ATypI OpenType 2.0 session

SiDaniels

Just a reminder that later this year there will be an opportunity to discuss and promote your ideas around the "next font format" in São Paulo as part of ATypI's tech day - the whole afternoon will be devoted to the future of OpenType. http://www.atypi.org/conferences/sao-paulo-2015/programme-1

If you are interested in participating, and pitching your ideas during the OpenType Open Mike please let me know via Simonda@microsoft.com 

Cheers, Si  

Chris Lozos

Glad to see you still talk type, Si! Hope all is well with you!

attar

Hi Si, I can’t afford to go to São Paulo unfortunately but I sure have a few things I would like to have said during OpenType 2.0 panels, so here goes. Maybe you or @John%20Hudson
can voice this for me during the panels. Thanks.


It is now almost 20 years since the original OpenType announcement, and I think now is a good time to take stock of the technology itself: I assume this initiative was brought up because cascading script support ought to be added, mostly? Can you and someone from Adobe [ @MiguelSousa ] comment on what the two initiators of the technology might want to drive into the next iteration of the standard? Does Adobe eventually intend to sort out an FEA 2.0 along with the introduction of the next OpenType? [I think @Khaled%20Hosny expressed some sentiments w.r.t FEA lately.] Anyway, please Microsoft and Adobe clarify what changes you want to add into the next OpenType so that individuals may reflect on these.

Personally, I think the discussions should also revolve around:

— the tooling: I think the AFDKO was for a great role in sparking adoption of the initial OpenType, partly for making it easier for font (app) makers to start using OpenType easily (speaking of which, nowadays there is Harfbuzz as a broadly-compatible, OpenType-enabled shaping engine) – I did read the story of how @Thomas%20Phinney did drive adoption of OpenType inside Adobe (in the Adobe Originals Anniversary book) and I think this was key. The AFDKO is even open-source now. That being said, it is full of 90s-legacy code which has its shortcomings… if OpenType 2.0 was to happen, would Microsoft and Adobe work together on the AFDKO or on a new open-source tool? I also say this because support for features registered by Microsoft seems to lag behind compared to those registered by Adobe (which themselves aren’t quick to be adopted either… how long did it take for stylistic set names to be added to Adobe applications?) in the AFDKO.
— the end-user app support: around 15 years after the start of effective adoption of OpenType, support in apps is still largely limited or inexistent in apps, and this includes Adobe and Microsoft apps (still no support for small caps planned in Microsoft Office? oh well). If OpenType 2.0 is to happen, I think type designers will want at least half-decent support in a reasonable time-frame (not 25yrs please!) in order to drive its adoption along with app makers. So my last question is this: what do Adobe and Microsoft intend to do wrt. support of 2.0 in their respective apps?

That’s it, imo. the real stake is not in the technology itself but in how it’s going to be supported.

Thomas Phinney

I agree wholeheartedly that for any concept proposed for OpenType 2.0, a very large question is how the people advocating for it will drive adoption, what are the barriers to its adoption, and how can those be managed?

Many of the people involved have “been around the block a few times,” as we say, so I expect that lessons learned from previous eras will not be lost. But getting new technologies and standards supported is still both a lot of hard work, and an often tricky business.

I think it's a bit early to ask what Adobe and Microsoft intend to do wrt support of OpenType 2.0 in their respective apps, when....

1) OpenType 2.0 is in the earliest stages of being defined and we are just starting to discuss what it will consist of.

2) Support for 2.0 won't be a binary thing, any more than support for OpenType 1.x has been. There will be shades and flavors of support, and it may be complicated and gradual.

3) I would have said that the people from Adobe and Microsoft at the font conferences are folks from the type teams, and not in control of apps. Of course, Si has moved to become a typography/fonts PM for the MS Office team, so I guess that is a fair question for him. But not as much for Adobe.

SiDaniels

Hi everyone,

If you are coming to ATypI and want to participate in the "OpenType Open Mike" please drop me an email... SimonDa@microsoft.com. Space is filling up. :-)

Thanks, Si