4 ms·

What's up with svg fonts? I suppose this is a binary format, and presumably smaller and faster to parse than compressed SVG fonts, but I admit I'm a bit surpris

What's up with svg fonts? I suppose this is a binary format, and presumably smaller and faster to parse than compressed SVG fonts, but I admit I'm a bit surprised that this isn't an improvement to an existing SVG font ecosystem and is instead it's own thing. It seems that if this was legitimately useful (instead of just one more thing competitors are obligated to spend money on implementing) we'd have seen SVG fonts used for it already.

CharlesW 4y ago
SVG fonts are OpenType fonts, and my understanding is that new-ish support for SVG tables in OpenType fonts is what enables this. https://color.typekit.com/ https://color.typekit.com/ https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/opentype/spec/svg https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/opentype/spec/sv... https://helpx.adobe.com/fonts/using/ot-svg-color-fonts.html https://helpx.adobe.com/fonts/using/ot-svg-color-fonts.html "OpenType-SVG is a font format in which an OpenType font has all or just some of its glyphs represented as SVG (scalable vector graphics) artwork. This allows the display of multiple colors and gradients in a single glyph. Because of these features, we also refer to OpenType-SVG fonts as “color fonts”. OpenType-SVG fonts allow text to be shown with these graphic qualities, while still allowing it to be edited, indexed, or searched. They may also contain OpenType features that allow glyph substitution or alternate glyph styles."
gardaani 4y ago
SVG Fonts have never had good support in web browsers. SVG-in-OpenType fonts has some support, for instance in Firefox. Google Chrome teams refuses to implement SVG-in-OT. Instead, they wanted to implemented their COLRv1. https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=306078#c18 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=306078...
- Beltalowda 4y ago
  the Mozilla position on COLRv1 is "Provides comparable design capabilities to OpenType-SVG, but in a more compact and lightweight form that integrates better into font rendering pipelines. Has the potential to supersede OpenType-SVG fonts in web use." So this seems like a good thing overall. Note that Firefox doesn't support it at this time.
  - jfoster 4y ago
    > the Mozilla position on... Where does Mozilla's revenue come from? Are they an impartial 3rd party?
  - jfk13 4y ago
    There's support in Firefox Nightly, actually, if you enable the setting 'gfx.font_rendering.colr_v1.enabled' in about:config.
    - Beltalowda 4y ago
      Ah cool, I missed that!
nightpool 4y ago
Nobody wants to be responsible for introducing the security/performance nightmare that is SVG fonts into their codebase. SVG is too big and too unwieldy and does too much to make a good performant font rendering impl. Crucially, OpenType fonts already have their own custom vector format that authoring tools and renderers are used to working with, so this is a form of colored font support that builds on existing font principles instead of stapling an entire SVG renderer inside of it.

CharlesW 4y ago

SVG fonts are OpenType fonts, and my understanding is that new-ish support for SVG tables in OpenType fonts is what enables this. https://color.typekit.com/ https://color.typekit.com/ https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/opentype/spec/svg https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/typography/opentype/spec/sv... https://helpx.adobe.com/fonts/using/ot-svg-color-fonts.html https://helpx.adobe.com/fonts/using/ot-svg-color-fonts.html "OpenType-SVG is a font format in which an OpenType font has all or just some of its glyphs represented as SVG (scalable vector graphics) artwork. This allows the display of multiple colors and gradients in a single glyph. Because of these features, we also refer to OpenType-SVG fonts as “color fonts”. OpenType-SVG fonts allow text to be shown with these graphic qualities, while still allowing it to be edited, indexed, or searched. They may also contain OpenType features that allow glyph substitution or alternate glyph styles."

gardaani 4y ago

SVG Fonts have never had good support in web browsers. SVG-in-OpenType fonts has some support, for instance in Firefox. Google Chrome teams refuses to implement SVG-in-OT. Instead, they wanted to implemented their COLRv1. https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=306078#c18 https://bugs.chromium.org/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=306078...

Beltalowda 4y ago
the Mozilla position on COLRv1 is "Provides comparable design capabilities to OpenType-SVG, but in a more compact and lightweight form that integrates better into font rendering pipelines. Has the potential to supersede OpenType-SVG fonts in web use." So this seems like a good thing overall. Note that Firefox doesn't support it at this time.
- jfoster 4y ago
  > the Mozilla position on... Where does Mozilla's revenue come from? Are they an impartial 3rd party?
- jfk13 4y ago
  There's support in Firefox Nightly, actually, if you enable the setting 'gfx.font_rendering.colr_v1.enabled' in about:config.
  - Beltalowda 4y ago
    Ah cool, I missed that!

nightpool 4y ago

Nobody wants to be responsible for introducing the security/performance nightmare that is SVG fonts into their codebase. SVG is too big and too unwieldy and does too much to make a good performant font rendering impl. Crucially, OpenType fonts already have their own custom vector format that authoring tools and renderers are used to working with, so this is a form of colored font support that builds on existing font principles instead of stapling an entire SVG renderer inside of it.