Re: .screenfonts [and optical sizes]

On Fri, Jul 17, 2009 at 6:55 AM, Ben Weiner<ben@readingtype.org.uk> wrote:
> Hi,
>
> Gustavo Ferreira wrote:
>>
>> (I am aware that OpenType has a mechanism for dealing with optical sizes,
>> but this is not yet widely supported and I haven't heard of any plans to do
>> so in the near future.)
>
> Supported within fonts or by font-handling software?

Mostly the latter, but both to some degree.

> I would love to hear that existing high-quality fonts that do not support
> this mechanism could be re-issued to include the support,

They could be, sure.

> but I guess that is not likely.

Probably not, due to lack of app support.

> In which case, it would be great to have the information
> expressed in the web font wrapper and move the task of supporting it towards
> browser software authors.

I don't really see that. There's already a location for the info that
coudl be used for both the desktop and the web, and replacing that
with a web-only approach would be a step backwards. Even adding a
web-only approach would be unfortunate, as getting the existing
mechanism supported would put pressure on other software vendors to do
the same.

Cheers,

T