Re: Auto selecting optical sizes for a font

[Hans Hagen <pragma@wxs.nl>]

On 6/24/2013 11:49 AM, Georg Duffner wrote:
> Am 2013-06-24 10:27, schrieb Keith J. Schultz:
>
>> as such ConTexT should support the use of the size table in its font
>> handling,
>> but as Hans has mentioned design sizes a very special and few actually
>> know
>> what that information means and put it to a useful purpose.
>>
>> Question would be in far this font feature should be rudimentarily
>> supported.
>
> IMO, they should be fully supported. There are not so many fonts with
> that property and even less in the free software world, so one can
> assume that somebody possessing such font knows what that means and
> probably expects its support.

It doesn't change the fact that predictable font names (including 
weight, width, variant and modifier) are (and will remain) a mess so 
users need to know precisely what they ask for, even automatisms kick 
in. Ok, most users won't notice as dont definition files take care of 
loading, but in that case taking care of the designsizes can be hidden 
as well (which it is).

> I think, context should by default use the appropriate font for each
> font-size corresponding to the design range defined in the font’s table,
> while providing an interface to override that automatism.

Well, in that case we should also obey min/max specs that say that fonts 
cannot be used below or above certain sizes (and I found quite some that 
has such narrow ranges).

In the case of eb ... it's just a few entries in a goodie file, so that 
does the job. In pratice, finding a properly matched and sized monospace 
and math takes more time -)

Hans

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