[smufl-discuss] Re: How to manage sets of stylistic alternates (Was Re: Additional Glyphs)

[dspreadbury]

Myke wrote:

> As far as stylistic sets go, in addition to what David and Joe and
> others have said, please note that if those get to be the preferred
> place for serif vs. sans-serif, wide, vs. narrower note heads, etc.
> then if they're going to be interchangeable between fonts, we'll
> need to have a standard at least for the most common stylistic
> alternates for which number goes with what.  Will 1 always be serif
> and 2 sans serif, etc.

I think it would be more flexible to allow font designers to provide
metadata about which stylistic alternates exist in the metadata file we've
been talking about that should accompany each SMuFL-compliant font.

The metadata file might contain, for example, a list of the standard
glyphs for which stylistic alternates are provided, and the codepoints of
those alternates (since those codepoints will vary from font to font, as
the standard itself should not mandate the codepoints to be used for
alternates, as they may or may not exist, and there may be more alternates
for the same glyph in some fonts than others), together with some metadata
describing the alternate. Alternates may be provided for e.g. optical
sizing, or for compatibility with a particular text typeface (e.g. serif
vs. sans serif), or whatever, so we should try to come up with a standard
way of describing the purpose of an alternate in a way that is easy for an
application to consume.

Daniel

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Steinberg Media Technologies GmbH, Frankenstrasse 18b, D-20097 Hamburg, Germany
Phone: [phone] | Fax: [phone] | www.steinberg.net
Managing Director: Andreas Stelling, Kazunori Kobayashi
Registration Court: Hamburg HRB 86534
 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -


#############################################################
This message is sent to you because you are subscribed to
  the mailing list <[hidden email]>.
To unsubscribe, E-mail to: <[hidden email]>
To switch to the DIGEST mode, E-mail to <[hidden email]>
To switch to the INDEX mode, E-mail to <[hidden email]>
Send administrative queries to  <[hidden email]>