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Symbolset - symbol font using clever opentype ligature hack

symbolset.com

11–20 of 63 posts

Re: Symbolset - symbol font using clever opentype ligature hack

#11
post #9

Perhaps it should also include a non-ligature way of displaying icons. In current accessibility practices, when you place a description after its image you are supposed to include an empty alt attribute. So say you have social icons... ◈ Facebook ◈ Twitter You are supposed to write Facebook Twitter As to cue screen readers to not read out loud filename or the alt attribute. In this case Symbolset works as the alt pro…

    .icon {
        speak: none;
    }

Re: Symbolset - symbol font using clever opentype ligature hack

#12
post #9

Perhaps it should also include a non-ligature way of displaying icons. In current accessibility practices, when you place a description after its image you are supposed to include an empty alt attribute. So say you have social icons... ◈ Facebook ◈ Twitter You are supposed to write Facebook Twitter As to cue screen readers to not read out loud filename or the alt attribute. In this case Symbolset works as the alt pro…

.icon { speak: none; }

Ah, nice, didn't know about speak: none;

Re: Symbolset - symbol font using clever opentype ligature hack

#14
post #9

Perhaps it should also include a non-ligature way of displaying icons. In current accessibility practices, when you place a description after its image you are supposed to include an empty alt attribute. So say you have social icons... ◈ Facebook ◈ Twitter You are supposed to write Facebook Twitter As to cue screen readers to not read out loud filename or the alt attribute. In this case Symbolset works as the alt pro…

.icon { speak: none; }

Last I checked, aural stylesheets aren't broadly supported.

You'd be much better off using ARIA (which has pretty broad support from browser vendors and assistive technology vendors):

  Facebook Facebook
  Twitter Twitter
This keeps assistive technologies from rendering the text (not just screen readers, but Braille displays, etc).

http://www.w3.org/TR/wai-aria/

Re: Symbolset - symbol font using clever opentype ligature hack

#15
Having trouble figuring out the license (http://symbolset.com/license/), specifically: "You may not under any circumstances embed the licensed fonts into software or hardware products in which the fonts will be used by the purchasers of such products."

By that are they only restricting adding the font as a selectable font for writing (i.e. WYSIWYG editors) or can you not use the font in your own software in any case?

Re: Symbolset - symbol font using clever opentype ligature hack

#16

Very clever. Looks like a nice symbol set too. Side note: I found the fast moving image carousels to be extremely distracting while trying to read the copy.

Agreed. I assume this is font ligature magic, like when you type "Zapfino" in Zapfino?

Zapfino is actually much more complex than what this is doing. Zapfino has glyph variants - that is, it can display the same set of glyphs multiple ways. Ligatures just combine specific successive glyphs into a new glyph.

Re: Symbolset - symbol font using clever opentype ligature hack

#17
post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. I assume this is font ligature magic, like when you type "Zapfino" in Zapfino?

Zapfino is actually much more complex than what this is doing. Zapfino has glyph variants - that is, it can display the same set of glyphs multiple ways. Ligatures just combine specific successive glyphs into a new glyph.

Yes, but the word "Zapfino" in Zapfino is one long ligature. That's what the GP was talking about.

Re: Symbolset - symbol font using clever opentype ligature hack

#20
post #9

Perhaps it should also include a non-ligature way of displaying icons. In current accessibility practices, when you place a description after its image you are supposed to include an empty alt attribute. So say you have social icons... ◈ Facebook ◈ Twitter You are supposed to write Facebook Twitter As to cue screen readers to not read out loud filename or the alt attribute. In this case Symbolset works as the alt pro…

You can also just use Unicode values. See the icons on the blog page.

So something like "ģ" or "\0123" will also work.

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