Re: [ft-devel] [GSoC] CID font support, and others

[Werner LEMBERG]

>> OK, I'll be finding a way to add this in with minimal clutter to
>> the code.  I'm thinking to add an extra check to the top to skip
>> stuff other than stem hints first time round, then rewinding on
>> `endchar'.
>
> Done. Pushed along with some other minor changes.
>
> I've checked this with all the known bad glyphs, and they render
> fine now, with the correct initial hintmap.

Great!  As I can see, the changes are surprisingly small and clear,
which is good.

> One issue remains, from MunhwaGothic if you recall, the right
> pointing hand (U+261E).  I checked against another font, which looks
> fine.  From the debug output, it's likely the former has
> bad/insufficient hints, and perhaps the Adobe hinter is slightly
> overzealous in moving points.
>
> In this case, it is better to use the autohinter or turn off
> hinting, but I wonder if we could, or should, detect such a case, or
> to leave the judgement call to the user?

Using the auto-hinter for a single glyph among other glyphs controlled
by PS hints is no option here; the vertical scaling differences are
usually far too noticeable.  What I can imagine – in case it is really
possible to detect such bad hints – is to apply a glyph-wide scaling
derived from the initial hintmap so that the glyph has the same
vertical size as other glyphs do have, ignoring all other, faulty
hints.

> OTOH, it only goes messy at low ppem, at usual reading sizes, the
> wonkiness is considerably less.  Perhaps nothing needs to be done
> (the fault does lie with the font...).

Yes, this is always an option :-)


    Werner