Have you investigated some sites that may be impacted by that? I think the rendering is certainly more correct for regular speech, but say one was labeling columns by letters with letter spacing. I feel like this would be negatively impacted by the change. I don't image that's common, but having some examples of how letter spacing is currently used with cursive scripts may be a good investigation
On WPTs, what would it take to add the test? I think it's important that these changes that affect certain scripts are tested in WPT. Is it possible to add the required fonts to the fonts directory? Thanks, Vlad On Tuesday, April 22, 2025 at 10:40:01 AM UTC-4 sejal...@microsoft.com wrote: > Contact emails > sejalan...@microsoft.com > > Explainer > None > > Specification > https://www.w3.org/TR/css-text-3/#cursive-tracking > > Summary > This feature adds logic to ignore the letter-spacing setting for cursive > scripts as specified by the web author, in line with the spec, to ensure > that letter spacing does not disrupt word structure and aims to produce > better user experience for users relying on cursive scripts. > > The spec suggests that the UA may apply letter spacing to cursive scripts > by translating the total extra space into cursive elongation or > compression. Otherwise, if the UA cannot expand text from a cursive script > without breaking its cursive connections, it must not apply spacing between > any pair of that script’s typographic letter units at all. > > Ignoring letter spacing altogether for cursive scripts is simpler and > helps avoid performance issues as handling spacing for such scripts > requires complex calculations to maintain cursive connections and account > for script-specific factors like elongation glyphs, typefaces, and > calligraphy preferences. With this feature, Chromium ensures that cursive > scripts will be readable and properly spaced, even if the fonts don’t have > advanced typographic features. > The scripts that we are proposing to apply this to in Chromium are Arabic, > Hanifi Rohingya, Mandaic, Mongolian, N’Ko, Phags Pa, and Syriac as these > scripts are considered cursive as per spec. > > > Blink component > Blink>Fonts > <https://issues.chromium.org/issues?q=customfield1222907:%22Blink%3EFonts%22> > > TAG review > None > > TAG review status > Not applicable > > Risks > > > Interoperability and Compatibility > Other browsers currently do not support this feature, as there are open > bugs for handling letter-spacing settings in cursive scripts. Our > implementation introduces a behavior change that aligns with the spec by > ignoring letter-spacing settings to preserve script integrity, prioritizing > readability. > > Since this behavior diverges from other browsers, there are > interoperability differences. With this change, letter spacing will no > longer be applied to cursive scripts, even if specified by web authors. > It’s important to note that this could affect sites relying on > letter-spacing for cursive scripts. > > > *Gecko*: No signal (https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1342835) > > *WebKit*: No signal (https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=195745) > > *Web developers*: Positive ( > https://github.com/harfbuzz/harfbuzz/issues/358) Three users have noted > they are impacted by the CRBug. > > *Other signals*: > > WebView application risks > *Does this intent deprecate or change behavior of existing APIs, such that > it has potentially high risk for Android WebView-based applications?* > None > > > Debuggability > > > Will this feature be supported on all six Blink platforms (Windows, Mac, > Linux, ChromeOS, Android, and Android WebView)? > Yes > > Is this feature fully tested by web-platform-tests > <https://chromium.googlesource.com/chromium/src/+/main/docs/testing/web_platform_tests.md> > ? > No > No, WPT tests were not added because the > third_party/blink/web_tests/external/wpt/fonts directory only contains > auxiliary font files used by other tests. However, there is an internal web > test for this feature: > https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:third_party/blink/web_tests/fonts/letter-spacing.html > > > There are few impacted tests where letter spacing is applied on Arabic > texts, these are being replaced with Hebrew - > https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:third_party/blink/web_tests/external/wpt/html/canvas/element/text/2d.text.measure.selection-rects-baselines.tentative.html > > https://source.chromium.org/chromium/chromium/src/+/main:third_party/blink/web_tests/svg/text/textpath-connected-glyphs-expected.png > > > Flag name on about://flags > None > > Finch feature name > IgnoreLetterSpacingInCursiveScripts > > Rollout plan > Will ship enabled for all users > > Requires code in //chrome? > False > > Tracking bug > https://issues.chromium.org/issues/40618336 > > Estimated milestones > Shipping on desktop > 137 > Shipping on Android > 137 > Shipping on WebView > 137 > Shipping on iOS > 137 > > > Anticipated spec changes > *Open questions about a feature may be a source of future web compat or > interop issues. Please list open issues (e.g. links to known github issues > in the project for the feature specification) whose resolution may > introduce web compat/interop risk (e.g., changing to naming or structure of > the API in a non-backward-compatible way).* > None > > Link to entry on the Chrome Platform Status > https://chromestatus.com/feature/4885407109742592?gate=6206904659083264 > > This intent message was generated by Chrome Platform Status > <https://chromestatus.com/>. > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "blink-dev" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to blink-dev+unsubscr...@chromium.org. To view this discussion visit https://groups.google.com/a/chromium.org/d/msgid/blink-dev/14a1b637-d484-4ec6-b8e6-f1c6d15e89adn%40chromium.org.
