Contributor Developer Setup

0. Prerequisites
1. Required
2. Highly Recommended
3. Base Nerd Fonts Development
4. Hack font specific
5. OSX
6. Linux 0. FreeType 0. Harfbuzz 0. ttfautohint
7. Sanity Tests
8. Troubleshooting
9. Resources

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• The basics of what you need to get up and running :)

Prerequisites

Required

• Git
• FontForge
• FontForge python bindings
• Python 2 and/or Python 3

Highly Recommended

• ShellCheck
• Pyflakes (PEP8 compliance)
• Pandoc

Base Nerd Fonts Development

• What you need to contribute to the core of Nerd Fonts

OSX

todo

Linux

• Download and install Python if not already installed: http://docs.python-guide.org/en/latest/starting/install/linux/
  • check python --version
  • latest 2.x or 3.x should be fine
• Download and install FontForge: http://fontforge.github.io/en-US/downloads/gnulinux-dl/
  • version should be at least 20141231
  • verify version: fontforge --version 2>&1 | grep libfontforge | awk '{print $NF}'
• Download and install FontForge module (FontForge Python bindings)
  • e.g. on Linux Debian or Ubuntu: sudo apt-get install python-fontforge

Windows 7

Prerequisites

• Download and install FontForge: http://fontforge.github.io/en-US/downloads/windows-dl/

Setup for Python 2

Open a terminal with Administrator priviledges

cd into FontForge installation directory

For example:

cd "C:\Program Files (x86)\FontForgeBuilds"

Run fontforge console batch file

fontforge-console.bat

install configparser

ffpython -m pip install configparser

Test out Nerd Fonts font-patcher script

ffpython C:\Path\to\nerd-fonts\font-patcher

Output should yield similar to:

...
font-patcher: error: too few arguments

Windows 10

Prerequisites

• Download and install Python (latest 2.x or 3.x should be fine): https://www.python.org/downloads/windows/
• Download and install FontForge: http://fontforge.github.io/en-US/downloads/windows-dl/
• Download and install Cygwin: https://cygwin.com/install.html or setup WSL ?

Setup for Python 2

TODO

Hack font specific Development

• What you need to contribute to the Hack specific portion of Nerd Fonts

OSX

todo

Windows

• Download and install ttfautohint: https://www.freetype.org/ttfautohint/

Linux

• FreeType
• Harfbuzz
• ttfautohint
• fonttools

Build from source with Script from Hack Repo

• Pros: A lot easier and faster
• Cons: Not as much fine grained control

pip install fonttools
curl https://raw.githubusercontent.com/source-foundry/Hack/master/tools/scripts/install/ttfautohint-build.sh --output ~/ttfautohint-build.sh
chmod 770 ~/ttfautohint-build.sh
cd ~
sudo ./ttfautohint-build.sh
# Add the bin to your path

Build each dependency individually ad hoc

• Pros: More control and better understanding of what is getting installed and setup
• Cons: more tedious

fonttools

pip install fonttools

Build FreeType from source

wget http://downloads.sourceforge.net/project/freetype/freetype2/2.7/freetype-2.7.tar.gz
tar -zxf freetype-2.7.tar.gz
cd freetype-2.7
./configure
make
sudo make install

Build Harfbuzz from source

wget http://www.freedesktop.org/software/harfbuzz/release/harfbuzz-1.3.4.tar.bz2
tar -xjf harfbuzz-1.3.4.tar.bz2
cd harfbuzz-1.3.4
./configure
make
sudo make install

g++ (if needed)

• if you ran into an issue where a compiler is needed you will probably have to start over with the config but first run: make distclean

sudo apt install g++

Build ttfautohint from source

wget http://download.savannah.gnu.org/releases/freetype/ttfautohint-1.6.tar.gz
tar -zxf ttfautohint-1.6.tar.gz
cd ttfautohint-1.6
./configure --with-qt=no --with-doc=no
make
sudo make install

C++11 compiler

• if you get an error during make for ttfautohint: configure: error: *** A compiler with support for C++11 language features is required.

Then install compiler such as g++ (shown above) then re-run configure & make, etc

Verify the version

ttfautohint --version
ttfautohint 1.6

Sanity Tests

Adhoc test autohint

# cd into Nerd Fonts root directory
ttfautohint -l 4 -r 80 -G 350 -x 0 -H 181 -D latn -f latn -w G -W -t -X "" -I -m "bin/scripts/Hack/Hack-Regular-TA.txt" src/unpatched-fonts/Hack/Regular/Hack-Regular.ttf temp/Hack-Nerd-Font-autohinted.ttf

We can run post build processing fixes on Hack

# cd into Nerd Fonts root directory
./font-patcher temp/Hack-Nerd-Font-autohinted.ttf
# spot check font, open in FontForge, etc.

Troubleshooting

ttfautohint: unrecognized option '-H'

cause: Too old of a version of ttfautohint, works but doesn't have -H option

checking for HARFBUZZ... no
configure: error: Package requirements (harfbuzz >= 0.9.19) were not met:

No package 'harfbuzz' found

Consider adjusting the PKG_CONFIG_PATH environment variable if you
installed software in a non-standard prefix.

Alternatively, you may set the environment variables HARFBUZZ_CFLAGS
and HARFBUZZ_LIBS to avoid the need to call pkg-config.
See the pkg-config man page for more details.

cause: harfbuzz not installed or not installed correctly

tashaper.h:29:19: fatal error: hb-ft.h: No such file or directory
 #include <hb-ft.h>
                   ^
compilation terminated.

cause: harfbuzz not installed or not installed correctly

ttfautohint: undefined symbol: hb_ft_font_create

cause: harfbuzz not installed or not installed correctly

Resources

• http://www.freetype.org/ttfautohint/doc/ttfautohint.html
• https://www.freetype.org/ttfautohint/doc/ttfautohint.html#compilation-and-installation