Support descriptive names for Stylistic Sets

[Bas]

Which (versions of which) applications support descriptive names for Stylistic Sets?

(in many applications the Stylistic Sets don't function at all once they get descriptive names).

Is this more meant for 2020?

Thanks,
Bas

[Adam Twardoch (FontLab)]

Descriptive names for Stylistic Sets have been just added to a draft version of the OpenType specification (version 1.6) which has not yet been published. They are supported in AFDKO 2.5 but are not yet part of the official spec, and as far as I can tell, they are not yet (in March 2009) supported in any applications.

A.

[Bas]

It's the chicken-egg story. It's easier for Adobe's Type Dept to convince Adobe's applications developers to support Descriptive Names for Stylistic Sets, once many foundries have fonts with this feature. But foundries cannot implement this feature yet, as Stylistic Sets don't work at all anymore once Descriptive Names are defined. 

So we won't release fonts soon with Descriptive Names, but first have to wait for full suport in main applications.
Bas

[Adam Twardoch (FontLab)]

Bas,

wait, this is new, I did not know about this. Are you saying that if you add a ss01 feature using AFDKO 2.5, providing a descriptive name, the feature won't be accessible/visible/functional at all in some applications?

Can you give examples of the applications in question (version, OS), and also what exactly is happening? (I.e. is the feature "visible" but not "functional", or is it not "visible" at all?)

A.

[Bas]

> Are you saying that if you add a ss01 feature using AFDKO 2.5, providing a descriptive name, the feature won't be accessible/visible/functional at all in some applications?

Yes,  exactly.

We did several test with this: ss01 could not be accessed anymore once it has a Descriptive Name. And if I remember right, the feature also wasn't even visible anymore (eg. InDesign CS3, OSX)

[k.l.]

Ouch ...

(I did a quick test with a simple ss01 feature in IDCS2 under MacOS 10.3.9, and IDCS4 and TextEdit 1.5 under MacOS 10.5.5, and in these apps the feature can be activated and works. Don't have IDCS3 for testing.) [Edited to include IDCS2.]

[Dezcom]

What is the convention for descriptive names? Length? Spaces allowed? Punctuation? Case?

ChrisL

[Bas]

Chris,

Here is a description:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/opentype/afdko/topic_feature_file_syntax.html#8.c

Or check this text file, included in the latest FDK: "NewFeatureSyntaxIn2.5.txt"

Example from that file:

#------------------------------------
# Names for stylistic set features
#------------------------------------
feature ss01 {

   featureNames {
      name 3 "This is a Windows platform descriptive name for stylistic set ss01";
      name 1 "This is a Mac platform descriptive name for stylistic set ss01";
      name 3 1 0x40c "C'est un nom descriptif pour ss01 sur le systeme Windows.";
      name 1 0 1 "C'est un nom descriptif pour ss01 sur le systeme Mac.";
   };
   
      sub a by b;
      sub c by d;
   
} ss01;

[tiro_hudson]

Karsten, can you send me a test font containing names for Stylistic Sets, as created with AFDKO 2.5? I would like to examine it.

[Dezcom]

Thanks, Bas!

[Bas]

Once more on this issue: little extra testing in Area51 tells me a simple ss01-feature works okay in a simple GSUB-feature file: with & without Descriptive Names for Stylistic Sets.

However, when the GSUB-feature file becomes longer, more complicated (eg dozens of features, dozens of lookups, more than 1000 lines of code), the Stylistic Set only works without a Descriptive Name. As soon as I keep exactly the same code, very long, but only remove the Descriptive Name, ss01 works again.

Area51 does the same as I experienced before in FDK: Stylistic Sets don't work anymore once they get Descriptive Names in a longer feature file.

groet,
Bas

[tiro_hudson]

Bas, if you're willing to send it to me, I'd like to examine the font that is not working.

john[at]tiro[dpt]ca

[Bas]

exact problem: Stylistic Set with Descriptive Names don't work anymore once the aalt-feature is included with more than 1 other feature.

groet,
Bas

[tiro_hudson]

This appears to be an FDK compilation error. Bas sent me two test fonts to compare, one with descriptive names and one without. In the one with descriptive names, the <ss01> feature points to an incorrect lookup ID. The lookup ID to which it points is the one used (correctly) by the <aalt> feature (GSUB lookup 0 in the case of the test font), which explains why this problem might be linked to the presence of the <aalt> feature.

I'll bring this to Read Robert's attention.

[Service]

HI guys

If as a user, you could have whatever stylistic sets to choose from in an opentype font, what would they be? Oldstyle figures, ligatures, all caps and small caps are already available so what else would you dream of having?
I am hoping to gather information to first send as a request for inclusion in the spec (if I understand Thomas correctly) or at least give type designers an idea what the market wants in the way of features.

I am posting this as a direct result of some of the dialogue in a thread on “Smallcap lining figures”.

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