[lltx] rand feature in fontspec / microtype

[Khaled Hosny]

On Fri, Dec 31, 2010 at 12:05:40PM +0100, Arno Trautmann wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> I just found out about the rand feature (e.g. in the Punk Nova font) and
> wondered if there was a fontspec key for it. Would be nice to have
> something like \fontspec[Random]{fontname} instead of using
> \fontspec{fontnamed:rand}. Is this planned/possible?

There is no fontspec key for it right now, but should not be hard to
add. In the meantime you should use RawFeatures={+rand}, appending
features to font name is highly discouraged.

> Something quite different: What are the reasons that there is no support
> für microtype in fontspec so far? As far as I can see, microtypographic
> features are possible by setting \pdfprotrudechars and \pdfadjustspacing
> and loading fonts with :protrusion=default and :expansion=default. But I
> guess there must be something more or else it would already be present
> in fontspec, wouldn't it? Or is it difficult to use non-default values
> and therefore no support?

Mostly because I couldn't figure out a good user interface for it, I
hear microtype now works with luatex/fontspec, but I did not try it
myself. An undocumented feature of luaotfload is the support for 'obpd'
feature, so if the font have set protrusion values for glyphs it can be
used, I've not seen any fonts using it but I intend to use it for my
Arabic fonts (it is the only way to set protrusion of unencoded glyphs
in a portable way).

Regards,
 Khaled

-- 
 Khaled Hosny
 Arabic localiser and member of Arabeyes.org team
 Free font developer