On a Sandy Beach: Noto

Pipi needs to be available in many different languages.

I use an automated build process to create a separate User Interface (UI) in each language, using separate code and databases.

One problem is the translation of the strings used in the UI.

Another problem to solve is what fonts to use.

As it turns out, Google has a project called Noto ("No Tofo") to provide a font that could be used for the many writing systems described by Unicode and 6,500 + languages.

"Noto is a collection of high-quality fonts with multiple weights and widths in sans, serif, mono, and other styles, in more than 1,000 languages and over 150 writing systems." - Noto Dashboard.

Noto is open-source and freely available from GitHub. One repository per font, e.g., Tibetan, Mongolian, and Latin.

SIL International is involved. I'm embedding their excellent keyman project on the Ajabbi websites to give people a web keyboard in their own language. Several thousand different language keyboards are now available.

This website is presented in Noto Sans font, which I'm making the default font for all Ajabbi websites and the UI.

For example, a Balinese version of Ajabbi would use the NotoSansBalinese font. However, a logged-in administrator or user can change that font to another Balinese font.

There are regular releases. Here are 11 releases from May 2024.