[HN Gopher] Nabla - Isometric Color Font
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       Nabla - Isometric Color Font
        
       Author : ChrisArchitect
       Score  : 81 points
       Date   : 2022-10-20 16:05 UTC (6 hours ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (nabla.typearture.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (nabla.typearture.com)
        
       | tiagod wrote:
       | The font displays fine but none of the sliders are working on
       | Firefox mobile (nor the palette picker)
        
       | pwinnski wrote:
       | "Nabla is currently only supported in Chrome."
       | 
       | Oh yay, another Google invention for the web that others now have
       | to support or be accused of holding the web back. Is it Thursday
       | already?
        
         | alwillis wrote:
         | Yes, unfortunately. WebKit's position on this font format:
         | https://lists.webkit.org/pipermail/webkit-dev/2021-March/031...
        
           | pwinnski wrote:
           | Myles @ WebKit seems to raise some excellent points, but I'm
           | not up on browser internals. The criticism seem very much in
           | line with my understanding of motives and incentives within
           | Google, which leads to much duplication of effort.
           | 
           | The Nabla web page makes it seem like "Finally! Color fonts!"
           | while Myles @ WebKit makes it clear that "Many OT-SVG fonts
           | already exist," which seems true[0].
           | 
           | Sigh. I wish people viewed Google more accurately as breakers
           | of web interoperability instead of praising the relentless
           | Chrome hegemony.
           | 
           | 0. https://helpx.adobe.com/fonts/using/ot-svg-color-
           | fonts.html
        
         | red_trumpet wrote:
         | Firefox 106 seems to handle the font just fine. I also see the
         | gradients, they claim to not work on Firefox yet. But yeah,
         | that line at the bottom is a bit weird...
         | 
         | [1] https://fonts.google.com/specimen/Nabla
        
           | jfk13 wrote:
           | The font _also_ contains SVG glyphs, in addition to the
           | COLRv1 versions, and that 's what you're currently seeing in
           | Firefox.
           | 
           | Firefox 107 will introduce COLRv1 support, though at least as
           | things stand now the SVG glyphs still take precedence (unless
           | you disable that feature).
        
         | TheRealPomax wrote:
         | Not really? COLRv1 only officially landed in OpenType 1.9 with
         | some changes slated for 1.9.1 - OpenType is a consortium
         | consisting of _many_ players, none of them implementing things
         | until the spec is actually official.
         | 
         | Except, of course, when it's some company's own suggestion: MS
         | will early-implement support for new features they themselves
         | propose, Adobe will early-implement support for new features
         | they themselves propose, and in this case Google's engineers
         | had it implemented before it was officially accepted because
         | they proposed it.
         | 
         | Mozilla (and everyone else) waited until the draft become part
         | of the spec, then had to spend the time implement a (non-
         | trivially complex) new rendering pipeline, and make sure that
         | works properly. COLRv1 fonts should work perfectly fine as of
         | Firefox 107.
        
           | habitue wrote:
           | can confirm, this site works fine in Firefox. I can copy the
           | colorful text and paste it as text
        
       | boomskats wrote:
       | I know this isn't the most constructive comment, but as a South
       | Park fan, I will never not call this font NAMBLA[0]. I know what
       | the nabla symbol is, I know it's completely unrelated. But it's
       | just too damn close.
       | 
       | [0]:
       | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Man/Boy_Love_As...
        
       | nomel wrote:
       | The fact that some of the letters are at different "depths" makes
       | this hard on my eyes, since it gives an "impossible geometry"
       | look. For three different depths, see Y (forward), N (middle),
       | and M (back). Look at the bottom of the character. This seems to
       | come from a requirement that the top and bottom of each letter is
       | on the same horizontal line.
        
         | fluoridation wrote:
         | They're not at different depths. Lowercase y and lowercase g
         | reach under the baseline, and so the corners you're looking at
         | appear, in the projection, to be at a lower height than, say,
         | lowercase s. I don't see anything about uppercase m that makes
         | it appear in a different position.
        
