New font weight

[petrjahoda]

Hello to all.
For quite a while I was still thinking about redesigning those font weight. The reason for this was simple: sometimes fonts have just one weight (say Regular) and sometimes more weights (say Regular, Bold and Black), and until now, the selection was only from those already existing.

But it baffled me and for upcoming version 3.7 I have changed it like this:
1. font weight is shown always, even for font with only 'Regular'
2. the slider show different font weights (just like those you will find anywhere like 'Regular, 'Semibold', etc.)
3. weights that are existing (or like weights you have imported as a custom font) are shown in blue with a blue name
4. weights that are not existing are shown in grey with a grey name and are calculated

So you can drag the slider from 'Thin' to 'Black' through existing weights and calculated weights, see screenshot, see the change in text and also know, which weights are 'proper' and which are calculated.

In the screenshot I have imported only Regular and Bold, those are shown blue, the rest is calculated.

Is this enough for this weight change of a font?

[JSWolf]

Get a Kobo Reader and see how the font weight is done. That's how it should be done.

When using a font weight slider, the program has to calculate the weight. So when you add or subtract weight, the app has to add or remove the weight from all of the fonts in the font family. That's how it's done.

There's none of this use the bold font. That doesn't work properly.

[petrjahoda]

Hello JSWolf and thank you for the response.
What if I have imported a font with all the weights... why the program HAS TO calculate them all if they are already there and proper from the developer of the font?
The program calculates the weights that are missing. Meaning: if you will add a font with only 'Regular' weight, the rest weights is calculated.

There's none of this use the bold font. That doesn't work properly.

I do not understand these two sentences. What do you please mean by them?

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by petrjahoda

Hello JSWolf and thank you for the response.
What if I have imported a font with all the weights... why the program HAS TO calculate them all if they are already there and proper from the developer of the font?
The program calculates the weights that are missing. Meaning: if you will add a font with only 'Regular' weight, the rest weights is calculated.


I do not understand these two sentences. What do you please mean by them?

If the slider is set so the regular font is the same weight as the bold font and you use the bold font, you then won't see when bond is used as it will be bold on bold.

So every time the weight is adjusted, you have to adjust the weight for each font used. You have to program the font weight adjustment. So lets say a 10% increase in weight is selected. You have to increase the weight by 10% for the regular, bold, bolditalic, and italic as they are used.

[petrjahoda]

Hi, I am even lost at the beginning of your response, because if the slider is set to regular, it cannot be set to bold at the same time.

Let's look at it from user's perspective: you can drag from left to right.
Left is less weight (less bolder), right is more weight (more bolder).
A user does not need to know what is in behind.
From his/hers perspective, he drags the slider left or right and has less or more bolder text.

So lets say a 10% increase in weight is selected. You have to increase the weight by 10% for the regular, bold, bolditalic, and italic as they are used.

Yes, that is exactly what it is doing.

[petrjahoda]

Hi JSWolf, so I downloaded that Kobo app, and also Kindle app and also Apple Books app. All iOS, as justRead is iOS app.

Kobo app: not possible to change font weight at all
Kindle app: not possible to change font weight at all
Apple Books: only change between (not bold|bold)

So maybe it is not perfect implementation, but in contrast with those three big apps, it is possible to change font weight and it works as one would expect (less or more bold text).

And the boldness changes in the book, so user has immediate visual feedback, what the slider is doing and how is the text changing.

[pdurrant]

I think that JSWolf means that adjusting the weight of the font used to display the text should not be done by changing which variant of a font is used as the 'regular' text font, but by programatically adjusting the weight of all the variants.

So if, say, Times New Roman is selected as the font for text display, -Regular should be used for ordinary text, and -Bold for bold text, etc.

But if the font weight control is used to indicate that text should be 'bolder', all weights of Times New Roman should programatically be made bolder.

Plain text should still be Times New Roman-Regular, but made programatically bolder
Bold text should still be Times New Roman-Bold, but made programatically bolder

It's a different way of looking at how that control should be implemented.

The idea is, I think, that the font family should just control the font family used. Which variant of a font family should be used should be just the usual -Regular, -Bold, -Italic, etc.

The weight control should control how much artificial weight is added to each variant.

At least, this is my understanding of JSWolf's opinion. I hope he'll correct me if I'm wrong.

Now, whether this is the way you should do it, I don't have an opinion at the moment. I'm not very fussy about this, and I have't really explored anything except switching font family.

[petrjahoda]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

Plain text should still be Times New Roman-Regular, but made programatically bolder
Bold text should still be Times New Roman-Bold, but made programatically bolder

This is exactly, how it works right now, the slider changes the weight of font and if there is a bold text (<b> or <strong>), this text is make one notch bolder than where is your slider position for a <p> text.

[petrjahoda]

Maybe a visual explanation will be better.
Two screenshots:
- first screenshot shows normal, where 'story' is <strong> and 'credit' is <b>.
- second screenshot has boldness cranked up and so both of those 'story' and 'credit' are also bolder.

EDIT: added same screens with Arial font, where it is better to see.

[pdurrant]

Then I think that this is just a mis-communication. I suspect that JSWolf will be happy with the way it works once he actually tries it out.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

I think that JSWolf means that adjusting the weight of the font used to display the text should not be done by changing which variant of a font is used as the 'regular' text font, but by programatically adjusting the weight of all the variants.

So if, say, Times New Roman is selected as the font for text display, -Regular should be used for ordinary text, and -Bold for bold text, etc.

But if the font weight control is used to indicate that text should be 'bolder', all weights of Times New Roman should programatically be made bolder.

Plain text should still be Times New Roman-Regular, but made programatically bolder
Bold text should still be Times New Roman-Bold, but made programatically bolder

It's a different way of looking at how that control should be implemented.

The idea is, I think, that the font family should just control the font family used. Which variant of a font family should be used should be just the usual -Regular, -Bold, -Italic, etc.

The weight control should control how much artificial weight is added to each variant.

At least, this is my understanding of JSWolf's opinion. I hope he'll correct me if I'm wrong.

Now, whether this is the way you should do it, I don't have an opinion at the moment. I'm not very fussy about this, and I have't really explored anything except switching font family.

Yes, that's how it should be done. Just like it's done with your Kindle Oasis or my Kobo Libra 2.

[petrjahoda]

So looks like I did it exactly like you both wrote down :-)