Re: Next step for easier custom music font switching

[Janek Warchoł]

Hi,

2014-07-19 16:48 GMT+02:00 tisimst <address@hidden>:
> So, Urs and I have been discussing how we might proceed to make alternate
> music fonts more publicly available and I thought I'd bring the discussion
> here since there are some decisions to be made regarding how users would
> experience the change.
>
> - Question 1: *Should the new syntax be something like this?* (where the
> music and piano-brace fonts are put at the first)
>
> \paper {
>   #(define fonts
>     (make-pango-font-tree
>     *"lilyjazz"*  ; music font
>     *"gonville"*  ; piano brace font
>     "FreeSerif"
>     "FreeSans"
>     "Inconsolata"
>     (/ staff-height pt 20)))
> }

I agree with David's comment here.
Btw, just to make sure: have you seen
https://code.google.com/p/lilypond/issues/detail?id=4014 ?

> - Question 2: *Should we require the new fonts to be in the same folder as
> Emmentaler?* Most users won't know where this is and would more likely want
> to just install the fonts in the usual system fonts folder with all the
> other text fonts. Pango seems to know where this folder is, so it wouldn't
> need to be hard-coded like it currently is in "lily/font-config.cc".

+1

> - Question 3: *Should we require a font file for each of the optical sizes
> even though Emmentaler is the ONLY font, currently, that supports this? Or
> can we make it possible to have a single music/brace font file?* As it
> stands, with the new music fonts I've made, I create a separate file for
> each of the optical sizes, even though they are all actually identical. I
> guess all I'm saying is that we can keep this requirement, but it seems like
> it would be nice to allow for a single font when there's only one size
> available. It would make things a little simpler for the user when they are
> installing things.

+1
A thought: i'm missing the possibility to set the weight of the music
font used by LilyPond for a particular score.  In other words: let's
say i have an engraving with staff-size 16; Lilypond automatically
uses Feta16 for that.  I'd like to be able to say "please use a
heavier font version" to make LilyPond use Feta14 font (scaled to
staff-size 16).  Or "use a much lighter font" to make LilyPond use
Feta20 (scaled down to staff-size 16).

To make it easier to implement such a feature, wouldn't it make more
sense to have all "optical versions" of the font in the same size?
Right now the font versions meant for smaller staff-sizes are
"physically" smaller.  I think we could produced all versions in the
same size, just with different "weights".  I think that's how it's
done with text fonts - for example, a font has a "display" version
used for headings (at big sizes, 20+) and "text" version used for
block text (for sizes 10-16), but the actual dimensions are the same.

What do you think?

> Urs has kindly volunteered to host the fonts on www.openlilylib.org, so that
> will be taken care of.

+1

best,
Janek