       | zhxshen wrote:
        
       | dwringer wrote:
       | Cool font, the topmost two banner examples are a little big for
       | optimal legibility on my monitor though, and zooming in/out
       | doesn't change the size (it does for the lower ones, though).
       | Because it expands past my normal reading FOV I keep seeing it as
       | "I Some Try" instead of "Isometry".
        
       | username_exists wrote:
       | Very cool
        
       | jansan wrote:
       | Pretty sweet. As I understand it appearance is simply changed by
       | setting the _font-variation-settings_ and _font-palette_ CSS
       | properties. Is that correct?
        
         | jfk13 wrote:
         | In principle, although the controls don't seem to be working
         | for me at the moment (in either Firefox or Chrome). I guess
         | it's a work-in-progress... (or maybe it's just me).
        
           | nrabulinski wrote:
           | It's only implemented in Chrome for now
        
             | jfk13 wrote:
             | COLRv1 is also supported in Firefox 107 (currently in
             | beta).
             | 
             | (Though in this case, the fact that the font also contains
             | SVG glyphs gets in the way. Setting
             | gfx.font_rendering.opentype_svg.enabled to false in
             | about:config lets you see the COLRv1 glyphs.)
        
       | jensenbox wrote:
       | My Chrome kept "Aw Snapping" on this page. Is it just me?
       | 
       | Error code: SIGILL
        
         | wwwigham wrote:
         | Nope, it's not just you! Happens reliably a little bit after
         | page load for me, using Chrome on Android, too!
        
       | sho_hn wrote:
       | > Engineering > Just van Rossum
       | 
       | Guido van Rossum's brother. He also designed the "Python powered"
       | logo (and in his main career, had a hand in widely popular fonts
       | like ITC Officina).
        
         | spaceman_2020 wrote:
         | That's a wonderful logo.
         | 
         | Only programming language I can think of with an instantly
         | recognizable logo, other than Java
        
           | Kwpolska wrote:
           | I believe they are talking about this logo:
           | https://i.imgur.com/2HaRHM7.png
           | 
           | Not exactly iconic or wonderful.
        
             | bdn_ wrote:
             | There is this logo as well:
             | https://www.python.org/static/community_logos/python-
             | powered...
             | 
             | Source: https://www.python.org/community/logos/
        
               | Kwpolska wrote:
               | That one wasn't designed by Just van Rossum.
        
             | spaceman_2020 wrote:
             | ah, I was thinking of the blue and yellow double snake logo
        
               | mminer237 wrote:
               | Yeah, the double snake logo was made by Tim Parkin.
        
           | orthoxerox wrote:
           | > other than Java
           | 
           | I never understood what that triangular clown was meant to
           | be. Can't deny it's recognizable.
        
             | bitwize wrote:
             | In my headcanon Duke is a personified Ouija board planche.
             | Just like the planche is the go-between for the user and
             | the Ouija board, Duke is the go-between for the user and
             | the tablet computer for which Java was originally designed.
             | 
             | It might be a bit of a stretch, but he was originally more
             | than a mascot but a "software agent" through which the
             | user's actions were carried out, a sort of more active
             | version of Clippy.
        
             | Kwpolska wrote:
             | An even more recognizable logo would be the coffee cup.
        
           | imachine1980_ wrote:
           | i'm disagreeing ruby, go, rust, this last two have both
           | mascot and logo that are easy recognized
        
           | ChrisMarshallNY wrote:
           | Swift.
        
         | systemvoltage wrote:
         | I love the python logo. It is not generic and stands out really
         | well, especially in an era where logo design has regressed so
         | much.
        
       | glasshug wrote:
       | Lovely design and nice engineering!
       | 
       | I do worry about how heavy the OpenType spec is getting.
        
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       (page generated 2022-10-20 23:00 UTC)