

Minor 2008-11-09 Links File Update Posted

A minor update to the Links file, dated 2008-11-09, has been posted to the Chinese Links File page. Access information in Links emails of the last several months is still valid. If you would like to receive a Links email with information on how to access this page, email me, providing information such as what group or congregation you're with, who referred you to this site, etc.

Featured are updates to the section describing WM-Dict, which has a new web site, and which is now available for Linux as well as Windows, Mac OS X, and Windows Mobile. Also, version 1.3 is now available, which features major updates to the Chinese dictionaries.

Minor 2008-11-06 Links File Update Posted

A minor update to the Links file, dated 2008-11-06, has been posted to the Chinese Links File page. If you would like to receive an email with information on how to access this page, email me, providing information such as what group or congregation you're with, who referred you to this site, etc.

Mainly, this update features a beefed-up Featured / Commonly Requested Tags (Index Headings) section, which now includes quick links to the God’s Love Book, Blogs (including tiandi.info), and other Index headings.

2008-09-03 Links File Update Released

To help get your new service year off to a good start, the 2008-09-03 Links file update has been released. Those of you who are on the list to receive email updates have been sent an email with directions on how to obtain this updated file. If you have not received this email update and would like to, email me about receiving the update and getting added to the mailing list.

The Links file recently underwent a major redesign, which debuted with the 2008-02-18 version. This redesign is intended to help make it easier to find things in the growing list of resources. Besides helping you to find what you are looking for, the system may even help you to discover resources that are available, but that you had not thought of looking for.

Hopefully it will not be too difficult to figure out how to use the redesigned file. However, I recommend that the included directions.html file be read first. Besides including instructions and examples on how to use the new design, this file also discusses redistribution of the Links file.

Based on recent feedback, a few tweaks to the new design appear in this update.

• Since some seemed to be confused by the term “Tags”, this term has been replaced with “Tags (Index Headings)”. Hopefully this will make it clear that clicking on a tag takes one to the corresponding heading in the index.
  


• Some were not intuiting that the titles in the Links section were the links (although it has been that way since the Links information was first published years ago), so the URLs (web addresses or email links) will also be listed as live links below the link titles.
  


• There is now a Document Structure section at the beginning, which shows the overall structure of the Links file. From this section, one may note that:
  
  
  • Right near the beginning, in addition to the complete list of tags, there is now a Featured / Commonly Requested Tags (Index Headings) section, which hopefully is self-explanatory.
    
  
  
  • The Index and the Links sections have traded places. Now, the Links section is closer to the beginning, making it easier to find for those who just want the straight list of links. Also, the structure of the file is now more like that of a book, with something resembling a table of contents at the beginning, the body in the middle, and the index at the end.


• The ‘Go to...’ quick navigation links have been beefed up a bit, and they now appear at the beginning of each major section, and at the end of the file.

One of the results of the redesign is that the file may not work right when it is attached to an email. The HTML code of the file itself is standards-compliant, but I found in my testing that some email systems would not run it properly. So, the Links files are not attached to the Links emails anymore. Instead, the Links file should now be used by downloading its zip file from the web page linked to in the email, extracting it with the supplied password, saving it to a drive, and opening it in a modern web browser like Internet Explorer 7, Firefox, Safari, or Opera. After you open it, you may want to bookmark it or add it to your Favorites for easy retrieval later on.

New and updated resources are listed under the *** NEW *** and *** UPDATED *** index headings.

New resources this time around include:

• 3-line material (pinyin, Sidney Lau, and Yale) for the Creation book
  


• 3-line material for the new God’s Love book

One major update of note is that the J’s Day book 3-line material is now listed as being available at the 3-Line Translations - Theo. Study Aids... and “A large door to activity has been opened” web sites.

Design Refresh

The design of this blog has been refreshed. This is still the place to get news regarding things mentioned in this Links file—it just looks a little different now.

2008-02-18 Links Update Released

The next Links file update has finally been released! Those of you who are on the list to receive email updates have been sent an email with directions on how to obtain this updated file. If you have not received this email update and would like to, email me about receiving the update and getting added to the mailing list.

Those of you who have used previous versions of the Links file will notice that it has undergone a major redesign. This redesign is intended to help make it easier to find things in the growing list of resources. Besides helping you to find what you are looking for, the system may even help you to discover resources that are available, but that you had not thought of looking for.

Hopefully it will not be too difficult to figure out how to use the redesigned file. However, I recommend that the included directions be read first. Besides including instructions and examples on how to use the new design, the directions also discuss redistribution of the file.

One of the results of the redesign is that the file may not work right when it is attached to an email. The HTML code of the file itself is standards-compliant, but I found in my testing that some email systems would not run it properly. So, the file should now be used by saving it to a drive and opening it in a modern web browser like Internet Explorer, Firefox, Safari, or Opera. After you open it, you may want to bookmark it or add it to your Favorites for easy retrieval later on.

In addition to the new design, there are also a significant number of new and updated resources on the list. These are listed under the *** NEW *** and *** UPDATED *** index headings. Resources that are new to the list include

• blogs,


• Spanish resources,


• iPod-compatible video files,


• and 3-line Worship book material.

Hopefully, you will find this update to be worth the long wait. And now that the re-architecting has been done, future updates should follow in much less time than this one took. Enjoy!

The Look for the Rest

I decided to go ahead and update the look of the rest of my Links web pages while the technique was fresh in my mind. Besides hopefully being nicer-looking, they should be easier to read and better to use now too - form is often function, especially when it comes to the presentation of information.

Interestingly, since the Links web pages attached to recent Links emails get their style information from a central CSS file on the web like my other web pages do, they will generally get an updated look too when the computers they are on are connected to the Internet. So, if that Links email you received months ago suddenly looks different, don't panic. :-)

Since I am now boning up on modern web design for a current project, other design tweaks may also filter through to my web pages in the days ahead as I climb this particular learning curve.

The Look

As you can see, I have taken advantage of the new Blogger site's customization options to tweak the look of this blog to better match the look of my other web pages, while keeping some of the more modern web design features of the template I used.

Some of the highlights of the resulting design:

• The top of the page is no longer cut off in MS Internet Explorer.


• The title now has a more "solid" look.


• The more modern centred, fixed-width design was kept.


• The Blog Archive links are now arranged hierarchically, and can be revealed or concealed by clicking on the disclosure triangles, or "twisties".


• The font used for the body text has been changed to match the font used on my other web pages.


• I kept the dark grey colour of the body text, as it is a bit easier on the eyes than maximum contrast black-on-white.


• I increased the font size to that used on my other pages, as I know that many on my mailing list are not as young as they used to be. Interestingly, using bigger text for better readability seems to be part of the current Web 2.0 web design trend.

I hope you enjoy the new look of this blog. Perhaps I will migrate some of the design features to my other web pages in the future as time allows. Of course, though, content will still be king. I have been very busy with other things lately, but hopefully I will have more time soon to devote to that. I will especially try to beef up the amount of audio content available, as I have gotten requests from different ones about that lately.