Is it possible to have all the Awesome Fonts cached on the server so that they would not require an internet connection? I have a server setup on a local area network that doesn't have network access. The loading time seems to take a really long time on new clients. We running moodle 2.6 with essentail theme 2.62. Thanks for everyone's help.
General Settings page of the Essential theme settings?
Personally I could never quite work out why anyone would want to use remote FontAwesome files when those same fonts are in the Essential theme anyway. I think there is a setting, which Richard points out, which allows you to chose which method you prefer to use.
I agree but in our case I've had to enable the FontAwesome from CDN as the icons were not showing in the Elegance theme. If anyone knows of a workaround please let me know!
same with me Paul !
-michel
In that case that BUG needs reporting to Julian..
I noticed that the font wasn't serving correctly when I forced my site to SSL, but I think there's already a fix for that issue.
The main reason is speed:
1. If they already visited another site that uses the same font, they don't need to download it again, so your site seems faster, and your server needs to do less work, pay less for bandwidth.
2. If they don't then they get the file from the CDN. The CDN has servers at key points all around the globe, the machines are set up to do one thing and one thing only so no PHP is involved, no session variables need to get sent to the server before it figures out what it needs to send, just a straightforward file download. Unless your users are all located near your server, and you're both in a remote location with poor connectivity to the wider internet (in which case, change the setting and host them locally), the files will arrive faster, and your server will do less work.
1. If they already visited another site that uses the same font, they don't need to download it again, so your site seems faster, and your server needs to do less work, pay less for bandwidth.
2. If they don't then they get the file from the CDN. The CDN has servers at key points all around the globe, the machines are set up to do one thing and one thing only so no PHP is involved, no session variables need to get sent to the server before it figures out what it needs to send, just a straightforward file download. Unless your users are all located near your server, and you're both in a remote location with poor connectivity to the wider internet (in which case, change the setting and host them locally), the files will arrive faster, and your server will do less work.
Thanks for all of the quick responses. I was driving myself completely mad because the site would have a pretty hefty delay while it was looking to download the fonts and I couldn't figure out what it was still trying to load. I looked at the usual performance indicators on the server and they all pointed to little to no load on the server itself. The awesome font is great and the Essential theme is amazing so I am glad that there are some options for me.
I looked through the settings and found what setting needs to be changed but I wanted to double check.
FontAwesome from CDN - Default: No (currently unchecked).
If enabled this will load FontAwesome from the online Bootstrap CDN source. Enable this if you are having issues getting the Font Awesome icons to display in your site.
The wording is throwing me off a bit but it sounds like what I need to check. Thanks again for everyone's help.
It sounds like you've already got it in the correct state (unchecked) for what you want.
Try turning it on, save the page and then turn it off again (in the long tradition of IT support) to see if that helps.
Try turning it on, save the page and then turn it off again (in the long tradition of IT support) to see if that helps.
I am looking through the internet explorer 10 developer code as the site is loading and it looks to me like it is trying to load google analytics and also trying to access the google font apis. If I switch the theme back to the basic theme then everything loads really quickly. I don't have google analytics options enabled and I also don't have the option set to try and load the fonts from the CDN. Any other ideas on how I can prevent the server from trying to look online?
I tried adding in a host file entry into my ubuntu server but realized that it was the client that was trying to access the internet for the fonts. The two lines below are what are appearing in the code. If I add in a local host file entry into the Windows 7 desktop then the page loads really fast. Any idea how I can stop the client from trying to load the font from google or is there something else I am missing?
<link href="//fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Oswald" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
<link href="//fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=PT+Sans" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
Hi Tyler, First of all those extra fonts are nothing to do with FontAwesome, that is an 'icon' font that generates the Icons only.
The linked fonts you are having problems with are extra fonts that Julian was keen to get people to choose their own fonts. Alternatively you can opt out of using those fonts and just use the default font in Moodle. So just as a test remove those links that you added and see what happens after doing a Purge all cache Mary
I figured out a way to move past the issue. In the Essential Theme settings there is a drop down for the font type. The very bottom option is to disable google fonts. Once I chose that option it looks like it just reverted back to the default font for Moodle 2.6. When I checked the code that was running everything looked great. It doesn't look as good with the default font but at least the code stopped looking for the googleapi and would just load the font directly from the server. If anyone knows a workaround to get the other fonts from the Essential Theme to work that would be great. Otherwise I at least have a font that works well and maybe I just need to get used to it a bit more. Thanks again for everyone's help.
