Re: WebOTF Proposal

I wrote:

 > So, I suggest that one (a) separates the semantics from the syntax in
 > .webfont, and (b) come up with a proposal on how the semantics can be
 > encoded within TT/OT. The resulting files can easily be encoded in
 > ZOT. As such, this combines the best of both proposals.

Tal Leming wrote:

 > We, (Jonathan Kew, Erik van Blokland and myself) have combined our ZOT  
 > and .webfont proposals into a new WebOTF proposal. The full  
 > specification is attached.
 > 
 > In short:
 > - The ZOT compression scheme is retained.
 > - The XML data from the .webfont proposal, in a reduced and refactored  
 > form, is stored within the WebOTF file.

I'm happy that the three of you got together -- the proposal looks
great! It's simple to encode and decode, it provides compression, and
it allows for metadata encoding without requireing user agents to
become police agents.

The metadata format may still need some work. I'm not convinced that
one needs an arbitrarily nestable format to express font metadata --
name/value pairs may suffice. One could also express this as a
microformat on top of common HTML tags (div/span). However, the XML
suggested in the appendix looks quite reasonable and avoids the
complexity of some HTML constructs (e.g., the "style" attribute).

You write:

 > The extension ".webotf" is suggested for files using this format.

I suggest calling the format

  Web Opentype Format, or perhaps
  Web Opentype Font

and use the ".wof" extension. WOF is easier to pronouce than WebOTF.

Alternatively, "wot" is also a good name -- I believe Robert suggested
it (for something slighly different) in the past. 

Cheers,

-h&kon
              Håkon Wium Lie                          CTO °þe®ª
howcome@opera.com                  http://people.opera.com/howcome

Received on Thursday, 6 August 2009 22:09:51 UTC