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Resource Pack Fonts should have support for both Kerning and Ligatures

Hi!
I've been working on Resource Packs for quite a while now and the most annoying thing I have encountered is that fonts don't let you create ligatures, apply kerning or adjust spacing after letters, and changing the writing system to RTL. This would be really useful for making languages like Arabic work properly in Minecraft, as letter spacing could ensure that the Arabic characters don't have that awkward 1px spacing between glyphs, and also would ensure that typing Arabic text in chat would not turn LTR when typing. Ligatures would also be ideal for Arabic, where for example the لا ligature only appears after sending the message in chat.

The most logical approach I came up with would be something like this:

Ligatures

The font files would now have support for a new ligature provider which would work exactly like the bitmap provider, with the only difference being that chars would be defined as a list of lists of strings, instead of just a regular list, so that each ligature is its own string.

An example json file that would add support for the fi and ffi ligature would look something like this:

{
    "providers":
    [
        {
            "type":"ligature",
          "file":"custom:font\/ligatures.png",
            "ascent":7,
            "height":8,
            "chars":[
                ["fi","ffi"]
            ]
        }
    ]
}

It seems like I have hit the character limit so I will explain other aspects of my idea further in the comments 💛

 

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  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    RTL and Spacing

    The ligature and bitmap providers now would also have 2 new json keys, right_to_left which would be a simple boolean field (false by default) and a space field which would take an integer input (1 by default) which would work similarly to the space provider but wouldn't erase the character in the process. Another key which is to be considered but not necessary would be a width key which would make it easier to create monospaced fonts (for languages like Japanese) using the bitmap provider instead of having to add translucent pixels at the end of glyphs as a workaround.

    Here's an example of a bitmap defining the Arabic "ت" character:

    {
        "providers":
        [
            {
                "type":"bitmap",
     "file":"custom:font\/arabic.png",
                "ascent":7,
                "height":8,
                "right_to_left":true,
    "space":0,
                "chars":[
                    "ت"
              ]
            }
    ]
    }

     

  • 1
    Registered User commented
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    Kerning

    Kerning would be defined by a new kerning provider which would contain a chars key and a spacing key. The chars key would only contain a list of strings, where said strings would only support double-symbol strings. The spacing key would contain a list of spacings that would all correspond directly to the list of chars.

    Here's an example of the kerning provider being used to move the T character left by 3 pixels for "LT" and the a character being moved left by 2 pixels for "Ta"

    {
        "providers":
        [
            {
                "type":"kerning",
                "chars":[
                    "LT",
                    "Ta"
                ],
                "spacing":[
                    -3,
                    -2
                ]
            }
        ]
    }