How to patch Symbols Only Nerd Font

[lukejanicke]

I would like to patch my own Symbols Nerd Font (the font file with just the Nerd Font symbols).

Is src/glyphs/original-source.otf the “font” to patch to create Symbols Nerd Font?

#479 discussed this question but closed after resolving a missing symbol.

src/unpatched-fonts/NerdFontsSymbolsOnly looks relevant but I don’t understand those files.

[Finii]

The Symbols Only font starts - like all other patched fonts - with a source font where all the symbols are patched into.
That source font is empty, so that in the end we have only all the icons in one font.
To give a somehow nice result the empty font needs to have some properties (like glyph size etc) defined, although it is empty.
To make maintenance more easy the font format is not ttf or otf but it is sfd

Empty source font src/unpatched-fonts/NerdFontsSymbolsOnly/NerdFontsSymbolsNerdFontBlank.sfd

The directory src/glyphs/ contains all the individual icon sets. They are not scaled and possibly unsorted. The raw icons.

To patch the Symbols only font you need something like

$ fontforge font-patcher --complete --ext ttf --variable-glyph-width src/unpatched-fonts/NerdFontsSymbolsOnly/NerdFontsSymbolsNerdFontBlank.sfd

You need to specify the --ext because probably you want a ttf (or otf) font as result and not a sfd. The patcher keeps the source font's type for the patched font if nothing is specified.

The config.cfg file you find with some unpatched source fonts (like the Symbols Only font) specifies which options need to be given for patching of that font; the automated release process uses this for example. So that is a good place to look for special options needed for that specific font.

[Finii]

Although I hate this AI slop, I must admit that at least patch 1 is correct ;-)

The options have never been intended for the problems we have at hand now, and in general the swapped evaluation is more useful. I will change that shortly.

The second patch, I will also examine that and maybe apply.
I will list you as author with a link to this thread (and a reference to LLM).

Thanks for your determination :-)

[Finii]

The second patch also looks convincing, especially as I do the same already in the right-align version.
Have no clue why it is not done in the center-align code. Good catch LLM.

nerd-fonts/font-patcher

Lines 1692 to 1707 in 1514941

	# First find the baseline x-alignment (left alignment amount)
	x_align_distance = self.font_dim['xmin'] - sym_dim['xmin']
	if self.args.nonmono and 'pa' in stretch:
	cell_width = sym_dim['advance'] or sym_dim['width']
	else:
	cell_width = self.font_dim['width']
	if sym_attr['align'] == 'c':
	# Center align
	x_align_distance += (cell_width / 2) - (sym_dim['width'] / 2)
	elif sym_attr['align'] == 'r':
	# Right align
	# (not really supported with pa scaling and 2x stretch in NFP)
	x_align_distance += cell_width * self.get_target_width(stretch) - sym_dim['width']
	if not overlap:
	# If symbol glyph is wider than target font cell, just left-align
	x_align_distance = max(self.font_dim['xmin'] - sym_dim['xmin'], x_align_distance)

Scroll down code block

Line 1704 takes the target width into account, but line 1700 is missing the factor (as pointed out by you).

But I need to run some tests first to see if something has been overlooked 😬

[Finii]

# (not really supported with pa scaling and 2x stretch in NFP)

🤔 But NFP is not a goal here, I guess. But then, SymbolsOnly which looks like NF is in fact a NFP.
Ah but the aim is a NFM in this case 😌

NF = Nerd Font (monospaced but glyphs hang into next cell)
NFM = Nerd Font Mono (strictly monospaced)
NFP = Nerd Font Propo (icons take the space they need, not monospaced)

[Finii]

See

• Bugfix 2 cell wide SymbolsOnly #1992

[Finii]

Thank you for the contribution and also for the honesty regarding your LLM use. 👍

In recent PR 1980 I had the feeling I talked to an LLM (with the text formatting etc) but that has never been acknowledged. That felt somehow wrong. How you handled this I guess this feels ok.