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Show HN: Fancy fonts you can use almost anywhere

beautifuldingbats.com

71–80 of 172 posts

Re: Show HN: Fancy fonts you can use almost anywhere

#71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it will be a good way to attract downvotes moreso than attention.

I'm getting AOL chatroom flashbacks. When do we start using color faders again?

Perfect I can get banned from HN for spamming ascii dragons just like the AOL days.

Re: Show HN: Fancy fonts you can use almost anywhere

#72

This is (ab)using unicode, for example the F is actually a Mathematical Bold Fraktur Capital F: https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U+1D571 This is terrible for screen readers and the like which are unable to read or understand these unicode characters making accessibility a real concern.

I'd kind of expect screen readers to be able to apply Unicode compatibility decomposition http://unicode.org/reports/tr15/#Canon_Compat_Equivalence since there are many characters that are just visual variants. Ligatures like ffl or the like are at least somewhat common e.g. in PDFs. On the other hand, maybe that breaks other stuff and only whitelisted characters are converted.

Maybe a HN reader using a screen reader can describe how theirs handles these characters.

Re: Show HN: Fancy fonts you can use almost anywhere

#74

Ỹ̹̼̰͚̺̥ẻ̥̏p͔̭͙̐ͪ̇͊,̤̪̯̙̣ ̰̣̼̻̺͈a̜͚̟ll ̮̼̙̗o͇f̜ t̳̬͍̤͖h̝o͉͚̩̗s̠͙̗̝̬͕ͅḙ͇̬̱͔̟ ͖̘̖͉ͅa͇̥̖͎̜͇r͓̳e͔̙͙ ̞̦͈u̪̤̳̟̞̰s̼̣̩̗i̭̯n͔̟̞͕̹g̩͇͍̗͖̻ ͕̪̮̩v͙̳͍̞͓ͅa̹̫̰ͅlịd̯͚̘̯ ̤̙A̜̪S̗͎͖̥̠̳C͇̮I͓̭̟̲I̦̟̲/̶̞̞̱͈̰̣͙̥̹̪̯͚̝͈̹̹ ̛͈̱̻͍̬̟͙̰̠̟̖̕Ú̡͉͙̻̗͙̭͉̖̖n̨̡̗̩͈̭̻͕̭͇͇̲͙̖̫̯̜͚͈ͅi͏̷̀͏̪͎̜̜̠͇̩͙̗̯͍̮̜͖̮͓͓̫c̺͉̦͓͙̤̼̰̀͠ͅo͏̯̜̥̣̯͕̻̮͘͡d̖͉͈̬͍̩͚̬̯̰̳̀́͞ͅe̡̗̻̫͕̙̘̲̫̦͉̬̖̭̺͡͝ ͖̺̳̟͓͇c̠̟͎̼̲̳h͖̣͕̯a̜͔͉̼̮r̗a̰̘̭͚̠̮̝c̱̰̦͕̰ͅͅt͉er̟͉̫͍̥̦s͈͖̤̞. ... 日本の作品も (🅙🅐🅟🅐🅝🅔🅢🅔 also w…

We called those corrupted-looking fonts "Zalgo"

Name coming from this post IIRC: https://stackoverflow.com/a/1732454/1091116

Re: Show HN: Fancy fonts you can use almost anywhere

#75

This is (ab)using unicode, for example the F is actually a Mathematical Bold Fraktur Capital F: https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U+1D571 This is terrible for screen readers and the like which are unable to read or understand these unicode characters making accessibility a real concern.

I wonder actually. Google seems to understand these, you can search with them. I wouldn't be surprised if screen readers understand these symbols. They're originally for Mathematics, and I'm sure there's plenty of blind mathematicians.

I wouldn't be surprised if screen readers understand these symbols.

I develop web sites with screen readers in mind, and I would be very surprised if they could handle this sort of thing consistently.

Google spent billions of dollars learning how to search and interpret the web. Screen reading companies don't have that kind of scratch.

Also, it's important to remember that screen readers are about more than just the blind. There are screen readers that help people learn a new language, or translate text into simplified forms for people with low education, or low attention (think of the Mac's built-in text summarizing service).

For people who have a hard time reading custom fonts because of limited sight, or limited attention, they often override custom CSS fonts with something easier to read. This sort of thing will make the page unusable.

Re: Show HN: Fancy fonts you can use almost anywhere

#76
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder actually. Google seems to understand these, you can search with them. I wouldn't be surprised if screen readers understand these symbols. They're originally for Mathematics, and I'm sure there's plenty of blind mathematicians.

blind mathematicians don't write english to communicate in these unicode blocks... These blocks don't exist to be used for writing words in the english language.

Yes, I just mean to say, if you were creating a screen reader, it wouldn't be that hard to take this sort of thing into account. So, maybe they do. Either way, I'll add a little warning to the site.

Re: Show HN: Fancy fonts you can use almost anywhere

#77

This is (ab)using unicode, for example the F is actually a Mathematical Bold Fraktur Capital F: https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U+1D571 This is terrible for screen readers and the like which are unable to read or understand these unicode characters making accessibility a real concern.

I don't see why screen readers can't just be extended to handle characters that look like F.

What do you think the general development budget for a screen reader is compared to the development budget for Google Search services?

Re: Show HN: Fancy fonts you can use almost anywhere

#78
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder actually. Google seems to understand these, you can search with them. I wouldn't be surprised if screen readers understand these symbols. They're originally for Mathematics, and I'm sure there's plenty of blind mathematicians.

Wow, that's actually pretty neat: https://www.google.com/search?q=site%3Anews.ycombinator.com%... Anyone know if there are any existing libraries that do this conversion?

The ICU [1] transliterator does this. Here is an example showing how to use it:

    icu::ErrorCode status;
    auto t = icu::Transliterator::createInstance("Any-Latin; NFKD", UTRANS_FORWARD, status);
    t->transliterate("unicode string");
[1] http://site.icu-project.org/

Re: Show HN: Fancy fonts you can use almost anywhere

#79
I am partial to using Unicode Emoji to add graphics/icons to applications that don't support those. Surprisingly, almost no software removes emoji symbol range (HN does, wisely). But this seems more annoying than clever. I mean, it's still text, except barely readable and bound to break some common-sense UI interactions.

Re: Show HN: Fancy fonts you can use almost anywhere

#80
not sure if it's been mentioned already but https://tell.wtf offers a similar service to this along with a rather intelligent unicode pallete and the ability to draw characters to try and match characters you're looking for. also, since z̼͖̺̠̰͇̙̓͛ͮͩͦ̎ͦ̑ͅa̘̫͈̭͌͛͌̇̇̍l͕͖͉̭̰ͬ̍ͤ͆̊ͨg͎͚̥͎͔͕ͥ̿o͎̜̓̇ͫ̉͊ͨ͊ was mentioned, https://eeemo.net ftw
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