Supply a TTF file in the distribution package

[mrclayman]

Hi all,

I have just recently discovered this font, but have fallen in love with it instantly. I have already put it in my shell (where it looks particularly good) and the IDE on my private laptop running Arch Linux. I want to also install it on my work laptop but the issue there is that it runs Windows 10 and I can only install fonts to my profile and that means that the font will not work (in Jetbrains Rider, for instance) unless it's a TrueType font.

Thus, I wanted to ask you if you could also distribute that version in the distribution package.

Thanks in advance for your consideration.

[rektdeckard]

Hi @mrclayman. Are you saying that Windows 10 requires administrator permission to install OTF fonts, but not TTF fonts? Can you provide some detail on the source of the issue?

We could ship both formats without issue, I suppose, but I'd like to understand the problem too. Most fonts I have seen choose one of those two formats (aside from web formats and such), not both, because they are quite similar and largely overlap in features.

[mrclayman]

Hi @rektdeckard , and thanks for your response. Your questions touch on two separate problems. The problem with Windows is purely about privileges -- unless you possess administrative privileges, you can only install fonts into your local profile's font directory, which makes sense. I can install font of any format in my local profile.

The reason why I have brought this up is the other problem. I think this one might be related to how Java-based applications work with fonts installed in the user's profile (I was able to set the font for use in apps such as Visual Studio Code without issues). Specifically, the behavior I have observed is that if the font is stored in the OTF format, something goes wrong and apps such as JetBrains Rider (a C# IDE) does not show the font as installed and available. On the other hand, if the font is installed in the TTF format, things start working and I can see the font in the font selection dialog.

I cannot really say for sure what the issue is from the technical perspective. I can only comment on the behavior I have seen. The Rider IDE is now free for non-commercial use so if you have a Windows 10 box at your disposal and wish to try to replicate this on your end, you can go here, download the archive, and dig into this.

[rektdeckard]

Did you get it to work by converting the font to TTF yourself then installing under your user account? I'll try later on my Windows machine, but there are plenty of reports of the issue with user-installed fonts regardless of the format -- and it seems to be solved by using a JDK >= 13. Is updating the JDK an option for you? Also, one WebStorm user seems to have got around it by manually placing it into the IDE's copy of the JDK.

I bring these options up because while it would be simple for us to add this format to the distribution artifacts, it has some drawbacks. First, we are already using both the Alternate Glyphs and Stylistic Sets features of OTF that are not supported by TTF, to my knowledge. Second, what format should be chosen when a user installs via Homebrew or Nix Pkgs?

Refs:

• https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/JBR-1166/Idea-dont-recognize-the-newly-added-fonts-in-the-operating-system-when-I-set-the-fonts-settings-pagemy-operating-system-version
• https://youtrack.jetbrains.com/issue/IDEA-347334/Iosevka-font-cant-be-found-in-Settings-Editor-Font
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/57216846/font-is-installed-but-doesnt-show-in-the-menu-of-jetbrains-intellij-idea

[mrclayman]

I have not tried with this particular font yet, but I have worked around this issue this way with many other fonts in the past so I know this approach works.

As for the question of updating the JDK manually, I cannot really install anything of my own on the laptop, but we might have some (hopefully newer) version of JDK available via our internal software center. I might try this approach just to see if it works, although it might cause issues for me later down the road with a future update of Rider, so just manually converting the font to TTF is the safest bet for me, I suppose. Rider does not support OT features anyway (apart from ligatures, which I don't care about all that much) so I wouldn't mind losing the stylistic sets and alternates.

At any rate, if shipping two different formats would create certain process issues for you, feel free to disregard this request. I was just being curious. I can convert the file via FontForge. It's just that having the TTF file in the archive would have been more convenient in terms of future updates.

Thanks again for your consideration, though. 👍

[minoraxis]

Hi @mrclayman, we'll investigate/discuss further and get back. I'd like to offer TTF if enough cases require it and I'd hate for you to have to go through so many hoops to use the font. We're just balancing the complexity of the system.