Show HN: Fancy fonts you can use almost anywhere • Hacker News Board

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

#101

Post by planteen » Mon, Dec 17, 2018, 8:59 PM UTC

yorwba wrote: post #72

X-Istence wrote: post #9

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 c…

That implies that PDFs work with glyph indices, not Unicode code points. How do PDFs work for shaped languages like Hindi? In a script like that, you may have glyphs without any corresponding Unicode code point. Or does the PDF perhaps store the original unshaped text?

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

#102

Post by whatshisface » Mon, Dec 17, 2018, 9:00 PM UTC

reaperducer wrote: post #97

whatshisface wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would be an example of a string like "𝕙𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕠" appearing in a context where the screen reader should not attempt to pronounce it? Note that in math usage, a lone ℝ should be pronounced exactly the same way as a lone R.

Someone using a screen reader to learn a new language.

There are no natural languages that use mathematical blackboard bold script, although you are right that screen readers probably shouldn't try to read Cyrillic according to what English letter the characters look the most like.

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

#103

Post by stestagg » Mon, Dec 17, 2018, 9:00 PM UTC

Seems like a good place to plug this: https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/glitchtext/id1412938752?ls=1...

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

#104

Post by quakeguy » Mon, Dec 17, 2018, 9:00 PM UTC

And chaos ensued...

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

#105

Post by kup0 » Mon, Dec 17, 2018, 9:00 PM UTC

I notice this is already being abused in submissions to HN. Sigh. A user being able to override a site's restrictions on their input seems like a horrendous idea, not to mention the accessibility implications.

Just looking at the comment section here I have concluded that this is a blight on the web. Sites (unfortunately) should go ahead and update to strip this BS out

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

#106

Post by gomox » Mon, Dec 17, 2018, 9:01 PM UTC

asadkn wrote: post #63

Doesn't seem to work on Android devices. All I see is missing unicode characters. Roboto doesn't seem to have have these glyphs. On Mac, most of the glyps in the title seem to be from STIX font.

Works for me, Chrome on OxygenOS (OnePlus).

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

#107

Post by searine » Mon, Dec 17, 2018, 9:01 PM UTC

deadmetheny wrote: post #98

d33 wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Zalgo comic edits started on SomethingAwful many many years ago, and had a resurgence on 4chan many years ago that lead to the Zalgo text corrupter.

>Zalgo comic edits started on SomethingAwful

Everything started on SomethingAwful many many years ago.

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

#108

Post by cyberferret » Mon, Dec 17, 2018, 9:02 PM UTC

momentmaker wrote: post #34

𝖋𝖆𝖓𝖈𝖞 𝚏𝚊𝚗𝚌𝚢 𝕗𝕒𝕟𝕔𝕪 𝒻𝒶𝓃𝒸𝓎 𝙛𝙖𝙣𝙘𝙮 ⓕⓐⓝⓒⓨ 🅵🅰🅽🅲🆈

Interesting - I thought using Unicode characters would break text search capability - but when I did the old Ctrl-F 'find' in Chrome and looked for the word 'fancy', it detected all of the above. Intriguing, because in another thread here, there is mention of a gothic 'a' not being treated as a standard letter 'a'...

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

#109

Post by WorldMaker » Mon, Dec 17, 2018, 9:02 PM UTC

whatshisface wrote: post #56

daeken wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because they have uses outside of the abuse. If you always expect that they're being used improperly, then you mess up the actual use cases.

What would be an example of a string like "𝕙𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕠" appearing in a context where the screen reader should not attempt to pronounce it? Note that in math usage, a lone ℝ should be pronounced exactly the same way as a lone R.

In math usage an ℝ might be "the Regular set" and involved in equations that use a variable R. It's not unusual, and in fact, sometimes important, when reciting math as speech to make it clear which is the "bold" or "set" or "group" R, versus which is the ordinary R.

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

#110

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Dec 17, 2018, 9:02 PM UTC

RickS wrote: post #43

shadowfaxRodeo wrote: post #24

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.

It's less "can they render them" and more "do they maintain their meaning in alternate renderings". For example, it's common in these to use non-latin characters that visually resemble latin characters. But if you were to try and substitute them literally, either as their actual phonetic sound, or a latin equivalent that is semantically similar but visually different, you risk breaking the meaning. It's a bit like wh…

[deleted]