Pravin, maintainer of Lohit fonts started lohit2 project to update all lohit fonts according to Open Type specifications. Read more here and here
I am planning to improve Lohit Kannada(also Gubbi and Navilu) and identified following stages.
Stage one
- Clone lohit2, Gubbi and Navilu
- Rename all base glyphs according to the standard(uniXXXX format)
- Adjust left/right spacing for all base glyphs
- Testing
Stage two
- Create half forms of base glyphs which are required for creating ligatures.
- Delete the unused ligatures(Can be achieved using rules)
- Add GSUB rules for consonants.
- Mark to Base GPOS rules.
- Identify special consonant for which separate ligature is required.(ki, gi etc)
- Testing
Stage three
- Create ligatures which are identified in previous stage.(Most of the ligatures already exists in fonts)
- Add GSUB rules for those ligatures
- Testing
Stage four
Stage five
- Mark to Mark GPOS rules for double vattakshara.
- Create additional ligatures if required for any double vattakshara combination.
- Testing
Stage six
- Verify and add additional glyphs/symbols required.
- Adjust left and right spacing for additional glyphs.
- Testing
Stage seven
- Typography related improvements: Reduce the font thickness, space and kerning improvements.
- Update License, Authors, version and other information.
- Testing
Today I completed first stage, created two python scripts to change the glyph names and to adjust left and right space.
cd $WORK
git clone https://github.com/aravindavk/fontscripts.git
git clone https://github.com/aravindavk/lohit2.git
git clone https://github.com/aravindavk/Gubbi.git
git clone https://github.com/aravindavk/Navilu.git
cd fontscripts
# Lohit Kannada
python rename_base_glyphs.py ../lohit2/kannada/Lohit-Kannada.sfd
python adjust_spacing.py ../lohit2/kannada/Lohit-Kannada.sfd
# Gubbi
python rename_base_glyphs.py ../Gubbi/Gubbi.sfd
python adjust_spacing.py ../Gubbi/Gubbi.sfd
# Navilu
python rename_base_glyphs.py ../Navilu/Navilu.sfd
python adjust_spacing.py ../Navilu/Navilu.sfd
Now generate the fonts to test the changes. Harfbuzz can be used for testing.
hb-view ../lohit2/kannada/Lohit-Kannada.ttf "$(cat stage1_tests.txt )" --output-file preview_lohit.png
Let me know if anybody interested to join and contribute to improve Kannada fonts.
Comments !