linebender / linebender/skribo

Choice of font fallback API on macOS

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Dominant language
Rust
Stars
335
Forks
35
PR merge metrics
No merged PRs in 30d

Description

My writing on font fallback (see [font fallback blog post](https://raphlinus.github.io/rust/skribo/text/2019/04/04/font-fallback.html)) has generally suggested using [CTFontCopyDefaultCascadeListForLanguages](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/coretext/1509992-ctfontcopydefaultcascadelistforl). Responding on [Twitter](https://twitter.com/jjgod/status/1124697964058832898), Jiang Jiang suggests we use [CTFontCreateForString](https://developer.apple.com/documentation/coretext/1509506-ctfontcreateforstring) instead.

This is much more like the Windows approach, and saves the trouble of having to go through a long font list, but on the other hand involves calling into CoreText API's on a fine grained basis every time a layout is needed. Part of my idea of getting the cascade list is that it could be retained on a per-locale basis.

Probably measurement is needed to figure out which is better. If CTFontCreateForString is very fast, then maybe that is the best choice.

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Research direction

Compare CTFontCopyDefaultCascadeListForLanguages with CTFontCreateForString for macOS font fallback, including the per-locale cascade-list approach and fine-grained CoreText calls described in the issue. Measure their behavior during text layout and use the results to recommend which API approach Skribo should adopt.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
macos, rust
Domain
operating-systems, performance
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Needs clarification
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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