Anybody else want to commission a open source Wordpress type tester?

Johannes Neumeier

Thanks for the reference, I'll check it out in more detail when I get around to it. So each OpenType feature could be a separate toggle, and the languages a drop down, no?

I was under the impression this was just a gathering of interested parties and their needs. Did development already start?

Yes, and maybe. (:

I played around a bit with the "first step" of creating the javascript front end that is needed to manipulate and load the font sample, but this is just some preliminary hacking around, no commitment per se to build this.

The basics for loading fonts and manipulating basic features like font size etc is quite straight forward. I made a testing page to show and test the jquery plugin's features as I (or maybe we? ) develop them - but this is more of a "functional" test than a suggestion or actual implementation for the interface.

Roel Nieskens

Johannes Neumeier said:

I simply started off with what a) I somewhat know and b) most wordpress sites use anyway. Feel free to lay out the foundation for something non-jqueryish and I'll gladly help work on that instead

It's always a nice challenge to see how development goes without relying on jQuery, but for quick prototyping it's perfect, so don't change anything on my account!

I'd rather jump in when specs are a bit more clear and some kind of scope can be determined. Got more than enough projects to fill my spare time as it is, a problem I'm sure you all are familiar with.

On the subject of what kind of backend you'd need, that'd depend on the requirements. If subsetting, turning on/off OT features in the final font, browser-independent demoing of IT features or DRM/protection is part of that, you'd definitely need a backend. If you stick to trying out a webfont, kinda like the nice example from @Stephen Coles, you could keep it all client-side which would make it so much easier to release it as a (WordPress) plugin.

Johannes Neumeier

I've now started work on making this a Wordpress plugin that wraps some administrative functionality as well as an interface for selecting and manipulating the frontend previews. This is a low priority project for me at the moment, but once I have some more refined previews I'll post again.

I'd be curious to hear if the people that showed interest before would consider donating to a plugin like this - and how much, assuming it meets their needs and quality standards?

Paulo Goode

That’s great to hear Johannes, I would be very willing to contribute to funding development and be available for beta testing. I believe the finished plugin should be sold at a relatively high premium, so that you generate income after its release and have an incentive to give support/updates for it. For the time being I think it should be available only to those of us through TypeDrawers who wish to contribute to its development. 

Please PM me to discuss funding.

George Thomas

I'm still very much interested and willing to contribute, dependent upon the amount required. I also agree with what Paulo said, above.

How about setting up a private group where this can be discussed among those who wish to subscribe to development?

Nick Shinn

I’m interested.

Johannes Neumeier

Not sure how best to coordinate this, but I've setup a private google group; those of you who wish to influence where the plugin development is going please sign up and voice your ideas as well as how you are willing to support the development:

https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/fontsampler-wordpress-plugin-development

Also: Co-developers wanted!

Johannes Neumeier

Pinging all who above stated interest either as potential users, supporters or developers: @James Puckett @Paulo Goode @Jacques Le Bailly @Stuart Sandler @Frode Bo Helland @Erin McLaughlin @LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland @David Vereschagin @Nick Shinn @Roel Nieskens

Feel free to join the development google group linked above.

Stuart Sandler

Thanks Johannes! Looking forward to your updates! Currently using TypeShow at my sites and looking for a better solution.

Chris Lozos

I am interested either as potential user.

Chris D

I have a strong background in Wordpress (mainly frontend, but a bit of backend too) / web design & development / UX design, and would be happy to lend a hand where needed. I've applied to join the group via Google Groups.

Regarding licensing, one option might be a freemium model where the core plugin is open source but advanced features / customizations require a separate PRO plugin or license, or perhaps using a paid support ticket system to encourage ongoing development - users buy credits to request priority support.

EDIT: This sort of pricing structure may work too: http://www.smartmenus.org/download/

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

Johannes Neumeier

Just a little cross-update here: I've now launched a IndieGoGo funding campaign to get more support for developing the plugin further - any help is appreciated.

The code is also public on Github and contributions, comments or feature request are highly welcome.

There also is a relatively up-to-date preview I'm hosting on my server, so you can have a play.

James Puckett

I’m in. Good work, Johannes. And thanks for jumping in and coding!

George Thomas

Done. Thanks for all the hard work to get this started.

Johannes Neumeier

Thanks, superb to have your immediate support in the funding campaign!

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

Great to see this.

How much support for non-Latins is anticipated?

Johannes Neumeier

Hrant H. Papazian said:

Great to see this.

How much support for non-Latins is anticipated?

Cheers! Well, since I don't have much experience with non-latin scripts it really depends on the feedback and input I get. If you have a look at the preview, what things strike you as possibly needing consideration? Or more generally, what do you have in mind?

