Where in we pursue oxidizing (context: https://github.com/googlefonts/oxidize) fontmake.

Converts source to IR, and then IR to font binary. Aims to be safe, incremental, and fast.

References

• Intermediate Representation (IR)
  • Why IR?
  • IR notes.
• Editor perspective note from Just
• Units
  • Fonts have all the best units; distinguishing between them turns out to matter.

As of 6/4/2023 we intend to:

• Get to the point where Oswald compilation matches fontmake
  • https://github.com/googlefonts/fontc/milestone/4
• Get to the point where ever more of the families for which we have source compile to a form that matches fontmake, or differs only in well understood ways
• Provide a Glyphs plugin to allow push-button use of the new compiler
• Once there are no known issues, switch Google Fonts to exclusively use fontc

We are discarding our prior plan to make fontmake (Python) call into Rust as it appears to be more complex than initially anticipated and higher risk than migrating on a per-family basis.

For context see https://github.com/googlefonts/oxidize/blob/main/text/2022-07-25-PROPOSAL-build-glyphs-in-rust.md and the discussion on googlefonts/oxidize#33.

Google Fonts has lots, you could try https://github.com/rsheeter/google_fonts_sources to get some. Once you have them you could try building them:

cargo run --package fontc -- --source ../google_fonts_sources/sources/ofl/notosanskayahli/sources/NotoSansKayahLi.designspace

It is quite common to find we need changes in https://github.com/googlefonts/fontations to add a feature or fix a bug. Prior to a release being available modify the root Cargo.toml to point to either a local clone or a branch:

# Local copy
[patch.crates-io]
font-types =  { path = "../fontations/font-types" }
read-fonts =  { path = "../fontations/read-fonts" }
write-fonts = { path = "../fontations/write-fonts" }
skrifa =  { path = "../fontations/skrifa" }

# Branch
[patch.crates-io]
font-types = { git="https://github.com/googlefonts/fontations.git", branch="box" }
read-fonts = { git="https://github.com/googlefonts/fontations.git", branch="box" }
write-fonts = { git="https://github.com/googlefonts/fontations.git", branch="box" }
skrifa = { git="https://github.com/googlefonts/fontations.git", branch="box" }

We have included a few git hooks that you may choose to use to ensure that patches will pass CI; these are in resources/githooks.

To run the pre-push step manually:

$ ./resources/githooks/pre-push

If you would like to have these run automatically when you commit or push changes, you can set this as your git hooksPath:

$ git config core.hooksPath "resources/githooks"

See https://github.com/googlefonts/fontations#releasing