I have recently wrote a guest blog post regarding using Fontra open source font editor in Linux [1]. There I have wished Fontra be made available in repository of all major Linux distributions including Fedora. Any guidance from Fedora fonts community on how it can be packed for Fedora is highly appreciated
Dr Anirban Mitra 1. https://blog.fontra.xyz/blog/linux-support/
On Wed, Aug 27, 2025, at 10:19 PM, Anirban Mitra via fonts wrote:
I have recently wrote a guest blog post regarding using Fontra open source font editor in Linux [1]. There I have wished Fontra be made available in repository of all major Linux distributions including Fedora. Any guidance from Fedora fonts community on how it can be packed for Fedora is highly appreciated
Some of the dependencies are problematic. The Python package skia-pathops still needs to be made available in Fedora, this can be done but is quite a bit of work. Javascript dependencies are more problematic to package. Maybe upstream could consider separating out web components? The desktop application uses Qt, and QtQuick would be much better than Javascript, but the project vision seems to be web first. Maybe someone else is willing to package it. If they are willing to drop javascript, I would be happy to package and contribute to development.
Have you tried BirdFont: https://github.com/johanmattssonm/birdfont This is much easier to package and maintain. Can check if upstream would consider adding variable font support. Happy to package this and contribute to development.
Inkscape also has some support for creating fonts. Happy to improve what is there, and perhaps also improve FontForge integration.
TruFont also could be packaged: https://github.com/trufont/trufont but would need updating to Qt6 and adding color font support. This would also be something I would be willing to help with.
Bezy would also be easier to package: https://github.com/eliheuer/bezy However, you would probably need to ask Rust sig or someone interested in packaging Rust to make this available.
Dr Anirban Mitra
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On Thu, 28 Aug, 2025, 10:15 am Benson Muite via fonts, < fonts@lists.fedoraproject.org> wrote:
Some of the dependencies are problematic. The Python package skia-pathops still needs to be made available in Fedora, this can be done but is quite a bit of work. Javascript dependencies are more problematic to package. Maybe upstream could consider separating out web components? The desktop application uses Qt, and QtQuick would be much better than Javascript, but the project vision seems to be web first. Maybe someone else is willing to package it. If they are willing to drop javascript, I would be happy to package and contribute to development.
One of the main impetus for Fontra development is collaborative type
design through data saved in an NGINX server. That way javascript frontend is essential for it . The app can be compiled from source in Fedora and even work without the pyinstaller packaging step. So we need to find out a mechanism to do so
Have you tried BirdFont: https://github.com/johanmattssonm/birdfont This is much easier to package and maintain. Can check if upstream would consider adding variable font support. Happy to package this and contribute to development.
Inkscape also has some support for creating fonts. Happy to improve what is there, and perhaps also improve FontForge integration.
I have created some videos on how to create color font with FontForge and
Inkscape [1][2]
TruFont also could be packaged: https://github.com/trufont/trufont but would need updating to Qt6 and adding color font support. This would also be something I would be willing to help with.
Bezy would also be easier to package: https://github.com/eliheuer/bezy However, you would probably need to ask Rust sig or someone interested in packaging Rust to make this available.
None of the editors follows Fontra's variable First approach, which is very useful in creating variable Fonts
Anirban Mitra 1. https://youtu.be/qD7NemKJGkk 2. https://youtu.be/DgUbWZ3Xihg
On Thu, Aug 28, 2025, at 12:31 PM, Anirban Mitra wrote:
On Thu, 28 Aug, 2025, 10:15 am Benson Muite via fonts, < fonts@lists.fedoraproject.org> wrote:
Some of the dependencies are problematic. The Python package skia-pathops still needs to be made available in Fedora, this can be done but is quite a bit of work. Javascript dependencies are more problematic to package. Maybe upstream could consider separating out web components? The desktop application uses Qt, and QtQuick would be much better than Javascript, but the project vision seems to be web first. Maybe someone else is willing to package it. If they are willing to drop javascript, I would be happy to package and contribute to development.
One of the main impetus for Fontra development is collaborative type
design through data saved in an NGINX server.
It is possible to do collaborative development. As an example AbiWord does this using the XMPP protocol so one can collaboratively edit a document. The project vision seems to be web application first, but maybe refactoring is possible to enable creation of efficient desktop applications.
That way javascript frontend is essential for it . The app can be compiled from source in Fedora and even work without the pyinstaller packaging step. So we need to find out a mechanism to do so
The problem is not the compilation. The javascript ecosystem requires bundling each of its dependencies as every developer typically uses a different version of a javascript library. Most Fedora packagers stay away from NPM packages, though you may find one that is willing, or you may decide to embark on that adventure. Issue to separate out the javascript parts of Fontra: https://github.com/fontra/fontra/issues/2268
Have you tried BirdFont: https://github.com/johanmattssonm/birdfont This is much easier to package and maintain. Can check if upstream would consider adding variable font support. Happy to package this and contribute to development.
Inkscape also has some support for creating fonts. Happy to improve what is there, and perhaps also improve FontForge integration.
I have created some videos on how to create color font with FontForge and
Inkscape [1][2]
Review request for python-opentypesvg https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=2391432
python-nanoemoji will take a bit longer as it requires python-picosvg, python-resvg and python-pngquant, I would strongly prefer not to package python-resvg, there is a possibility of removing that dependency: https://github.com/googlefonts/nanoemoji/issues/473
Maybe you could also write a blog post for Fedora Magazine describing the main steps? https://docs.fedoraproject.org/en-US/fedora-magazine/writing-a-pitch/
TruFont also could be packaged: https://github.com/trufont/trufont but would need updating to Qt6 and adding color font support. This would also be something I would be willing to help with.
Integrating python-opentypesvg and python-nanoemoji into TruFont maybe possible as TruFont also integrates well with Python.
Bezy would also be easier to package: https://github.com/eliheuer/bezy However, you would probably need to ask Rust sig or someone interested in packaging Rust to make this available.
None of the editors follows Fontra's variable First approach, which is very useful in creating variable Fonts
Maybe you could also explain the useful features.
Anirban Mitra
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Anirban Mitra -
Benson Muite