Reduce carbon footprint of the website

[KiritoStorm]

From the status page tool, I found out there is a website to check how carbon friendly a website is.

The test gives me an E rating, which is pretty bad, but acceptible.

I don't think that this has big priority, but maybe it would make sense to do some optimizations if it doesn't change to much on the website.

It isn't just sustainability, it is also about improving performance.
Less loading time => Less carbon footprint & more performance

Some resources linked to that:
https://beleaf.au
https://sustainablewebdesign.org

[KyleDL101]

It seems like the test you checked was outdated by their standards. I did a re-test and it's dropped to F (we rewrote the backend of the site since it was previously tested).

To be honest, I've tested performance for the site using Google's tools (Lighthouse), and the Zen website gets good performance results.

[NOCanoa]

btw @KyleDL101 only thing i can see that can be optimized alot is the fonts

2.2mb is kinda alot lol

[KyleDL101]

@NOCanoa Agreed, the fonts are the only thing that is concerning.

[flyri0]

Hi @KyleDL101,

I managed to reduce the size of both JunicodeVF-Regular.woff2 (41.94 KB) and JunicodeVF-Italic.woff2 (48.76 KB) using subsetting.

It's likely possible to make them even smaller, but that would increase maintenance overhead, as a new subset would need to be generated frequently.

According to the Junicode manual:

8.1. Subsetting Junicode

First the legalities. It is perfectly all right to create a modified version of Junicode via subsetting, compress it into a webfont (almost certainly in woff2 format), and host it on your web server. This is because “Junicode” is not a “Reserved Font Name” (which complicates web use of many fonts licensed under the Open Font License). If you are nevertheless nervous about the legal requirements of the Open Font License, you can change the font name to something arbitrary with the --obfuscate-names option of the pyftsubset program, and you can embed the Open Font License, or a link to it, in your CSS. These steps should settle any ambiguity about whether you are in compliance with the license.

Let me know if you'd like more details about the subsetting process or any other adjustments!

[KyleDL101]

Hi @flyri0,

That's great! Did you use pyftsubset for this, or something else?

Also, please feel free to open a PR with the subset font files. This is a good change to have.

[flyri0]

@KyleDL101 Yes, I used glyphhanger to generate a unicode range based on the main New York Times website (since the website is currently English-only). After that, I used pyftsubset to create the subsets and compress them into woff2.

Today, I managed to reduce the size even further (15 KB for each set), but I’ll run a few more tests before opening the PR.

[KyleDL101]

@flyri0 Sounds great. Just remember that we do have accent characters in the about us page. Although I think you've already included that but just making sure. Thanks for the work!