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OK. Well let's come up with a solution that takes into consideration these other systems. Instead of getting angry that someone was ignorant of other languages,

OK. Well let's come up with a solution that takes into consideration these other systems. Instead of getting angry that someone was ignorant of other languages, help them understand a way their ideas could be adjusted to be more inclusive.

jfk13 6y ago
Who's angry? I just pointed out that the proposed "solution" has some shortcomings that didn't appear to have been considered at all. OK, a more inclusive solution: how about sizing fonts based on a coordinate space within which the font designer is free to draw the glyphs using as much or as little of the space as they consider appropriate for a given character. (They can even draw beyond the nominal "bounds" of the sized coordinate space, e.g. for long tails or flourishes.) We could call it... oh, let's see... maybe the "em square".
- yoz-y 6y ago
  That doesn’t solve the need of: “I have two different fonts and want to display them having the same size”. And also “I want to center a piece of text inside a box”. Both of which are basically impossible these days without special casing for each font.
  - jfk13 6y ago
    "I ... want to display them having the same size" is too vague to be useful. Do you mean having the same x-height (the main body of the lowercase letters, assuming Latin script)? Or the same cap-height? Or the same ascender height? Or the same descender depth? Or the same character widths? Or a similar overall amount of "ink" in each character? Yes, it's impossible without special-casing for each font, because there is no clear basis for making such an equivalence, given how designs differ.
    - yoz-y 6y ago
      The general case would be to have text written in the same paragraph align well. To me that encompasses same baseline, same x height, and in the case of mixing scripts same cap height (in case of CJK). Basically “do what I mean”. I understand that it’s hard, but it should be at least doable. If it would require being able to specify which height to consider, so be it, make it an option.
      - mcguire 6y ago
        This is why some fonts are designed to work together. Trying to force fonts that weren't is going to be ugly no matter what you do.
- The_rationalist 6y ago
  This is a nice solution which however won't solve the problem for non-updated font polices.

jfk13 6y ago

Who's angry? I just pointed out that the proposed "solution" has some shortcomings that didn't appear to have been considered at all. OK, a more inclusive solution: how about sizing fonts based on a coordinate space within which the font designer is free to draw the glyphs using as much or as little of the space as they consider appropriate for a given character. (They can even draw beyond the nominal "bounds" of the sized coordinate space, e.g. for long tails or flourishes.) We could call it... oh, let's see... maybe the "em square".

yoz-y 6y ago
That doesn’t solve the need of: “I have two different fonts and want to display them having the same size”. And also “I want to center a piece of text inside a box”. Both of which are basically impossible these days without special casing for each font.
- jfk13 6y ago
  "I ... want to display them having the same size" is too vague to be useful. Do you mean having the same x-height (the main body of the lowercase letters, assuming Latin script)? Or the same cap-height? Or the same ascender height? Or the same descender depth? Or the same character widths? Or a similar overall amount of "ink" in each character? Yes, it's impossible without special-casing for each font, because there is no clear basis for making such an equivalence, given how designs differ.
  - yoz-y 6y ago
    The general case would be to have text written in the same paragraph align well. To me that encompasses same baseline, same x height, and in the case of mixing scripts same cap height (in case of CJK). Basically “do what I mean”. I understand that it’s hard, but it should be at least doable. If it would require being able to specify which height to consider, so be it, make it an option.
    - mcguire 6y ago
      This is why some fonts are designed to work together. Trying to force fonts that weren't is going to be ugly no matter what you do.
The_rationalist 6y ago
This is a nice solution which however won't solve the problem for non-updated font polices.