FontDropper

LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland

Perhaps not essential for TD residents (after all, many of you will have your own ways of testing, I reckon), but maybe useful for a quick scan: the first edition of an online font tester called DTL FontDropper. As the name suggests, it lets one drop .otf, .ttf, .woff, or .woff2 files and then test a range of OpenType Layout features and four variable-font sliders –provided the relevant typeface supports them, of course.

As mentioned, this is a first and it was clearly fun to develop it. There will undoubtedly be room for improvements and enhancements in the near future. For example, I can think of further improving the concurrent application of OpenType Layout features.

The tool comes with a disclaimer, which one can also find on the webpage. Basically, the message is that if a font works on the site, one can safely conclude that it works in the browser one is using. There is no guarantee that the font will work in all environments, but there is certainly a chance that it will!

André Simard

My question can be obvious for some, but to me it's not because I've never use that kind of apps. When I upload font on an online tester, where that uploaded file goes? Is the file is stocked somewhere? Thanks for your answer.

LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland

Hi André, that is a very understandable and legitimate question. Under the hamburger sign at the bottom of the page you will find information about the storage of the fonts:

‘When you upload a font file with a .woff, .woff2, .otf, or .ttf suffix to this webpage, it is temporarily stored in your browser’s memory. The font is then loaded using a style element or the ‘FontFace’ api, which is a feature that allows custom fonts to be loaded dynamically into the page.
[…]
The font file itself is not stored permanently on the website’s server, but rather it exists only for the duration of the session (i.e., as long as the page is open). If the page is reloaded or closed, the font will need to be uploaded again.
[…]’

The latter could be clearer, I reckon, because it basically suggests that DTL’s server is involved in the process. However, it is not: the font file is stored in the browser’s memory (RAM) while it is active. This memory storage is temporary and is deleted as soon as the page is reloaded or closed. In other words: the font file never leaves the browser.

I will adjust the text on the site accordingly.

Yves Michel

@André Simard
Bonne question! Je n'y avais pas pensé!

André Simard

LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland said:

Hi Frank, great thanks about your detailed answer. It's quite clear and helpful to understand the process behind online tester which is probably the same for other one similar to yours.

John Hudson

A few years ago, I think this would have been a useful tool, but today it seems oddly limited in terms of only providing access to some registered variable axes and only a few OTL features (and those one at a time). I am guessing the scope might reflect what DTL is doing with these axes and features in fonts, Frank?

LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland

Hi John, thanks for your comments. The tool is originally intended for our customers to simply check (most of) the functionality of our fonts. They are generally less tech-savvy than the TD residents. The tool is actually a spin-off of a new font tester for our websites (which uses font obfuscation, which I called ‘FontEnigma’ –more later if anyone is interested). We use the dropper for some web testing and OTMaster for more intensive font checking, of course.

That said, extending the (dynamic) support for more axes and features in the dropper should be feasible, I reckon. Also, simultaneous application of the features should be possible (we already have that in the FontEnigma tester). So hopefully it is just a matter of time, but in any case, extending the tool will undoubtedly be fun.

Simon Cozens

FWIW, here's a similar thing that I use: https://simoncozens.github.io/sploot/

John Hudson

Simon, Sploot looks a bit like a web version of FontGoggles. Shared code?

mitradranirban

What I found problematic in newer WASM tools is that you must drop your font which is very difficult to do in Android phones and I need to use desktop. Older tools like wakamaifondue has a load option which could be used to test font after downloading it in Android. 

LeMo aka PatternMan aka Frank E Blokland

There is certainly still room for improvement and expansion, but the OpenType Layout features can now also be applied simultaneously to the dropped fonts. In any case, it is fun to work on this.

TimAhrens

John: The Sploot source code can be found here: https://github.com/simoncozens/sploot

Now that we have several tools that have similar functionality, it would be interesting to have an overview of the pros and cons of each. Wakamaifondue, Sploot, FontGoggles, FontDropper: What are the things one can do but the other one can’t?

For me, like others have already mentioned, the font being uploaded to a server would make me hesitate to use it unless it offers something that the other ones don’t.

Paul van der Laan

Don’t forget Viktor Nuebel’s excellent https://fontdrop.info/ which displays extensive information from the font itself, can handle variable font axes and OT features, and offers a variety of different viewing options.

Simon Cozens

mitradranirban said:

What I found problematic in newer WASM tools is that you must drop your font which is very difficult to do in Android phones and I need to use desktop. Older tools like wakamaifondue has a load option which could be used to test font after downloading it in Android. 

This isn't a limitation in the software, just a limitation of the web design. For example, Fontbakery Web (and its prospective successor Fontspector) is also a WASM tool, but it uses a different "dropzone" library which allows you to click the drop zone area to upload a font. The only reason Sploot doesn't is because I didn't think about it.

John Hudson said:

Simon, Sploot looks a bit like a web version of FontGoggles. Shared code?

No, a complete rewrite. FontGoggles was always needlessly OSX-centric, so I wanted something just like FG but cross-platform.