Variable font support

[controversial]

Issue or Feature

How can I specify variable fonts using Canvas.registerFont? Pango appears to support variable fonts as of version 1.3 but I can’t find any reference to variable font support in registerFont, which seems to require a specific weight.

Does node-canvas support variable fonts (on a wght axis or otherwise)? If so, how should variable fonts be registered? If not, what would ned to be done to enable support?

Your Environment

• Version of node-canvas (output of npm list canvas or yarn list canvas): canvas@2.9.3
• macOS 12.4

[chearon]

It doesn't, and there are no plans to implement it, but I'd review a PR. I wrote most of the font stuff but variable fonts is not something I've learned about yet.

[klavsbuss]

Would be nice to support variable fonts or at least have solution where i can use all font variations (axes) thats in ttf file or use different 'instances'

[controversial]

Note that there’s no official Canvas API for interacting with variable font axes either: (whatwg/html#3571)

I believe browsers’ canvas/font engines automatically adjust the axes that correspond to other properties (e.g. ctx.fontWeight for wght), but node-canvas would have to create and expose some non-standard API to allow manipulating any axes outside of those (like the iktr/blln/curv axes in your example font)