I've created this project to share some work I've done on hieroglyphic fonts for Unicode and provide information and examples to help evolve the next generation of fonts.
The first generation of Egyptian Hieroglyphic fonts in Unicode mostly consist of the 1071 Basic Egyptian Hieroglyphs introduced in Unicode 5.2.
See my List of Unicode Egyptian Hieroglyphic Fonts for those I know about, so far.
In this project, as a starting point, I'm providing my Aaron Alpha series of downloadable "experimental" hieroglyphic fonts. (available from the Experimental folder).
The Aaron UMdC Alpha font is pretty much a first generation font but with some additional features to support the UMdC project and other work on implementing and using the new formatting characters. It also avoids some of the hieroglyph size and position problems often encountered in other first generation fonts.
I'd like to hear from anyone else developing Unicode hieroglyphic fonts (if we aren't aready in touch).
Next generation fonts need to implement the new Unicode formatting control characters to enable quadrat shaping and thus allow users to use a writing system not simply individual or sequences of hieroglyphs. New fonts may also want to enable options such as vertical (column) writing, right to left direction of writing and polychromatic hieroglyphs. Egyptologists will want additional hieroglyphs and variants for some applications. There is considerable work that needs to be done to make this happen. Much of whats involved will be very unfamiliar to most digital font designers. A further complication is that web browsers and other applications will need updating to support the new formatting controls.
For news and information on Ancient Egyptian in Unicode see my blog https://hieroglyphseverywhere.blogspot.co.uk/.
Bob Richmond
Update 2017-10-16