Integration: Font loading mechanism

[Sidnioulz]

Rationale

To display typography token previews with arbitrary fonts not installed on system or in public CDNs, a font loading mechanism is necessary.

Challenges

This means the project will produce more output than just a HTML file, and links to extra resources will need to be passed on to the final documentation tool displaying the HTML.

Documentation tools must then do something with those extra referenced assets to properly bundle them. This may also mean we need to expose a way for these tools to rewrite paths to font files in the HTML we provide.

---

Identified requirements so far

• There must be a font loading mechanism (TBC)
• It must be optional and opt-in
• Users must have an option to disable typography previews
• The doc should explain to our users that they must check their font licenses
• The disabling could be only for some tokens (those w/ licensing restrictions)
• There could be a fallback message displayed to explain why it is disabled

[drwpow]

Aside from the technical issue, it’s also a licensing issue—whether or not they have the license to distribute and display typefaces on the web (i.e. they may have paid for a desktop license, not a web license for docs). By just putting it on the user to upload their typeface(s), you’re also making the licensing responsibility their deal rather than yours. A “fancier” solution could just breed trouble with foundries who set their own terms (and who still own the rights to the commercial typefaces).

[Sidnioulz]

Very good point! I feel that aside from setting a stern warning, little can be done about it.

An alternative would be to generate snapshots of text, if licensing rights include producing media but not displaying on the Web. But I do note that

• it must be possible to disable font-family previews for licensing reasons
• the doc for the project should at some point make this issue clear to the end user so they don't make mistakes