Re: [Freefont-bugs] New glyphs are unixxxx while other glyphs are uniXXXX.

[Steve White]

Hi

On Tue, Jun 25, 2013 at 8:28 PM, BobH <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 2013-06-25 at 9:12 you wrote:
>
> I've experimented with this, and now I think I spoke too soon.
> But maybe I don't understand your suggestion.
>
> The glyphs *must* have unique names.
>
> Why?  (only slightly rhetorical)
>
I mixed things up there.  Internally references are made by glyph ID,
so I know of no structural reason why they must be unique.
FontForge correctly insists on uniqueness when names are being set.

I'm talking about font generation by FontForge.
I find no way to *remove* the glyph names.
Only ways to replace them with other sets of glyph names.
Am I missing something?

> If they *must* have names, then those names are being used by one or more
> processes (human and/or machine) and, if that is true then the names need to
> conform to whatever such processes require.  But you have claimed you don't
> need to conform to at least one such machine process (PDF text copy),

Our conformance to this broken idea would not unbreak it.
It might serve to prolong it, but I think that is detrimental to the
public good.

> so I'm
> trying to understand what process(es) you believe do require names.
>
??  Very few. Have you misunderstood me.

As I wrote in the posting before last, for the primary purpose of
display, the names are superfluous.

The only process I even know of that used glyph names and had a
legitimate intent was the PDF copying one.  But again, I regard that
as broken and defunct.

> Once one knows what processes are required, only then can one decide what
> the name requirements are, if any.
>
> My problem with this is: I do not approve of the Adobe names.
>
> Can you give examples of what names (from the Adobe Glyph List For New
> fonts) you find objectionable and why they are so?
>
> Or is it the "uni" and "u" names (used for everything not in the aglfn) that
> you don't like?
>
It's the AGLFN names I don't like.  They amount to a loss of
information, besides being ugly.

There are a few AGL names that are just wrong (and there are also a
few Unicode names that are just wrong too).  These things happen.  To
be honest, more names in FreeFont are just wrong, than either the AGL
or Unicode.  But they're *our* names, and have other advantages too
(brevity, etc).  But again, the functioning of outside code must not
depend on glyph names.

Keep me thinking, Bob!