Re: Fwd: SVG Fonts

Boris Zbarsky <[email protected]> writes:

> What we have here are two different technological solutions to the
> same problem: that of creating custom fonts to use with a web page
> (defined as something present on the web; doesn't have to be HTML).

I don't think that the above is a complete depiction of the raison
d'etre of SVG fonts.  Perhaps that is how there are currently used in
the mobile sector, but the mobile sector was only part of the argument
for SVG font support.

I maintain that SVG should be used for all artwork in XML (and html5)
documents and that said SVG should not have to depend on external
resources.

(That does not mean that all fonts have to be included, just that --
like the text portions of a document -- the renderer is free, w/in the
contraints of the users' preferences, to choose any available font to
render generic text elements.  Font support in SVG should be used for
those cases where appearance and such are semantic.)

And I have to say, this discussion seems a bit long winded for something
which ought to be easy to write.  Libraries like cairo already use a:

  <symbol><path/></symbol> 

blob for each glyph when creating text-using SVGs and <xlink> them into
place.  A practice gecko supports.  Supporting SVG fonts to do the same
thing should be *easy*.

I just do not understand the resistance.

Which is -- given the trust of the post I'm replying to here -- not to
denigrate support for @font-face.  Or, more importantly, support for
arbitrary URLs (if not URIs) pointing at raw SFNTs.  (Does it support
any font freetype can render?  Or just SFNTs?)  Please do stick to you
guns and avoid limiting @font-face to eot-next-gen or simiar.

But that is orthogonal tothe need for full support of SVG.

-JimC