Handwriter.ttf
Creative
generative font
SHOW HN2024
191points
53comments
#419of 3,515 in 2024
Top 12%of 2024 by points
How HN took it
MixedNo clear lean
9 positive, 12 neutral or asking, 1 mixed, 4 critical, out of 26 comments about the project. Thread score +0.21.
Idea: 5 for, 1 againstDocs: 0 for, 1 againstDesign: 0 for, 1 againstExecution: 0 for, 1 against
The thread, comment by comment
Each row is a top-level comment and its replies, in HN's order. Select a cell to open that comment on HN.
positive neutral or mixed critical about another commenter or something else the maker
What HN said
What people liked
Cool and impressive hack
From 4 comments
Damn, this is impressive! We built a WebGL text renderer with full CJK support using Harfbuzz for our production whiteboard web app. I thought that was complicated until now.
calebj0seph on HNSo you trained a THAT small RNN to make this good handwriting? I'm actually even more impressed at that than at the crazy pipeline turning it into a font in realtime.
vintermann on HNthis is amazing! i'm guessing you can probably get it to antialias without much more work as the demo video shows, it's probably not something you want to have in between you and…
kragen on HNit's super cool!
kragen on HN
Fun and amusing concept
From 3 comments
This is so cursed, there is so much that begs the question - "why?"... I love it. I can't wait for the next beautiful nightmare. Maybe someone should mix font rendering with PDF…
dancemethis on HNNice demo, for sure a fun app.
piyushtechsavy on HNBest reason!
thenegation on HN
Objections
Requires experimental HarfBuzz WASM shaper not enabled in browsers
From 2 comments
You can run the demo locally following the Usage part. Currently the WASM shaper feature is not enabled in any browser, so the demo won't work in web pages.
hsfzxjy on HNYou can't test it in a browser, since no browser at present is linked against libharfbuzz with WASM shaper. Instead, one can test it with a modified local program such as gedit…
hsfzxjy on HN
Not zoomable; glyphs are pixel-like boxes
From 1 comment
I prefer fonts that can be zoomed.
amelius on HN
Does not preserve handedness
From 1 comment
It visually fails to preserve “handedness.”
andrewmcwatters on HN
Requests
Browser demo or GitHub Pages site
From 1 comment
I don't get it, why there's no link to a GitHub pages website to test the thing?
a1o on HN
Questions
Why use WASM instead of native libharfbuzz
From 1 comment
If you just want to run locally. Why not using the native libharfbuzz directly? What's the purpose of WASM here?
okcdz on HN
Is it based on the user's own handwriting
From 1 comment
I've read the README and watched the video, but I'm still not sure what this is doing? I know it can "synthesize [a] font at runtime", so does that mean it's creating a random…
tombh on HN
Alternatives named
llama.ttf
From 1 comment
Link to llama.ttf, another fun font that abuses HarfBuzz for anyone interested (it runs a language model inside a font): https://fuglede.github.io/llama.ttf/ The llama.ttf video…
a2128 on HN