Hi everyone,
I am also having a problem using the Google fonts and the Awesome fonts for the social media links.
Because our Moodle server is behind a firewall, we are finding that we (and in particular our students) are having to provide authentication multiple times before the page will load. This seems to be because the network is requiring authentication to access each of the online font URLs.
Is there any way for us to use the Google and Awesome fonts, but have them loaded onto our server rather than accessing them online?
We are using Moodle 2.6 and Essential theme v2014020300.
Thanks,
Tracey
Hi everyone
We're also facing the same issue. We switched on the Essential theme 2 weeks ago (Moodle 2.6.2+ with Essential 2014071701). And users are complaining about the loading time.
If anyone found a way to use the Google fonts, but have them loaded on our server rather than accessing them online ? otherwise we may have to disable Google fonts
Thanks
Emilie
Umm, that's a contradiction! Google fonts are only 'online' by their very nature.
One way to have fonts locally served is to use the 'Custom font' setting value for 'Font type selector' and upload your own font files, say that you have got from: http://www.fontsquirrel.com/ with the appropriate license.
Are you sure its the Google fonts causing the loading time? What does the network tab (in the browser tools) show as the longest load time for a page?
Hi Emilie,
You don't have to use the OnLine Google Fonts you can download them to your PC. Same goes for your pupils too. Just as long as the font names are listed in your theme's CSS as part of the font-family you and your students will see them when they load the Moodle pages.
http://www.labnol.org/software/google-fonts-on-computer/19780/
Hi Gareth, Mary
Thanks a lot for your feedbacks ! I realized my post was not clear..
Actually, some users complained that the platform was slow (but it's mainly the case with large complex courses with hundreds students). BTW, we noticed that Moodle was trying to load CDN bootstrap + Google fonts. That's why we'd like to check whether it's possible to load on our server rather than accessing them online. For bootstrap, it's fixed, from the Essential theme admin, we disabled the loading of bootstrapcdn.
Regarding the font, in the Essential settings, we selected the Ubuntu font. I understand that to disable the google fonts, we should select the "Open Sans". And then call the font directly in the CSS (eg font-family:Ubuntu,Arial,Verdana,Helvetica,sans-serif;). But the font will be displayed only if users have the font on their PC, right ? Is there a way to embbed it the theme folder on our server ?
Thanks again for your support
BR
Emilie
Hi Emilie,
Ok, just use the settings in the theme. You can either set 'Standard fonts' and use the boxes to state the name of the font which is already installed on the users machine (Essential does the css and states fall back font names). Or use the 'Custom' option upon which saving will refresh the screen to bring up to upload boxes where you can upload the TTF font file (and set the name in the box above) which Essential will serve to the users and set the CSS. I do need to discuss with David about adding more options here for woff font files too.
Gareth
Hi Gareth
Thanks for your answer, I am using Moodle 2.6.2+ with Essential 2014071701
I can't find the way to set 'Custom' option and upload the TTF font file. Maybe this option is not available from my Essential theme version ?
ThanksEmilie
Hi Emilie,
It isn't. Please update to the latest M2.6 version: https://moodle.org/plugins/pluginversion.php?id=6815.
I am additionally thinking that woff files might be better. Thoughts?
Gareth
Hi Gareth
I tested the latest Essential M2.6 version on our test server. Indeed, i can now upload our font, that's great !
However, i discovered that the "My dashboard" item disapeared from our navigation bar, and is now attached to the user menu.
Since we've just deployed the Essential theme on our Moodle and communicated the new theme all around our university, we'll wait for a while before deploying a new theme version.
Emilie
Umm, 'My Dashboard' is still there. There is a setting to call it something else like 'My Courses'.
Hi Gareth,
I am getting confused.. I may have missed something..
See picture attached : Our moodle with essential version 2014071701 and test with version 2014090302
Thanks again for your feedback
BR
Emilie
Oh, ok, yes the functionality has moved!