[smc-discuss] SMC Malayalam fonts new release candidate and call for participation to update Fonts

[Rajeesh K Nambiar]

[Those who like to read without wonderful linebreak sprinkling by mail
agents, here's a sane version.]


<tl;dr> version: Release candidates of new font versions available for testing.
                 Call for pariticipation if you are interested to
learn Font and rendering related technologies - we'll teach you!

New Font versions
=================
Yesterday we tagged release candidates for new versions of Malayalam
fonts. Some of you community members have already been using them,
testing and reporting issues. They are in a shape for wider use now.
This is a call for testing the new versions and report any issues
before we do the final release in 2 weeks, during 12th year of SMC
celebrations.

2 versions are available:
5.1:     This version of fonts has seen a wide array of enhancements,
updates and bugfixes for all the fonts. This version supports only the
v1 mlym opentype specifications and will go into maintenance mode from
now on. This is the recommended version for all those who are stuck at
old rendering enginessuch as old pango, Qt, especially ICU (old
versions of {Open,Libre}Office,XeTeX), Windows XP etc.

6.0:     This version is updated to have support for both v1 (mlym)
and v2 (mlm2) opentype specification - at the moment only for Rachana
and Meera fonts. This version works on old-pango, Qt, Windows XP,
Harbuzz and Uniscribe (Windows 7, Windows 8). ICU layout engine is
*not* supported and users depending on that (old Open/LibreOffice, old
XeTeX et al) are out of luck. All new enhancements and development
effort will go into this version, I'll merge the 'mlm2' branch into
'master' once we do the final release. This is the recommended version
for all new users.

Please go forth, use these new fonts and report any issues you perceive.
Download links[¹] [²] are provided at the end of this email.


Update other Fonts and Learn How to - we offer help too!
========================================================
Meera and Rachana fonts have seen most updates and rest of the fonts
(Anjali, Dyuthi, Kalyani, Suruma, RaghuMalayalam) need to be updated
for all new shiny features. This is a great opportunity for community
members to get involved and add features, fix bugs and update the
fonts. Never done before or don't know how to do it? Santhosh and I
are willing to take online sessions to show you how to. We need more
contributors and we encourage anyone interested to get their hands
dirty.

Let us know if you are interested - send a one line reply to this
thread and we'll see how best to arrange these sessions.


Download links
===========
[¹] 5.1 version:
http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/smc/fonts/malayalam-fonts-5.1/
[²] 6.0 version:
http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/smc/fonts/malayalam-fonts-6.0/


-- 
Cheers,
Rajeesh