Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Open Font Library Podcast: Dev Talk #1
Hi, Nicolas Spalinger wrote: Dave Crossland wrote: You can download a chat between Ed Trager, Ben Weiner and I about the development of the site we had tonight - its 31Mb at http://www.openfontlibrary.org/2009-05-31_OFLB_devtalk.mp3 Great to know some more about the ongoing work and the components coming together! Here's some feedback after listening to the discussion: Thanks, your points are all very helpful. Ben -- Ben Weiner | http://readingtype.org.uk/about/contact.html
Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Open Font Library Podcast: Dev Talk #1
Hi, Behdad Esfahbod wrote: Ok, listening. It still slightly worries me that all the new code being written is duplicating lots of code that is already out there... OK, well, please give us some more hints about which functionality we shouldn't be duplicating... ;-) Also, Ed talks about fontconfig being a mystery. If someone doesn't understand some part of it, all they need to do is ask. I'll explain until they understand :). What happens if you get kidnapped or lose your internet connection? Ben -- Ben Weiner | http://readingtype.org.uk/about/contact.html
Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Open Font Library Podcast: Dev Talk #1
On 06/03/2009 02:02 PM, Ben Weiner wrote: Hi, Behdad Esfahbod wrote: Ok, listening. It still slightly worries me that all the new code being written is duplicating lots of code that is already out there... OK, well, please give us some more hints about which functionality we shouldn't be duplicating... ;-) pcp? The preview-generating tool. I want to see any missing features added to pango-view instead. Fontaine also overlaps with fontconfig and pango in huge parts. I replied to that in another thread a couple montsh back. Maybe if I find some time I hack something... Also, Ed talks about fontconfig being a mystery. If someone doesn't understand some part of it, all they need to do is ask. I'll explain until they understand :). What happens if you get kidnapped or lose your internet connection? See, I write the code. Ed already contacted me and I told him how I think this should be done. He didn't CC the list (he's not on the list?), so I attach the relevant parts at the end of this message. Anyway, point being that, now he knows how things work, and he's much better than me in writing. So he can write good docs! Same applies to everyone else: ask, I'll make sure I answer, you can then write it in a legible form :). behdad QUESTION: So, if I add a font file to a subdirectory of a directory that fontconfig knows about (via the fontconfig conf file), does fontconfig rescan that subdirectory and re-cache immediately? Any new process notices that immediately and updates the cache (make sure it has permission to do so). Or you can call FcInitReinitialize(). However, I strongly recommend that you keep all the font dirs out of the default fontconfig config, and add only the directory for the font you are dealing with into the config using FcConfigAppFontAddDir(). That should avoid lots of possible scalability as well as security issues. I'd even recommend using different cache dirs for each font dir. Or, alternatively, is it necessary to call fc-cache manually? SCENARIO: The scenario for uploading new fonts to OFLB is that the fonts will be placed in a subdirectory of the files/ path. The fontconfig conf file will know about the parent directory called files/. A new subdirectory under files/ may be created at any time to contain a new set of one or more newly uploaded TTF or OTF font files. The program that generates a bitmap PNG preview of the font is called pcfp and it uses Pango-Cairo. The exact font family and style names, e.g., Gentium Italic will be passed to the pcfp. Since we only want to use glyphs from the specified font, the fontconfig conf file is setup to use SIL's hex box fallback font for all substitutions. That way, if some glyph is missing from the specified font, a hex box will be shown -- this way, we know right away if something (such as an extended Latin character) is missing from the font. If you keep the default fontconfig config empty of fonts and just add the dir for new fonts, pango will *only* see those fonts and will draw hexboxes for everything else. Alternatively you can turn font fallback off in pango using the PangoAttrFallback attribute. I assume that Fontconfig will indeed rescan and recache immediately. But at this juncture, that is just an assumption on my part. So that is where the mystery is for me ... and it is really only a mystery because I haven't tested it myself yet. Well, test it then :). Since many many fonts in the upload area may have the same family name, style, etc, it's essential to implement the scheme I suggest above or a variant thereof.
Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Open Font Library Podcast: Dev Talk #1
Hi, everyone, On Wed, Jun 3, 2009 at 2:08 PM, Behdad Esfahbod beh...@behdad.org wrote: On 06/03/2009 02:02 PM, Ben Weiner wrote: Hi, Behdad Esfahbod wrote: Ok, listening. It still slightly worries me that all the new code being written is duplicating lots of code that is already out there... OK, well, please give us some more hints about which functionality we shouldn't be duplicating... ;-) pcp? The preview-generating tool. I want to see any missing features added to pango-view instead. pcfp is currently a very simple tool for generating the previews. Currently, pcfp just generates a single line of typeset text as a preview. I mentioned in the recorded development conversation with Ben Weiner and Dave Crossland that I may want in the future to add options to pcfp to make it capable of producing a waterfall specimen, or a drop caps specimen. I'm sure people on this list can think of a gazillion possibly useful options beyond just these few. I will certainly take a look at pango-view and see what it does and what options are there, and see where it is best to make additions or modifications in the future. Note that while pcfp is currently used for generating the previews, most of my time was actually spent on creating the FontPlayground and Key Curry Javascript classes that drive the interactive web interface. pcfp was something I needed on the server side, so I wrote pcfp (and it didn't take much time to do that): I'm sure that pango-view or similar tools can be swapped in place of pcfp if it is generally agreed that a more versatile tool with a better array of options is needed in the future. Fontaine also overlaps with fontconfig and pango in huge parts. I'm not as convinced that fontaine overlaps so extensively with fontconfig. The way orthographies are grouped in fontaine is quite different than in fontconfig. The treatment of Japanese illustrates the difference well: Fontaine breaks up Japanese into a set of categories that are meaningful to Japanese people: Jinmeiyo, Joyo, and Kokuji represent different classes of Kanji, and then there is of course a separate group for kana (hiragana, katakana). For a typographer working to produce a Japanese font, being able to generate a report where things are organized into these groupings makes sense. Fontconfig on the other hand --correct me if I am wrong-- has a single grouping for Japanese orthography, which lumps all the Kanji and kana. This is just one example. There are differences in the approach fontaine takes for other orthographies as well. Overall, the general distinction is that fontaine uses orthographic-centric groupings that are intended to be most relevant to fonts and digital type design. As I understand it, fontconfig uses language-centric groupings. There is of course nothing wrong with fontconfig's approach -- or, for that matter, with Fontaine's approach. They simply serve different purposes. I replied to that in another thread a couple montsh back. Maybe if I find some time I hack something... Also, Ed talks about fontconfig being a mystery. If someone doesn't understand some part of it, all they need to do is ask. I'll explain until they understand :). What happens if you get kidnapped or lose your internet connection? See, I write the code. Ed already contacted me and I told him how I think this should be done. He didn't CC the list (he's not on the list?) I'm on the list -- I wasn't paying attention when I emailed Behdad the other day, so I forgot to reply all or CC the list ... , so I attach the relevant parts at the end of this message. Anyway, point being that, now he knows how things work, and he's much better than me in writing. So he can write good docs! Same applies to everyone else: ask, I'll make sure I answer, you can then write it in a legible form :). Heh, heh, you are assuming that I like writing documentation ... Best - Ed behdad QUESTION: So, if I add a font file to a subdirectory of a directory that fontconfig knows about (via the fontconfig conf file), does fontconfig rescan that subdirectory and re-cache immediately? Any new process notices that immediately and updates the cache (make sure it has permission to do so). Or you can call FcInitReinitialize(). However, I strongly recommend that you keep all the font dirs out of the default fontconfig config, and add only the directory for the font you are dealing with into the config using FcConfigAppFontAddDir(). That should avoid lots of possible scalability as well as security issues. I'd even recommend using different cache dirs for each font dir. Or, alternatively, is it necessary to call fc-cache manually? SCENARIO: The scenario for uploading new fonts to OFLB is that the fonts will be placed in a subdirectory of the files/ path. The fontconfig conf file will know about the parent directory called files/. A new subdirectory under files/ may be created at any time to
Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Open Font Library Podcast: Dev Talk #1
2009/6/3 Ed Trager ed.tra...@gmail.com: Heh, heh, you are assuming that I like writing documentation ... lol! I hasten to add that Ed has been working to a high professional standard on this in his spare time, but since I wanted to speed things up, I have been sponsoring the work out of my own pocket; Nicolas Spalinger has also made a contribution. If anyone would like to see Ed work on things more so we can get the OFLBv2 out the door, please sent money to the TUG Libre Fonts Font https://www.tug.org/fonts/librefontfund.html :-)
Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Open Font Library Podcast: Dev Talk #1
On 06/03/2009 03:28 PM, Ed Trager wrote: Fontaine also overlaps with fontconfig and pango in huge parts. I'm not as convinced that fontaine overlaps so extensively with fontconfig. The way orthographies are grouped in fontaine is quite different than in fontconfig. The treatment of Japanese illustrates the difference well: Fontaine breaks up Japanese into a set of categories that are meaningful to Japanese people: Jinmeiyo, Joyo, and Kokuji represent different classes of Kanji, and then there is of course a separate group for kana (hiragana, katakana). For a typographer working to produce a Japanese font, being able to generate a report where things are organized into these groupings makes sense. Fontconfig on the other hand --correct me if I am wrong-- has a single grouping for Japanese orthography, which lumps all the Kanji and kana. This is just one example. There are differences in the approach fontaine takes for other orthographies as well. Overall, the general distinction is that fontaine uses orthographic-centric groupings that are intended to be most relevant to fonts and digital type design. As I understand it, fontconfig uses language-centric groupings. There is of course nothing wrong with fontconfig's approach -- or, for that matter, with Fontaine's approach. They simply serve different purposes. I understand the difference. I'm not saying that the code that is out there overlaps necessarily, but, my point is, there is a HUGE overlap in *scope*. Very simple: If you need some code in font website, changes are very high that you need the same code in your font dialog or font preview applications too. So, I want to understand these needs such that we design a consistent, usable, experience on the web as well as on the application level. Cheers, behdad
Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Open Font Library Podcast: Dev Talk #1
2009/6/1 Behdad Esfahbod beh...@behdad.org: On 05/31/2009 03:55 PM, Dave Crossland wrote: Hi, You can download a chat between Ed Trager, Ben Weiner and I about the development of the site we had tonight - its 31Mb at http://www.openfontlibrary.org/2009-05-31_OFLB_devtalk.mp3 I get 403 Forbidden. Oops - sorted.
Re: [OpenFontLibrary] Open Font Library Podcast: Dev Talk #1
On 06/01/2009 02:59 AM, Dave Crossland wrote: 2009/6/1 Behdad Esfahbodbeh...@behdad.org: On 05/31/2009 03:55 PM, Dave Crossland wrote: Hi, You can download a chat between Ed Trager, Ben Weiner and I about the development of the site we had tonight - its 31Mb at http://www.openfontlibrary.org/2009-05-31_OFLB_devtalk.mp3 I get 403 Forbidden. Oops - sorted. Ok, listening. It still slightly worries me that all the new code being written is duplicating lots of code that is already out there... Also, Ed talks about fontconfig being a mystery. If someone doesn't understand some part of it, all they need to do is ask. I'll explain until they understand :). behdad
[OpenFontLibrary] Open Font Library Podcast: Dev Talk #1
Hi, You can download a chat between Ed Trager, Ben Weiner and I about the development of the site we had tonight - its 31Mb at http://www.openfontlibrary.org/2009-05-31_OFLB_devtalk.mp3 -- Regards, Dave
