From: jameskass@att.net
Date: Sat Nov 02 2002 - 11:06:53 EST
Thomas Lotze wrote,
> ... Why
> shouldn't he be allowed to use the Private Use Area just as he
> personally sees fit?
Many "Unicoders" regard the PUA as some kind of a "Phantom Zone"
into which all of the "bad glyphs" are banished forever, never
to again be mentioned in "polite society".
Others consider the the "Private" in PUA to be a misnomer, considering
it to be more "Public". In other words, its a Free Zone reserved by
the consortium for open use. Many users use the PUA for temporary
work-around solutions to display issues.
> How would you approach the ligature problem
> instead?
>
Ideally, ligation should be handled by the font and operating system
based upon 1) author's wishes, 2) user's wishes, 3) computer's wishes.
(Where 1 rules yet 2 can over-ride 1. And 3 can't over-ride either.)
In order to preserve important aspects of text processing, including
spelling validation and sorting/indexing, the Unicode Standard uses
some invisible, no-width formatting characters. The ZWJ (zero-width
joiner), for example, requests the OS and font to provide a connected
or joined glyph in substitution for the string in the display, if such
a glyph is available in the font. So, the string "c" plus "<ZWJ>"
plus "t" would be expected to render a "ct" ligature in display if
possible.
One popular, upcoming method of providing such substitutions involves
OpenType technology. Eagerly awaited advances in OpenType have been
occurring frequently of late, and perhaps more complete ligation support
for Latin typography will appear soon.
Best regards,
James Kass.
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