Simplified "Stoic" Sagittal for 13-limit tonality diamond use

[Dave Keenan]

My next job is to update the JSON metadata files (for both SMuFL and Bravura) to what we'd want them to be for a future SMuFL/Bravura release that included the Stoics.

I proposed here, that the SMuFL names for the Stoics could be the same as the SMuFL name for the corresponding Spartan or Athenian with an "S" (for Stoic) added to the end.

But now I'm thinking the whole word "Stoic" should be inserted. The longest such name is:

accSagittal5V11SmallDiesisDown

I think it should become:
accSagittalStoic5V11SmallDiesisDown
That's still much shorter than the longest name in SMuFL:
accidentalFilledReversedFlatAndFlatArrowDown (44 characters)

[Dave Keenan]

When I started adding the Stoics to the .json metadata file containing the glyph widths, I noticed two problems with the existing Sagittals in Bravura, that Douglas has now reported to Steinberg here:
https://github.com/steinbergmedia/bravura/issues/52
https://github.com/steinbergmedia/bravura/issues/53

The attached update to BravuraS makes no changes to the Stoics, but includes fixes for the above problems with the other Sagittals, as does the attached bravuraS_metadata.json.

[Dave Keenan]

Here are the SMuFL metadata files as we would want them to be updated to include the Stoics.

And here I noticed some more problems with the treatment of the existing Sagittals, in the file classes.json (described in a comment at the start of the modified version below). I have not yet fixed these problems, hence the "incomplete" in the filename. But, as with the others, I have added the Stoics to it.

It would be good if you would check the names, code points and descriptions of the Stoics in glyphnamesS.json. The names are in alphabetical order. Just search on "Stoic" within the file.

The .json files are plain text files. It may be simplest to change the filename extension from ".json" to ".txt" to open them.

[ndentonprotsack]

Thank you for these updates! I am going to have a look and reply to you tomorrow morning! Thanks, Dave!

[ndentonprotsack]

Hey Dave,

I have checked out the Bravura-S font, and it works entirely as anticipated; the symbols all look exactly as we intended them to, and no glitchy things when imported into Dorico...
The only thing is that it doesn't have the same "categories" that one can search through, which the standard Bravura Font has when using it on Dorico.
Normally, there would be tabs called "Spartan Sagittal" or "Helmholtz-Ellis" etc... but in this version the metadata is perhaps lost and you have to scroll through the "basic private use" tab instead. Though, I am guessing you were probably aware of this---and in fact I am assuming that the .json files you sent achieve exactly that. I am going to have a look at those as you suggested, soon; possibly tomorrow. I am totally not familiar with how they work, so you may have to bear with me a bit as I learn.

The main thing I wanted to say however, is that although we have finalized the symbols, the more I look at the "triple dent" symbol, the more it stylistically bothers me... it is way thicker at the end than all the other dent symbols, as well as all other similar elements of existing sagittal symbols, and it really sticks out as result. I think the very end of it should taper a bit more, and then I will be totally happy with it.
Actually, I tested a version where it was tapered a bit more, and was glad to see that doing so didn't reduce the visibility significantly on the staff. It is still entirely readable.
I have attached a new version of Bravura-S (v3) where I tried this out. I had to duplicate my efforts for each symbol, but I came up with a very simple way to achieve it, and I checked them all against a reference of the basic triple dent glyph to make sure my edits matched exactly across all symbols.
Here are the results (feel free to take them or leave them... I realize I am being a bit gnit-picky here):

BravuraS_v3.sfd

(3.6 MiB) Downloaded 83 times

[Dave Keenan]

I'm very happy with what you've done to the triple-scrolls in BravuraS_v3.sfd.

I believe that to let Dorico know that Bravura-S is a SMuFL font you need to go to the folder:
On Windows:
C:\Program Files\Common Files\SMuFL\Fonts\
On Mac:
/Library/Application Support/SMuFL/Fonts/

And in that folder you should find a folder called "Bravura". You should copy and paste that folder and rename the copy "Bravura S".

