We're proposing to implement support for OpenType Variation Fonts in Gecko.
From the Microsoft announcement[1] of Font Variations technology:
"...make use of a variety of font weights and styles to make your
message stand out clearly. The problem has been that all those weights
and styles—bold, semibold, regular, display, caption—are separate font
files, which increases application size and slows down web page load
times, especially on mobile phones. OpenType Font Variations provide all
the weights and styles of a full font family in a single, compact file
to improve applications size and web site responsiveness."
Other companies and designers have also been posting about the
technology, which is arousing a good deal of interest in the font and
web design communities.[2,3,4]
Bug: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1302685
Link to standard: https://drafts.csswg.org/css-fonts-4/, particularly
https://drafts.csswg.org/css-fonts-4/#low-level-font-variation-settings-control-the-font-variation-settings-property.
Platform coverage: All platforms, although implementation may proceed at
different speeds depending on native font back-ends involved.
Estimated or target release: Not yet determined.
Preference behind which this will be implemented:
layout.css.font-variations.enabled
DevTools bug: It's not yet clear to me whether specific DevTools work
will be needed, beyond the support we'll automatically get for a new CSS
property.
Do other browser engines implement this?
Blink: Google has discussed the intention to support variation fonts in
Chrome (see [2]); I'm not sure if a formal "Intent to implement" mail is
on file.
Edge: The Microsoft announcement[1] indicates a clear intention to
support this technology.
WebKit: Experimental support is in WebKit nightly builds on OS X (see
https://webkit.org/blog/7051/variable-fonts-on-the-web/).
Tests: Not yet written.
(Because of the already-existing support for font variations in the
macOS font system, this will probably be the first platform backend to
be implemented in Gecko. There's a try build linked from
https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1321031#c5 for anyone who
cares to play around with it already.)
JK
[1]
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/Typography/FontVariationsAnnouncement.aspx
[2]
https://opensource.googleblog.com/2016/09/introducing-opentype-font-variations.html
[3]
https://medium.com/@tiro/https-medium-com-tiro-introducing-opentype-variable-fonts-12ba6cd2369
[4]
http://blog.typekit.com/2016/09/14/variable-fonts-a-new-kind-of-font-for-flexible-design/
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