Re: Raw minutes from 21 June UAWG teleconference

At 04:20 PM 2001-06-21 , Ian B. Jacobs wrote:
>
>For B.2: Checkpoint 4.2: Control of font families burdensome in SVG
>
>   IJ: I'm not sure what "fonts for graphics" means. We might need to
>   clarify whether the SVG WG understands fonts to include "pictures
>   of letters" (with no characters behind them). We may have to 
>   state that we mean fonts as pictures/vectors that are applied to
>   text characters.
>

AG::

I don't believe that is the problem.  SVG takes pains to help people not
create
pictures of text without providing the text too.  Their fonts are fonts.

It sounds like there is something here we didn't understand well enought to
think about it.

You will have to ask them to get the real skinny on what is burdensome about
it, but it is quite plausible that substituting an arbitrary system font
family
for an SVG-defined font, for example, may be a bear.

For example text laid out on a pennant blowing in the wind depends on there
being a certain plasticity in the definition of the font.  If you don't have a
scalable vector definition of the font, you could be simply out of luck.  Some
of the system fonts could be defined on a bitmap basis and not be amenable to
smooth deformation as required for this use.

On the other hand they may have degrees of freedom which will have the same
assistive effect but aren't called 'family.'  If the glyphs of the font are
being vector-drawn, there is a low level primitive line weight or width
parameter in the drawing, perhaps.  If that could be made manipulable for
selected text ranges, one would have something comparable to a controllable
degree of "bold in place" effect, without any change in the macroscopic layout
of the text.  Like what is produced with the darkness adjust on a photocopier.

Al

Received on Thursday, 21 June 2001 21:59:52 UTC