I'm developing font of Indonesian scripts such as Sundanese and Javanese. They need to be rendered correctly using open type features and Universal Shaping Engine (USE). Unfortunately, I did not see the USE has been implemented into the Fontforge. Some open-source projects have implemented this feature like Firefox, LibreOffice, and Chromium.

There is documentation of Special thought for special script for Fontforge but it does not cover the use of USE yet. If Fontorge can implement the USE, it will more useful for developing special scripts registered for the USE (45 more scripts).

You might be aware of this before, but this documentation can be helpful:

• Creating and supporting OpenType fonts for the Universal Shaping Engine - Microsoft Typography
• Why do I need a shaping engine? - HarfBuzz
• Making fonts for the Universal Shaping Engine - TYPO Labs

I'm using Fontforge version 20200314. The captured images are using the font from the Google Noto project GitHub repository.

Noto Sans Sundanese in Fontforge

(not expected)

Noto Sans Sundanese in LibreOffice

(expected)

Noto Sans Javanese in Font Forge

(not expected)

Noto Sans Javanese in Libre Office

(expected)

Please check this on Mozilla Firefox, the results should appear like the expected above.
ᮊ + ᮦ = ᮊᮦ
ꦗ + ꦺ = ꦗꦺ

They only simple position reordering samples of USE implementation. Hopefully, the next version of Fonforge will cover this feature.

Best wishes,
Ilham

When reporting a bug/issue:

• Screenshot
• The FontForge version and the operating system you're using
• The behavior you expect to see, and the actual behavior
• Steps to reproduce the behavior
• (optional) Possible solution/fix/workaround

When you open an issue for a change/improvement/feature request:

• A description of the problem you're trying to solve, including why you think this is a problem
• If the feature changes current behavior, reasons why your solution is better
• (optional) Possible solution/fix/workaround