And in the renamed folder you need to delete bravura_metadata.json and replace it with bravuraS_metadata.json. You will probably need to add a space between the "bravura" and the "S" to exactly match the font name.

I'm thinking it might save a lot of confusion if we change the font name (using FontForge->Element->Font Info) to use a hyphen instead of a space. i.e. to use "Bravura-S" everywhere.

I don't know where Dorico puts the generic SMuFL metadata files (non-font-specific). I'm guessing they will be in C:\Program Files\Common Files\SMuFL\ or /Library/Application Support/SMuFL/. If you can find them, then you could rename them, e.g. by putting "old_" at the start of their filenames, and copy the modified ones above to the same folder, and rename them by removing the "S" and the "_incomplete". Then Dorico might show you the new Sagittal Stoic range. You'll probably have to quit and relaunch Dorico.

If this all works, we can create proper installers for Mac and Windows, that will do all this automatically.

[ndentonprotsack]

Hello Dave,

Apologies again for this massive break in communication. As I mentioned before, I became swamped with an album release and a couple (relatively high-profile) commissions that ate up my time. I am very happy to be working on Stoic Sagittal again, however, and I feel we are so very close to wrapping things up...
I have done what you asked and placed the .json metadata file into a new Bravura-S folder I created in the SMuFL directory in my program files. I renamed both the .json file and the .otf file (with all metadata renamed as well) to simply "Bravura-S". Both files, along with a fontforge file are attached.

They worked beautifully in Dorico a SMuFL font with ONE exception. The Stoic symbols do not have their own tab in the Dorico SMuFL interface, and instead they appear under the "Magrethean Sagittal Extension (Insane Precision)" tab when you look for them in Dorico. I have no clue why this is, and despite my best efforts I can't figure it out. I feel I am outta my depth here, so perhaps you might be able to fix this.

Other than that, I think we are good to go and finally show these symbols to the Facebook groups and SMuFL people! I complete agree with the naming conventions you are using for the symbols. They are completely succinct and make sense in the broader Sagittal "library".

All the best, Happy Holidays and thank you for your patience on this,
Nick

[Dave Keenan]

Hi Nick,

Good to hear from you, and congratulations on your album and commissions. Thanks for testing the metadata. Did you also find where Dorico stores the general SMuFL metadata that is not specific to any particular font? These are glyphnames.json, ranges.json and classes.json. If so, what is the file-path to that folder? And did you rename the existing versions of those files so as not to lose them, e.g. by adding "old_" to the start of their filenames? And did you then copy into that folder the modified versions I gave 5 posts back, and remove the "S" and the "_incomplete" from the end of their filenames, and restart Dorico?

I found a problem with rangesS.json that would explain why, even after doing the above, you still saw the Stoics listed in the Magrathean range rather than in their own range.

For the range called "magratheanSagittalExtensionInsanePrecisionAccidentalDiacritics", I needed to change the line:

• "range_end": "U+E41F",

to:

• "range_end": "U+E40B",

I have done this in the attached ranges-S.json.

It's possible you may also need to delete my comment (and the following blank line) from the beginning of classesS_incomplete.json (as well as renaming it to classes.json) before Dorico will recognise it.

[ndentonprotsack]

Awesome, thank you for this, Dave!

After some searching, I was able to find where "ranges.json", "glyphnames.json", and "classes.json" are located. Also, "bravura_metadata.json" and "petaluma_metadata.json" are located in the same place.

You can find them in:
Program Files>Steinberg>Dorico(version #)>fonts>metadata
I'm guessing for Mac this would be:
Library>Steinberg>Dorico(version #)>fonts>metadata

I will try editing everything as you have suggested. Admittedly, I forgot about your message (now 6) messages ago. I'll get back to you after I have tried these things out. Perhaps between Christmas and New Year.

Best,
Nick