[Student-projects] Web interface for FontCompare and Harfbuzz rendering tests.

Mon Mar 17 09:39:10 PDT 2014

Have used the functions defined here, http://fontforge.org/python.html


On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 10:06 PM, Mayank Jha <mayank25080562 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Currently it uses good fonts as standards and compare them, with the font
> being developed using the methods provided by the fontforge python
> extension. The GPOS/GSUB is a bit vague at the moment, relying heavily on
> the fontforge scripting extension, however other features like bearing,
> stroke width, kerning, underline position, bold/itlaics weight is pretty
> much well defined, using the methods provided by the scripting extension
> provided by the fontforge application. As Santhosh told, that the web
> interface is already built, so I am now focussing on improving the
> fontCompare part, and the methods that it uses for achieving the same.
>
>
> On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 9:58 PM, Rajeesh K Nambiar <
> rajeeshknambiar at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 3:03 PM, Mayank Jha <mayank25080562 at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>> > Standard set of parameters, refer to, Glyph Consistency, GPOS/GSUB
>> > completeness, Appropriate bearing, Kerning , Weight in Bold, Italic and
>> > Underline, Sentence similarity etc. These set of standards are currently
>> > nothing but a set of paramters extracted from well known beautiful
>> font, say
>> > Lohit.ttf for Devanagri script. The exact details are given here.
>>
>> Read the document, but it lacks details. How is GPOS/GSUB completeness
>> measured? Same goes with Bearing, Kerning also. Can you share more
>> details?
>>
>> >
>> > The need for a web interface is inevitable because a standalone testing
>> > tool, does not give you real user feedbacks. This tool however would
>> > integrate the user feedback as a metadata in the database which would be
>> > used as information to test upon the aesthetics since it is a matter of
>> both
>> > subjective (user feedback) and objective (set of standards) concern.
>> >
>> > Yes Currently the tool, supports only Devanagari script, which I know
>> very
>> > well. Adding support for other scripts requires consultation with font
>> > experts of other languages, so I could not add those.
>> >
>> > This web tool aims at being two-way medium between font users and font
>> > developers unlike anything we have currently.
>> >
>> > However I did not get what you tried to say when you said "values
>> provided
>> > by the tool is trivial and obvious.".
>> >
>> > Cheers!
>> >
>> >
>> > On Mon, Mar 17, 2014 at 6:59 PM, Santhosh Thottingal
>> > <santhosh.thottingal at gmail.com> wrote:
>> >>
>> >> Hi Mayank,
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>> Short Description:
>> >>> I am wanting to make a web interface for a font aesthetics analyzer
>> for
>> >>> Indic scripts, FontCompare. FontCompare is a plugin for fontforge,
>> which
>> >>> provides assistance to the font developers in assessing the
>> aesthetics of a
>> >>> font, based on the standard set of parameters and their values.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Could you please give more details about "standard set of parameters?".
>> >> How it is collected? How much confidence we can have on those
>> parameters?
>> >> What is the script coverage?
>> >>
>> >>>
>> >>> It uses the python scripting extension of fontforge. However it
>> currently
>> >>> it has very basic features implemented. I plan to add in advanced
>> tests, and
>> >>> also building a web interface for the same.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Why you need a web interface if it works as fontforge plugin and also
>> as
>> >> standalone python application?
>> >> If it is available as fontforge plugin, that is the best way to use it
>> -
>> >> close to the font developer tool.
>> >>
>> >>>
>> >>> In general it would be a real help, and it would eliminate the dearth
>> of
>> >>> good quality open type fonts for Indic scripts, which was the main
>> motive of
>> >>> behind FontCompare. By making a web interface this would indirectly
>> propel
