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"Easy" is not the right word for this, but it's possible. One challenge is that browsers don't export an interface for "shaping". For Latin script, that means k

"Easy" is not the right word for this, but it's possible. One challenge is that browsers don't export an interface for "shaping". For Latin script, that means kerning and ligatures, and for complex scripts, it means being able to render it correctly at all. Currently, alacritty doesn't really deal with this, but xi-mac does, using the interfaces provided by Core Text.

infogulch 9y ago
That's where pathfinder [1] comes in, as the fastest font rasterizer, utilizing the GPU and built in rust. (not affiliated). Ok maybe I'm overselling just a little but it's exciting! [1]: https://github.com/pcwalton/pathfinder https://github.com/pcwalton/pathfinder
- pcwalton 9y ago
  Thanks for the kind words :) But Pathfinder doesn't do shaping.
  - infogulch 9y ago
    Ah, thanks for the clarification. It seems I need to do a bit more research before I advocate others projects, sorry about that. :)
zawerf 9y ago
Figma (a UI design tool written in C++ compiled to JS using emscripten) talked about this briefly in their tech blog. They compiled FreeType to JS for rendering fonts to bitmaps: https://blog.figma.com/building-a-professional-design-tool-on-the-web-6332ed4f1fcc https://blog.figma.com/building-a-professional-design-tool-o...
- constexpr 9y ago
  Figma actually only uses FreeType for parsing fonts (fonts are rendered using a custom WebGL-based renderer). Figma uses HarfBuzz for text shaping, which is easy to run on the web with emscripten: https://github.com/harfbuzz/harfbuzz https://github.com/harfbuzz/harfbuzz.