FONTCOMPARE Synopsis: A tool which tries to assess the aesthetic quality of Indic fonts by making comparisons with standard set of features desired in a font, and assigning scores in various categories. This way, the font developers know where they are headed, and it would assist in making Indic fonts better in the longer run. Current State: Currently the application supports very basic tests, and that too for Devanagari script only. The basic tests makes use of comparison with a standard looking Devanagri font, so that even a novice font developer would know that he/she is headed the right way. However this method of assessment greatly reduces the scope of providing tests for artistic fonts. To overcome this drawback what is needed is that we have a set of very good fonts with artistic appearance with no restrictive licensing issues. Still the application can be used for developing any kind of font, as long as we have a sample font to give the app the set of standards to be compared against. How to use: 1. For basic testing For testing a font on very basic grounds, all that is needed is you load the test font by pressing the "Load TestFont" button. Then we begin the tests by pressing the "Begin Test" button. 2. For advanced testing If you wish to compare with a font similar to which you wish to develop a font, then currently you have to create a mockfont out of the actual font to keep only those characteristics which affect the aesthetic quality of fonts, then reinstall the app and use it. (A real cumbersome process.) To achieve so you can use the mockify.py script. Support would be added to enable the mockifying process to be done smoothly using the UI. What do the scores mean: All scores are on a scales of 10. Category->Similarity to Standard font or Parameters a) Normal This indicates the visual similarity to the actual font without any effects applied. This is basically the average of the scores for all glyphs. b) Bold Same as Normal, except for the fact that the Bold effect is applied before evaluation of scores. c) Italic Same as Normal, except for the fact that the Italic effect is applied before evaluation of scores. d) Basic Properties This is a collection of many properties, one of which is whether the glyph is worth outputting, which inturn depends upon whether the glyph is not entirely empty. Category->Glyph Consistency Indicates the uniformity of structure among the various set of glyphs. Category->Readability and print proof Indicates the similarity to actual rendered text on print and screen in varying sizes and resolutions. MOCKIFYING THE FONTS: The basis of the application is mockfonts. The application has a script called mockify.py which enables you to make your own mockfonts and use it as a standard. This works on the principle of one font at a time, since the mockfont object occupies a bit more memory (currently). So once you make a mockfont out of a font that is the only standard remains, and basically you need to run the mockify.py script, and then reinstall the app for you to be able to use it. Steps to mockiy: 1. line 42 mock_font["font"] = MockFont("../unittests/lohit.ttf",100,(0x900,0x97f)) replace lohit.ttf with your font after placing it in the unittests folder. 2. Run the command "python mockify.py" 3. Reinstall the App. Will make this thing more automated.