Re: [WikimediaMobile] SVG to font (WAS: The future of skins_
On 09/04/2014 03:29 AM, Monte Hurd wrote: The font forge importation workflow was sticky enough (importing svgs and mapping them, etc) that small visual tweaks (baseline offsets and such) ended up being made in the font forge project itself as well, thus diverging from the source svgs. This is why automation and having a clear understanding of what the source code is are both so important. I think this workflow stickiness was what led the designer to see the font forge project as canonical. Actually, it was somewhat ambiguous what the source code is. Read https://gerrit.wikimedia.org/r/#/c/137888/ if you want to know what I mean. One automates creating a font from a folder of svgs. Svgs are canonical as they should be, but hey, you want a font? You got it. Great. This will be useful for the app, and if we ever decide to revisit the decision about icons on web (I completely agree SVG is better as source code, but we could still use generated fonts on desktop if we decided that approach was suitable). Matt Flaschen ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Re: [WikimediaMobile] SVG to font (WAS: The future of skins_
> On Sep 3, 2014, at 6:43 PM, Matthew Flaschen wrote: > > WikiFont (which generates font file output from SVG source code). tl:dr SVGs yay! The problem was WikiFont did not generate itself (magic?) from svgs. The svgs had to be fairly painstakingly imported into a font forge project which was then used to generate the font. The font forge importation workflow was sticky enough (importing svgs and mapping them, etc) that small visual tweaks (baseline offsets and such) ended up being made in the font forge project itself as well, thus diverging from the source svgs. I think this workflow stickiness was what led the designer to see the font forge project as canonical. So... the 2 scripts I wrote. One automates creating a font from a folder of svgs. Svgs are canonical as they should be, but hey, you want a font? You got it. The second script, just for fun, reverses the process and creates a folder of svgs from the font. I've been dogfooding these for the last week for a supplemental font the iOS app uses. I'll post them hopefully next week when I get a chance to document them. If you can't wait and are in the SF office stop by my desk and I can demo it in about 2 minutes. ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Re: [WikimediaMobile] SVG to font (WAS: The future of skins_
> On Sep 3, 2014, at 8:46 PM, Trevor Parscal wrote: > > The font-to-SVG workflow was an idea to try and make it possible for > designers to use their "font is the source" workflow. Not quite. The point of the conversion scripts (which are done and seem to work pretty well) is to make it possible for designers (and me) to use a "svg is the source" workflow and pipe these svgs through the scripts if we happen to need a font representation. ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Re: [WikimediaMobile] SVG to font (WAS: The future of skins_
It came out in a meeting about icons, that a major impetus of Wikifont was the workflow for designers being easier if all icons are sourced from a single font file, and not individual SVG files. The SVG-to-font workflow is helpful for the iOS app which uses the font (apparently the Android app does not). The font-to-SVG workflow was an idea to try and make it possible for designers to use their "font is the source" workflow. I personally believe that being a designer at Wikimedia should mean working with open formats (SVG, CSS, HTML), checking assets into git repositories, and seeking to make community contribution easier, not more difficult. The idea that a font file, which is a big blob of binary data, be the official source of all icons just doesn't scale, and makes contribution much more difficult. In the meeting we seemed to agree that it was worth developing further the tools to have more features and an easier workflow when working with SVG (with PNG fallbacks). Work is already underway to achieve this, and I am looking forward to us having an easy to use, easy to contribute to and well performing system for designing, refining and delivering icons. - Trevor On Wed, Sep 3, 2014 at 6:43 PM, Matthew Flaschen wrote: > On 08/27/2014 05:51 PM, Monte Hurd wrote: > >> I've finished the SVGs-to-font and font-to-SVGs scripts. I'll document >> and post these in the next couple days. >> > > Is this just a temporary solution since the SVGs for some fonts have been > lost? > > If not, why do we need a font->SVG workflow? My understanding is that SVG > is always the source code, even for WikiFont (which generates font file > output from SVG source code). > > Matt Flaschen > > ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
Re: [WikimediaMobile] SVG to font (WAS: The future of skins_
On 08/27/2014 05:51 PM, Monte Hurd wrote: I've finished the SVGs-to-font and font-to-SVGs scripts. I'll document and post these in the next couple days. Is this just a temporary solution since the SVGs for some fonts have been lost? If not, why do we need a font->SVG workflow? My understanding is that SVG is always the source code, even for WikiFont (which generates font file output from SVG source code). Matt Flaschen ___ Mobile-l mailing list Mobile-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mobile-l
