Suppose, for purposes of accessibility, we wished to replace the paths in the HTML5 logo [1], by actual characters in a font. We not only want the text to be accessible to screen readers but to selection by the cursor, indexing by search agents, and restyling through menus of assistive fonts that address various different accessibility needs (e.g., Braille, TexturePath(future) or the like).
While <desc> and <title> might tell someone what the letters are, they don't help with most of these purposes. The two natural solutions would be SVG fonts and WOFF both of which are standards supported to some extent (though only SVG fonts are currently a recommendation I think) by the W3C. Now suppose at the same time we wish to reveal the geometry of the H, the T, the M, the L, and the 5 to the unsighted viewer who might wish to know not just what these shapes signify (as revealed by title or desc -- namely letters of the word HTML), but also the "feel" of the typeface -what is the ambience of the calligraphy? Presumably the tactile assistive device that converts visual shapes into tactile shapes and colors into textures, could deal equally well with either WOFF or SVG fonts. It is quite easy for an author to create an alphabet of exactly five SVG glyphs for use in the logo, satisfying all of the assistive needs outlined above, by issuing five statements like: <glyph unicode="H"><path d=" M108.382,0h23.077v22.8h21.11V0h23.078v69.044H152.57v-23.12h-21.11v23.12h-23. 077V0z " /></glyph> (this uses the actual path of the "H" in the HTML5 logo) This takes 90 seconds of work using SVG fonts. (Plus the minute and a half per glyph to draw the letters in either emacs, Illustrator or Inkscape). So, the question is this: How easy or painful is it to create a typeface for just 5 glyphs in WOFF? Does one have to go through the relatively elaborate process of designing an entire font , or can one create five simple glyphs more or less like above? Once one has drawn the shapes, is it a 100 hour process or a 90 second process? I know that designing a real typeface is likely to be 100 hours of work for someone already skilled in the tools like Fontographer or FontCreator. I honestly have no idea what it would be like to cobble together a font of 5 simple glyphs, but my suspicion is that it is a couple of orders of magnitude worse than 90 seconds, hence rather clobbering the probability that authors would do it. cheers David [1] http://www.w3.org/html/logo/ [Non-text portions of this message have been removed] ------------------------------------ ----- To unsubscribe send a message to: svg-developers-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com -or- visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/svg-developers and click "edit my membership" ----Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/svg-developers/ <*> Your email settings: Individual Email | Traditional <*> To change settings online go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/svg-developers/join (Yahoo! ID required) <*> To change settings via email: svg-developers-dig...@yahoogroups.com svg-developers-fullfeatu...@yahoogroups.com <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: svg-developers-unsubscr...@yahoogroups.com <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
