RE: Including WOFF in ACID3

> From: Håkon Wium Lie [mailto:howcome@opera.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, October 13, 2010 11:00 AM
> To: Sylvain Galineau
> Cc: www-font@w3.org
> Subject: Re: Including WOFF in ACID3
> 
> Also sprach Sylvain Galineau:
> 
>  > The current test loads this font as a raw TTF only. It would seem
>  > appropriate for the test to be updated with a WOFF version of the
>  > test font i.e. instead of just:
>  >
>  > 	@font-face { font-family: "AcidAhemTest"; src: url(font.ttf); }
>  >
>  > ...the test rule would be:
>  >
>  > 	@font-face { font-family: "AcidAhemTest"; src: url(font.woff),
> url(font.ttf); }
> 
> I don't support this change. I think there's a value to keeping things
> stable. Errors should be corrected, but -- in general, unless there
> are obvious reasons -- I don't think features should be added or
> removed.
> Aslo, by making the proposed change, it becomes possible to pass Acid3
> without supporting ttf. We could end up in a situation where browser x
> support ttf only and browser y support woff only, but both of them
> pass Acid3. As a result, interoperability would suffer.

First off, I don't see why a browser that only loaded WOFF and SVG Fonts should 
fail this part of the test. That's completely arbitrary.

Second, can you point to a standard that requires TTF support ? Claiming implicitly 
or otherwise that not supporting TTF violates a standard is false. 

>From a standard standpoint you have agreed to the Web Fonts WG Charter [1]:

	# WebFont conformance specification
	# ...[snip]... WOFF will be the required format for compliance, the others being 
	# optional.

Thus a browser that only supports WOFF will be conformant. Yet it will fail this part 
of ACID3. 

WOFF is also the only web font format today with support from all browser vendors, 
a large number of font vendors and web authors. It will likely see far more use than 
raw fonts. (Otherwise it wouldn't have been invented in the first place...) Not 
supporting it in ACID3 makes the latter less relevant for its users by checking for 
support for a feature they don't use. (Granted, it's not the only one such case in the 
test...)

Last, the current ACID3 @font-face test doesn't establish cross-browser interoperability 
at all. IE9 passes this part of the test because Ahem is Installable. But non-installable 
TTFs will not load in IE i.e. our passing the test doesn't establish that any TTF that loads
in Opera will load in IE. 

> 
> I'm happy to add WOFF to a future Acid test, though.
> 
> Cheers,
> 
> -h&kon
>               Håkon Wium Lie                          CTO °þe®ª
> howcome@opera.com                  http://people.opera.com/howcome

[1] http://www.w3.org/2009/08/WebFonts/charter.html

Received on Wednesday, 13 October 2010 18:33:01 UTC