[MPEG-OTSPEC] AHG Kick-off - new email list, new mandates! IMPORTANT!

[Levantovsky, Vladimir]

Dear AHG members,

I hope you are doing well and you and your families have not been directly affected by the current COVID-19 pandemic.
I haven't seen any responses to my previous email (below) and I am wondering if this may have something to do with the list changes. If you could please let me know that you do receive emails coming from the new email list, I would very much appreciate it.

Like I mentioned in my previous email, we have received a lisaison statement from the W3C CSS Working Group that identified a number of potential technical issues to consider for either clarifications or updates. I figured I'd try and take a first stub at it, to see how we can prioritize future work. Following the same order in which these issues are listed in CSS liaison (https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2020Feb/att-0005/CSS-SC29-20200113.pdf), I'd like to make the following notes:

1.       Lack of font metrics for writing systems other than Western and CJK
Additional discussions are needed, we may need to consult with outside experts who are familiar with typographic environments of different languages and writing systems to consider the additional complexities associated with languages like Thai [where glyphs are often composed with multiple marks positioned above and below the base].

2.       Italic / Oblique default angle
Additional discussion [to fully consider the application scope of this feature] is needed.

3.       Compatibility problem with 'vert'
The discussion linked from https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2019Dec/ seem to be specific to a particular behavior of existing version of Adobe InDesign application and Adobe Japanese font set. Considering the recent changes introduced by ISO/IEC 14496-22:2019/AMD1, I am not sure how much more (if anything) need to be done on the spec side. I do realize that both applications and fonts need to be updated to be compliant with new feature descriptions.

4.       Clarifications for 'vert'
It appears that this particular issues has been addressed by the AMD1, additional discussion may be needed.

5.       Clarifications for Bopomofo
Additional discussion is needed.

6.       Cursive elongation
It appears that this requested functionality may already be enabled by the existing JUST table implementation; it is not obvious [without further discussion with CSS] whether additional clarifications or technical changes are needed.

7.       Fidelity of font metrics
Based on the problem description, it appears that additional discussion and longer-term collaboration with CSS WG is needed to understand and hopefully help solve the issues they experience.

8.       Required vs. Optional ligatures
See https://github.com/w3c/csswg-drafts/issues/2644 for problem description. Additional information and discussions may be needed.

9.       Overline Metrics
This is a request to consider adding overline capabilities to OFF (similar to how underline position is currently defined in fonts). Additional discussion is needed.

Your comments / suggestions / proposals are very much appreciated!

Thank you,
Vladimir

From: mpeg-otspec <mpeg-otspec-bounces at lists.aau.at> On Behalf Of Levantovsky, Vladimir via mpeg-otspec
Sent: Thursday, February 13, 2020 11:52 AM
To: mpeg-otspec at lists.aau.at
Cc: mpeg-OTspec at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [MPEG-OTSPEC] AHG Kick-off - new email list, new mandates! IMPORTANT!

Dear members of the AHG on Font Format,

As Heraclitus once said, "The only constant in life is change", and this group is no exception!

You may have seen multiple Yahoo Groups notifications that they have removed all user-generated content from their servers. Since we've been using Yahoo Groups as our AHG host for over twelve years, we've enjoyed many good features they used to offer - most notable for this AHG were web archive of our emails and file storage facilities, which are now gone. Hence, we decided to transition to a more user-friendly environment and Christian Timmerer (who is a long-time email list host for all of MPEG) has graciously agreed to setup and host a new email list and also host the public email archive. Thank you Christian for all your help and hard work, and for making it easier to transition from one email list host to another!

Speaking about new email list and new email list archive - we've been able to preserve most [but not all] of the messages stored in the Yahoo Groups email archive, and transferred them to the new list. The archive is publicly available via this URL: https://lists.aau.at/pipermail/mpeg-otspec/<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/GTCJCqxr5lFBj22FZ7xaZ>
(A file containing small portion of the Yahoo Groups emails was corrupted and it looks like some of the old messages are now malformed and recorded as "January 2020" communications, which is obviously not the case. I hope we didn't lose much because of it, but the major portions of the old archive are preserved.) Please note that since the email list archive is public (as used to be the case with Yahoo archive), any email message sent to the AHG list can be seen by anyone outside this group. This is a very convenient feature if/when we need to share the information and invite outside experts to contribute to our work, but please keep this in mind and make sure that you do not include any information in our email communications that is not intended to be seen by general public. As it used to be the case, one needs to be a registered AHG list member to be able to send emails to the AHG email list, but the email archive can be seen by anyone!

All subscribers of the Yahoo Group list have been automatically re-subscribed to the new list, you should have received email notification about it. IMPORTANT - please note that the subscription notification email also contained a password automatically generated for you! You can change the password for something that is easier to remember but please DO NOT reuse any of the important/valuable passwords - the email list server will send you a reminder once a month about your active subscription status, and those reminders WILL include your password in CLEARTEXT, which is not a secure form of communication. For new members who wish to subscribe, or to change your subscription preferences, or to unsubscribe - please visit: https://lists.aau.at/mailman/listinfo/mpeg-otspec<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/3Ma0Crkv5mtMlmmSzbWtI>
Last but not least, this message is addressed to both old and new email lists; going forward we will only be using the new email list address: mpeg-otspec at lists.aau.at<mailto:mpeg-otspec at lists.aau.at>

New AHG Mandate!
At the last WG11 (MPEG) meeting in January, we received liaison statements from SC34 (available as input contribution m52545) and from W3C CSS Working Group (m52854, also available at https://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-archive/2020Feb/att-0005/CSS-SC29-20200113.pdf<https://protect-us.mimecast.com/s/1zipCv2z58h1zllHzmAH9>) where they identified certain technical issues (see Annex A of the CSS liaison) that may necessitate further changes to the OFF specification. Our mandate  [until the next MPEG meeting] is to:
1. To study the technical issues outlined in the liaison statements from SC34 (m52545) and from CSS WG (m52854)
2. Identify possible approaches to solving confirmed technical issues, and communicate with the members of CSS WG to discuss and resolve any identified ambiguities that need clarifications, or requirements for new features and technology to support new functionality.
3. Develop and propose to WG11 input contributions that would become the basis for a new work item, and suggest a way forward.

Welcome to the new(-ish) AHG on Font Format!
Vladimir


-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <https://lists.aau.at/pipermail/mpeg-otspec/attachments/20200325/1ae601e0/attachment-0001.html>