What are cons to use sIFR, in terms of , development time, accessibility, speed and mobile devices?
Some cons Which i know.
- Rendering speed of pages will be slow
because of it use JavaScript and
FLASH both - sIFR text will not be shown in Iphone
safari and blackberry. and if it will
be shown in other mobile browsers
then browsing will be more slow. - JavaScript and Flash player both
needed in user's browser - If we try to select sIFR text along
with normal text or two sifr text than selection
highlight will not be shown for sIFR
text. - Sifr has differene style mecanism so
we will need to look after style in
sifr-config.js, sifr.css and our own
project's css. some time for some
cross browser problems we will have
to see in all files. - We cannot put sifr js at bottom if we
will do then sifr text will be load
after other elemts
Some pros Which i know.
- cross browser compatibility for
desktop browsers - text can be selected, copy and paste
- graceful degradation (if JS will be disable then simple text will be shown, and even if CSS is we can see normal text)
- screen reader compatible
- sifr text is scalable also
My question are:
- How much site will be slow if i use
sIFR in compare to simple text? - Is there any Free or open source, easy to implement, lighter solution With all features of sifr + iphone and blackberry compatibility but without Flash needed.?
Best Answer
sIFR is slowly becoming an outdated and overly complicated technique. Shaun Inman the designer who invented it now relies on Cufon instead. See this post where he even says:
"Fast-forward three years. Cufón is sIFR’s heir apparent."
http://shauninman.com/archive/2009/04/17/pxr_cufon_pxfon
But let's talk about sIFR. The pros:
Cons:
Bottom line is it's very limited and fast becoming out of date. My advice would be to look into Cufon:
http://cufon.shoqolate.com/generate/
Or rely on a service like TypeKit and only support nice fonts in modern browsers:
http://typekit.com/
Remember it doesn't need to look the same in every browser. Just provide acceptable solutions for each. In all due respect waiting for sIFR to take place on a page loading in IE6 is much more annoying than just seeing helvetica instead of the font your designer fell in love with.
Disclaimer I am a designer and have worked as a designer for several agencies during my career!