[Openfontlibrary] Font site wishlist

[Ed Trager]

Hi, everyone,

Raph Levien wrote:
> ... items into three baskets. Basket A is stuff that's a dealbreaker -
> without it I'll be looking elsewhere. Basket B is stuff that I think
> would be very useful and worthwhile to pursue, and should be done if
> the site is to be truly viable. And basket C is stuff that would be
> nice to see, but is a long-term goal at best.
>
> Basket A
>
> Thumbnails have already been discussed.
>
> The single most important need that is not currently served is a "type
> tester." All viable commercial font websites currently have such a
> feature.
>

Dave Crossland has already mentioned to this list my FontPlayground:

      http://retina.ophthy.med.umich.edu/fontplayground/

... which loads PNGs from a server-side processor via AJAX.  A PHP
manager on the server runs a C++ program which uses LASi for
Postscript-based type layout:

      http://unifont.org/lasi/

The reason it is done this way is because I happen to know Postscript,
so that was easier for me.  Written as more of a proof-of-concept than
as production code, the server-side C++ program is currently a bit of
hack, but it does have some minimal intelligence for international
layout.  Whenever I get some time, it can be much improved.  And in
fact I do have a new goal to improve the FontPlayground resource in a
number of areas, including the C++ code -- someday when I have some
time.

On the client side, FontPlayground is using a Javascript GUI and AJAX
services toolkit that I and my colleague Ritu Khanna are writing
called Gladiator Components:

    http://eyegene.ophthy.med.umich.edu/gladiatorcomponents/index.html

This toolkit too is under very active development --in fact the
version of the code being used in FontPlayground is already out of
date!  Besides the windowing and AJAX request classes we have also
developed a plot component that uses SVG.  For the plot component, the
server sends back, via AJAX, a stream of XML data which is then
processed on the client side into the actual SVG.  By carefully
tailoring how the XML data stream is constructed, we minimize the
bandwidth requirements.  The savings compared to having the server
produce SVG are significant, and we are using the approach in some
bioinformatics applications with very good results.  It would be
interesting to use a similar approach to send font glyph outlines back
to a client for additional processing into SVG.  I don't know how
http://erik.letterror.com:8306/glyphServer is doing it -- maybe they
are also doing it this way?

Everyone should also note that now Opera 9+ handles compound XHTML+SVG
documents just about as well as Firefox 1.5+ does, so the
opportunities for displaying XHTML+SVG+AJAX-based applications are
expanding.

> Perhaps the FontImage() procedure
> in fontforge could be used, or it wouldn't be hard to hack something
> up using FreeType.

For internationalized text layout, something like Pango also needs to
be included in the stack.  This is another reason why I used LASi in
FontPlayground.

> There are other emerging technologies which may work, in which the
> rendering is client-side. An SVG viewer is one possibility, which is
> very standards-friendly, but will otherwise make for a pretty unhappy
> user experience - it will basically be Firefox-only.

I've already mentioned that it is now both Firefox and Opera, and this
is for compound XHTML+SVG web applications.  As more applications
using SVG become available, it is certain that Safari and Konqueror
will have no  choice but to keep up and incorporate SVG rendering too.
 I would be very surprised if they were not already working toward
that goal.  As for IE, I have no clue what they are thinking: in my
mind, IE is already irrelevant to the audiences I want to reach.

> Quality isn't so much a checklist feature, but it's important enough
> to me to mention it here. Since I'm not getting (much) money for my
> free font work, it's essential to pay me in ego-gratification. The
> worst way to do that would be to have my fonts mixed indiscriminately
> with a lot of freeware crap. If I'm going to point people to
> openfontlibrary as the main distribution point, they have to see
> _good_ fonts on the front page.
>

Excellent point.

>
> Linux accomplished many things that the proprietary vendor Unices
> could never touch. I sense that there may be similar potential in the
> development of free fonts. One of the reasons I'm spending time on
> these email threads is to encourage the tools to come into existence
> to give that potential a chance.
>

I agree.

> Basket C
>
> It would be cool to be able to apply scripted effects to fonts online.
> Simple examples include stroke offset, global changes to side
> bearings.

An AJAX-based application that sent outline data across the wire with
client-side Javascript rendering into SVG graphics could achieve these
kinds of things.

- Ed Trager