I'm happy to upload any non-latin sample webfonts also for people to test. If you can suggest to me any particular openly available one I'll be happy to add it to the preview as well, and see what obvious considerations it needs.

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

Noto?  :-)
http://www.monotype.com/resources/case-studies/more-than-800-languages-in-a-single-typeface-creating-noto-for-google

I guess the biggest hurdle might be right-to-left scripts, especially Arabic. Although Indic scripts are complex too.

BTW the Letterspacing slider should come with a warning, since it runs roughshod over careful kerning.

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

Actually a bigger hurdle would be Mongolian... For help on that you could ask Toshi Omagari or Tengis Type.

Chris D

Thanks for releasing the code on Github Johannes! I'm still keen to help out with the coding and testing side of things so I might try and tackle some of those issues / feature requests you've logged so far. 

Kayley Hill

Complete random question, will there be an option to set the controls to be underneath the preview?

Johannes Neumeier

Hrant H. Papazian said:

Noto?  :-)
http://www.monotype.com/resources/case-studies/more-than-800-languages-in-a-single-typeface-creating-noto-for-google

I guess the biggest hurdle might be right-to-left scripts, especially Arabic. Although Indic scripts are complex too.

BTW the Letterspacing slider should come with a warning, since it runs roughshod over careful kerning.

Good point about the warning - this is something though I hope the admin-users of the plugin (type foundries, designers) are aware of when enabling the feature in the back end.

Right to left scripts should have the same support as they have for html in general, as the common limiting factor - so I suppose not many.
Do you reckon it would be sufficient to have a RTL checkbox in the admin backend that designates on of these type samplers as containing a right to left script and thus changing all the default alignment and text directions?

Thanks for the - obvious - font suggestion

Johannes Neumeier

Kayley Hill said:

Complete random question, will there be an option to set the controls to be underneath the preview?

This should be rather easy to implement. In general, I am still looking for the best ways of making the interface customisable, but this could be a simple boolean toggle for above / below. Thanks for the suggestion.

Kayley Hill

Another small suggestion. The option that inverts the color of the text and background behaves weird when you enlarge the text, also I don't feel it works as well by having a box around it. I am not sure how possible this is in wordpress (or with other foundries site designs), but I feel that Google Fonts has the best solution to this issue by having the background color change across the whole page or maybe you could limit it to a box that encompasses the whole of the fontsampler?

Hrant Հրանդ Փափազեան Papazian

Johannes Neumeier said:

Do you reckon it would be sufficient to have a RTL checkbox in the admin backend that designates on of these type samplers as containing a right to left script and thus changing all the default alignment and text directions?

Sure. I have no idea. :->

James Puckett

I‘ve been playing with Fontsampler on my development site this week. Even in this early state it’s an impressive tool. Great work, Johannes.

Lasse Fister

I happen to currently build JavaScript tools to generate font specimen.

The relavant repositories:
https://github.com/graphicore/specimenTools
https://github.com/graphicore/mdlFontSpecimen

And here are some current demos:
Loads fonts from server: https://graphicore.github.io/mdlFontSpecimen
Drag and Drop: https://graphicore.github.io/mdlFontSpecimen/html/drop-fonts.html

Today I became aware of the fontsampler project at https://github.com/kontur/fontsampler-wordpress-plugin

I think some of our goals are similar, so I wonder if you want to take a look and tell me what you think.

Technically `specimenTools` tries not to define any layout. It relies fully on (configurable) CSS-classes to initiate the widgets. I'll have to evaluate, but making 'real' Web Components eventually may be a good future plan.

I'm using opentype.js to get the available features (thus just GSUB so far) from the font and for more things, like getting the outline data to draw the glyph tables.

It looks like I'll be on the project full time for some more time. So it will evolve probably a lot in the next time.

Johannes Neumeier

Hallo Lasse!

Your specimen generator looks great, thanks for sharing your work! The focus of both projects seems to be slightly different, but overlapping indeed, so I'm glad you messaged. Aside from the Wordpress backend integration, I've so far aimed to create contained instances of customisable input test fields (possibly for having several per page), but suggestions like a glyph table preview have come up as well.

I'll have a closer look at your codebase over the weekend, but the way you've created the library of modular widgets very well lends itself to sharing some code. Particularly the rendering of the type input field I'm currently handling only with a simple jQuery wrapper for manipulating the css as well as the font loading. I imagine it would benefit from using your widgets or fork of them instead, in some form or another. 

Lasse Fister

Thanks.

> I imagine it would benefit from using your widgets or fork of them instead, in some form or another.

I'd be happy to help figuring out how we can share. At the moment it would seem good for the specimenTools project if we wouldn't have to fork, but could instead make it more useful to include your use case and demands as well. We'd have to figure out what that means though ;-)

When you had a look at the code, let me know what you think.