[smufl-discuss] Stylistic Alternates

[Joseph Berkovitz]

Daniel,

I have done some more research on web support for OpenType features, and I am concerned that many of your favored approaches for SMuFL rely on OpenType stylistic alternates. These are not generally supported in HTML today in a consistent fashion and, as usual for the web, it is not easy to know when that date will arrive.

For a reasonable survey of this topic please read:

https://www.typotheque.com/articles/opentype_features_in_web_browsers

I am asking again that this standard take a conservative position, so that it can immediately be used to target runtime environments other than native applications. In particular please do not assume the presence of OpenType-specific features. As other posters have pointed out, the standard will be more durable if it does not require access to a specific proprietary type engine. The assumption that future type engines will preserve the OpenType feature set in a backward-compatible fashion is a fragile one, and such breakage will also break this valuable standard-in-the-making.

Best,

.            .       .    .  . ...Joe

Joe Berkovitz
President

Noteflight LLC
Boston, Mass.
phone: [phone]
www.noteflight.com
"Your music, everywhere"


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