Conflict with COLRv1 transforms… merge the proposals? about variable-components-spec HOT 6 OPEN

Thanks for pointing to this @Lorp
Indeed these should be unified, we don't need two ways of representing the same thing.

Note: we came up here with a 'center of transformations' instead of a 'center of rotation' only.

I don't have strong feeling about how we should proceed but since they are very similar things, they should be described only once.

from variable-components-spec.

Ugh, the fact that COLRv1 adds it's own way of doing component transformations completely escaped me.

I currently have a hard time to understand why this is even part of the COLRv1 proposal, as "better component transformations" should be completely orthogonal to "better color capabilities".

from variable-components-spec.

Starting to understand a bit more: a color glyph can (should?) be seen as a composite, where each component has paint properties, as well as a transformation. But conceptually COLR (at least v0) is an alternative to glyf: "enable color, use the COLR table instead of glyf or CFF or CFF2.

I now better understand "sanctioning COLR table as glyf2 for component use" comment, but that implies COLR should become the default, even if no color is requested.

Our proposal works differently, as it adds information to the existing glyf component structure.

If COLRv1 would add local designspaces for components, it would be a functional superset of our proposed VarC table. (Ignoring possible differences in how transformations work for now.) With the added benefit that it would then also be compatible with CFF and CFF2, which VarC currently isn't.

from variable-components-spec.

I currently have a hard time to understand why this is even part of the COLRv1 proposal

Because emoji repeat composite colored parts basically :)

If COLRv1 would add local designspaces for components, it would be a functional superset of our proposed VarC table. (Ignoring possible differences in how transformations work for now.)

After a first skim through it looks to me like the transform capabilities of COLR would be sufficient. I don't yet adequately understand what "add local designspaces for components" concretely means.

from variable-components-spec.

I don't yet adequately understand what "add local designspaces for components" concretely means.

Very roughly, it means that a component can set the variation space location for the glyph it is referencing. So if the referenced glyph implements variations for some (possibly hidden) axes, the component can specify the axis values for those axes (or any axis really).

from variable-components-spec.

it means that a component can set the variation space location for the glyph it is referencing

@rsheeter This is actually the main point of our proposal: variablity is not accessible at font level only, but composite glyphs can become "users" of other variable glyphs; these other ('base') glyphs (glyphs the component is referencing to) have their own local designspace independant of font variation axes.

from variable-components-spec.