Support Right-To-Left languages

[Ashraf-Ali-aa]

Hi is it possible to add text reshaping using https://github.com/mapmeld/js-arabic-reshaper am currently trying to edit Arabic font but when I use the test drive mode the font is not rendered correctly, also have a look at https://fontrapid.com/ their real-time preview is cool especially the live tweaks

p.s Glyphr-Studio is an excellent tool 👍

[mattlag]

I will take a look - i'm always up for learning about something new!

[mattlag]

Hello!

Unfortunately, this looks like it depends on Ligatures... we use OpenType.js to read/write OTF files, so direct support for contextual alternates and ligatures is not available to us. We can use Ligatures exported to SVG fonts, then convert to OTF... this is not ideal, but this is our current work-around.

I know OpenType.js project is working on contextual alternate support. So this may be fixed in the future. I think the second thing that Glyphr Studio does not currently support is RTL languages.

So, besides the RTL issue, does the current set of Ligatures features in Glyphr Studio support what you are trying to do? Or is there some other advanced contextual alternate functionality that is missing?

[Ashraf-Ali-aa]

@mattlag thanks for looking into the issue, yes apart from RTL support Glyphr Studio does have all the other features required to create RTL fonts

[mattlag]

Great, thank you for your answer. I don't have any experience with RTL languages, so having your input is valuable.

I'm actually going to change the title of this to "Support RTL Languages" as a feature idea so I don't forget the context. I'll have to look into OpenType.js support for RTL, so i'm not sure if I have an idea of when it might possibly be addressed.

[Jolg42]

@mattlag Actually ligatures & contextual alternates are implemented, see https://github.com/nodebox/opentype.js/blob/master/test/substitution.js for an example 😉

[mattlag]

@Jolg42 thank you! I knew you all were working on it, but I haven't had time to dig in and see what has been completed. This is very exciting! 🎉

While I have you on the line :-) do you know offhand the status of writing GPOS tables for Kerning? I took a quick look, and it seems like only reading tables is available(?)

[Jolg42]

@mattlag So indeed only GPOS reading of only a few of the formats and reading of kern table is available right now for kerning.

[mattlag]

@Jolg42 thank you for confirming. Ligatures is exciting within itself - thank you for the work 😄

[gurtstroubrant]

I am creating Arabic version of a Latin font for a limit use as a display font. I have found that most of the ligatures work but not all of them. For example these 3 glyphs should join: سيت
I will try and find a workaround
ps I agree with Ashraf this is great software.

[mattlag]

@gurtstroubrant if you could email me the project text file, and tell me which ligature is not working, I can look into it... this is a new feature so there may be bugs :-)

[email protected]

[gurtstroubrant]

Sure. I am going to try and ascertain if there what is not working and will send it to you.