>> >>> the creation, of good quality stylish fonts for Indic scripts, which
>> is
>> >>> limited to 2-3 per language as of now!
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> Depends on the answer to my first question :)
>> >> I tried the application with multiple fonts and I get 0 as the score
>> for
>> >> Meera font. I Imagine Malayalam is not supported. I tried Lohit
>> Bengali and
>> >> some other fonts too. I get the following error
>> >>
>> >>  Traceback (most recent call last):
>> >>   File "fontcompare", line 72, in BeginTest
>> >>     self.TestFromFont()
>> >>   File "fontcompare", line 174, in TestFromFont
>> >>     score = gc.glyph_round_consistency(fontA, self.GetScript(),100)
>> >>   File "/tmp/FontCompare/fc/GlyphConsistency.py", line 109, in
>> >> glyph_round_consistency
>> >>     return (set_round_score/float(total))*10
>> >> ZeroDivisionError: float division by zero
>> >>
>> >> and
>> >>
>> >> Traceback (most recent call last):
>> >>   File "fontcompare", line 72, in BeginTest
>> >>     self.TestFromFont()
>> >>   File "fontcompare", line 214, in TestFromFont
>> >>     self.highresScoreBar.setValue(round(score/10))
>> >> TypeError: unsupported operand type(s) for /: 'NoneType' and 'int'
>> >>
>> >>>
>> >>> Synopsis:
>> >>> The web interface would be having two main parts, one is the User
>> >>> feedback area, and the other being the Font Developers testing area.
>> The
>> >>> interface would thus serve dual purpose, of conveying the feedback of
>> the
>> >>> font users to the font devs, and a testing platform for the font
>> developers
>> >>> to test out their fonts based on the set of standard tests performed
>> by the
>> >>> FontCompare application based on set of standards.
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> So is this is going to be a web page where users can download, try some
>> >> sample text with varying size, bold, italic variants etc? Something
>> like
>> >> google webfonts interface?
>> >>
>> >> Whether font developers prefer a web application for measuring the
>> >> aesthetic parameters again depends on my answer to first question.
>>  Talking
>> >> about aesthetic parameters, being it a mix of subjective and measurable
>> >> variables,  I would say the parameters are hardly match my expectations
>> >> about a language I know relatively well - Malayalam. If a user is font
>> >> designer with basic design knowledge, the values provided by the tool
>> is
>> >> trivial and obvious. The choice of some measures - like
>> LBearing/RBearing,
>> >> ascent/descent rations etc are very crucial and it is an informed
>> choice by
>> >> font developers.
>> >>
>> >> (I am not discouraging you here, but I am trying to set the
>> expectations
>> >> right and if possible try to help you to improve your ideas further.)
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>>
>> >>>
>> >>> Implementation Details:
>> >>> I would be using Django as the web framework, for making the web
>> >>> interface alongwith JS/jQuery/BootstrapCSS for styling purpose.
>> >>>
>> >>> User feedback region:
>> >>> This would allow the user to test out new fonts of any language with
>> his
>> >>> custom text. Since this would be difficult to do realtime, so we have
>> to
>> >>> render the text in the said font on the server side and then push it
>> on the
>> >>> client, this can be easily done with any fontrendering tool.
>> Preferably
>> >>> harfbuzz,
>> >>
>> >>
>> >> There are lot of websites that does this using CSS3 webfont technology.
>> >> There is even a bookmarklet tool that allows you to drag a font to any
>> site
>> >> and see that site with that font.(
>> http://somadesign.ca/projects/fontfriend/)
>> >>
>> >> Silpa project plans to provide a webfont interface to choose indic
>> fonts
>> >> based on similar user experience. The old silpa application had this
>> >> interface.
>> >>
>> >> Thanks
>> >> Santhosh
>> >>
>> >>
>> >>
>>
>>
>>
>> --
>> Cheers,
>> Rajeesh
>> _______________________________________________
>> Student-projects mailing list
>> Student-projects at lists.smc.org.in
>> http://lists.smc.org.in/listinfo.cgi/student-projects-smc.org.in
>>
>
>
>
> --
> Mayank Jha
> http://mjnovice.wordpress.com/
>


-- 
Mayank Jha
http://mjnovice.wordpress.com/
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