Re: SMuFL Bravura

[Aaron Hill]

On 2019-03-31 6:14 pm, edes wrote:
> el 2019-04-01 a las 11:37 Andrew Bernard escribió:
>
> > Thanks so much. Now to learn Metafont then. Shouldn't be too hard
>
> unlike valentin, i admire you already even if you don't succeed. i 
> don't
> know what admire the most: the determination of the "now to learn
> metafont", or the optimism of the "shouldn't be too hard". i'm sure all 
> of
> us are wishing you the best of luck.

I gave Metafont a casual, first glance a number of months ago.  It did 
not seem that difficult, although I am sure it has its fair share of 
idiosyncrasies that I simply have not yet encountered.

One of Metafont's strengths as a tool is that each glyph is described 
programmatically.  Consider when you want to have a font with a variety 
of weights.  Rather than author each weight independently, Metafont lets 
you describe glyphs in general terms, where the target weight is simply 
an input parameter.  This process is admittedly more abstract than just 
drawing the outline of each glyph by hand; but it certainly becomes much 
more productive in the long-run.

As folks might already know, Lilypond's font comes in specific versions 
for different target point sizes as to maintain a more consistent look 
and feel to the shapes.  If you were to simply scale up or scale down a 
glyph, then details can become too rounded or too sharpened compared to 
other details.  Here again is where Metafont helps.  The general outline 
of a glyph is described in code where things like the size and shape of 
the virtual pen can be controlled parametrically.

I am not sure how complex the various articulations are that Andrew 
needs to add.  Assuming there is an existing glyph that is close but 
needs some tweaking, it should be fairly straightforward to adapt 
current code to the new glyph.


-- Aaron Hill