Which OpenType layout engine does FC use?

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Hermes14
Posts: 22
Joined: Mon Jul 10, 2017 9:22 pm

Which OpenType layout engine does FC use?

Post by Hermes14 »

Greetings,

In Preview Tool (F8): Which OpenType layout engine does FC employ to interpret the GSUB/GPOS tables? Uniscribe? Harfbuzz? OTLS? OTComp? Does FC roll its own?

The question is important because some tools - like HarfBuzz - are quite buggy when it comes to processing individual lookups in long tables..

(Tangent: Do the Uniscribe and HB api's even allow one to turn off language-specific shaping and only process lookups?)

In any case, I'm unable to significantly test Preview Tool until RTL reading-order support is added to the view field. (See feature request in the other subforum.)

Thanks in advance! and

Respects
Hermes14
Bhikkhu Pesala
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Re: Which OpenType layout engine does FC use?

Post by Bhikkhu Pesala »

FontCreator has its own layout engine. One can also test features using Test as WOFF, or open the Font Test window, and test in your target applications using the temporary font installed by FontCreator.
My FontsReviews: MainTypeFont CreatorHelpFC15 + MT12.0 @ Win 10 64-bit build 19045.2486
Hermes14
Posts: 22
Joined: Mon Jul 10, 2017 9:22 pm

Re: Which OpenType layout engine does FC use?

Post by Hermes14 »

Thanks, Bhikku, for your reply.

Normally I test from Preview Tool in OTDesigner.

Having your own layout engine is best, it means you have more control over -- and bear more responsibility for -) -- fixing bugs in Preview... :D
Erwin Denissen
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Re: Which OpenType layout engine does FC use?

Post by Erwin Denissen »

We've just released an update for FontCreator 11 which contains numerous bug fixes and improvements to processing and previewing OpenType layout features.

Thank you for helping us making it better!
Erwin Denissen
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