[Language] Vietnamese

[stratself]

Please 🥺

Reference

Current status:

Note: As of now, capital letters with stacked diacritics collides with preceding lines in single space. Might need to minimize size when stacked altogether

[Donnnno]

Doesn't seem like a too difficult thing to add. I'll take a look at it!

[Donnnno]

I know this took like ages for what it is, but all the glyphs are done-ish (need testing, because I'm not a Vietnamese expert).
Also gotta fix kerning issues.

[Donnnno]

I've added the basic glyphs to the latest release: 0.592!
Looking forward to feedback, as stated earlier, I'm not an expert :)

https://github.com/Arcticons-Team/Arcticons-Font/releases/tag/0.592

[stratself]

Hi. Thanks for your efforts!

I'm not a font expert :'). But I tried comparing the latest release with Be Vietnam Pro - a reference FOSS font for the language.

I believe with the exception of ẩ (see below), all glyphs work fine and are readable. So far I've noticed the following things:

1. Stacked diacritics now doesn't disappear when line spacing = 1.

1.0 Line spacing

1.15 line spacing

Sample text used

A Á À Ả Ã Ạ a á à ả ã ạ
 Ấ Ầ Ẩ Ẫ Ậ â ấ ầ ẩ ẫ ậ
Ă Ă Ằ Ẳ Ẵ Ặ ă ắ ằ ẳ ẵ ặ
E É È Ẻ Ẽ Ẹ e é è ẻ ẽ ẹ
Ê Ế Ề Ể Ễ Ệ ê ế ề ể ễ ệ
I Í Ì Ỉ Ĩ Ị i í ì ỉ ĩ ị
O Ó Ò Ỏ Õ Ọ o ó ò ỏ õ ọ
Ô Ố Ồ Ổ Ỗ Ộ ô ố ồ ổ ỗ ộ
Ơ Ớ Ờ Ở Ỡ Ợ ơ ớ ờ ở ỡ ợ
U Ú Ù Ủ Ũ Ụ u ú ù ủ ũ ụ
Ư Ứ Ừ Ử Ữ Ự ư ứ ừ ử ữ ự
Y Ý Ỳ Ỷ Ỹ Ỵ y ý ỳ ỷ ỹ ỵ

(The stacked diacritics collision still happens during typing, but it's a LibreOffice Writer rendering issue, not the font's)

While they are legible, I believe more vertical spacing could be made use here, for Vietnamese and future languages. Let me know if Arcticons Sans consider such major change in a future release.

2. Kerning issues

From the Matrix chat I'm aware kerning is still being worked on. But the major thing is that there should be roughly the same level of negative kerning for all Vietnamese vowels (a, ă, â, e, ê, i, o, ô, ơ, u, ư, y) succeeding an uppercase letter, despite there being a diacritic mark or not. The following image shows some inconsistencies with the capital T:

Ta, Tả, Tã. To Tỏ. Tõ Tỗ…………... Hưu trí.

I suggest, for Vietnamese and future languages, Arcticon's tilde diacritic (U+0303) should be of a smaller size than the normal tilde (U+007E), as this would help with kerning and all. This would probably mean making a new glyph.

Also from above, the ưu combination from Hưu trí also has some spacing issues that should be easy to fix.

3. Other major issues

• The lowercase ẩ (acircumflexhookabove - U+1EA9) doesn't work as it resets to the normal A when I type it. Please fix.
• The lowercase ỵ (ydotbelow) looks odd especially next to a full stop. I think it gets a hard pass and I'm not sure how to fix it either.

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Once again thanks for your work. Let me know of any future testing needed. To all the Vietnamese that sees this, please chime in with your thoughts too!

[Donnnno]

Wow thanks for the feedback!! Lots of things to improve on. 😀 Great how detailed it is, that makes it easier for me to test

[Donnnno]

I've fixed the most obvious points already in the latest release! (Still work to do ofc. but making steps)

[stratself]

Hi, just tried the latest release again. ẩ is now fixed. Some other notes:

Stacked diacritics inconsistencies with other fonts

The new fixes for Ấ Ầ Ế Ề Ố Ồ ấ ầ ế ề ố ồ ỵ arranges the acute and breve glyphs in a different manner from other "reference" fonts. Below is a comparison with Be Vietnam Pro (second line) and Roboto (third line).

It seems that Roboto emphasizes legibility, hence arranging them counter-angular to one another. Whereas BVP resembles how most Vietnamese are taught to write ấ and ầ (iirc we write the letter â first, then put the tonal diacritics later which is why they're always on the RHS). These are I think the two most common ways to stack them in Vietnamese-supported fonts.

In both reference cases, ấ, ố, and ế is stacked on the right hand side. I believe this change should also be adopted to Arcticons.

Breve size

In my humble opinion, the breve (ă) should be of the same size (or at least height) as the circumflex (â), as they give stacked diacritics a good consistency. Below I drew a line between the breve'd a and other circumflexed letters showing the differences:

I guess this mean redoing the glyph for the breve.

Small stuff

Also for consistency, ử's hookabove and ữ tilde should be on the same height as the rest of the vowel characters too. I hope this is sound design.

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Looking at these fonts I am amazed at how much details that goes into designing them that I initially glossed over. Once again thank you so much for doing this and my apologies for putting on more work 😅!