Re: Questions on ZWNBS - for line initial holam plus alef

From: Peter Kirk (peter.r.kirk@ntlworld.com)
Date: Mon Aug 11 2003 - 06:19:07 EDT

  • Next message: Peter Kirk: "Re: Display of Isolated Nonspacing Marks (problems with UAX#29)"

    On 10/08/2003 15:27, Kenneth Whistler wrote:

    >Peter Kirk said:
    >
    >
    >
    >>Tell Microsoft! (See Noah Levitt's posting.)
    >>
    >>
    >
    >Indeed.
    >
    >
    >
    >>If this is indeed "The standard way to do what you want", then the
    >>standard needs to make it clear that the sequence of <space, combining
    >>mark> or <NBSP, combining mark> has the properties which I want, i.e. it
    >>has the width of the combining mark alone, and not the full width of a
    >>space,
    >>
    >>
    >
    >This is up to the implementation and the font, and is not something
    >that the Unicode Standard should mandate, IMO. This steps over the
    >bound of the plain text content.
    >
    >
    >
    > ...
    >
    >
    >Continuing to require that the Unicode Standard *must* specify
    >some inherent mechanism for indicating the display width of
    >combining character sequences clearly steps over the bounds
    >of what is required to represent plain text content.
    >
    >--Ken
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >
    Thank you, Ken. Well, you make it sound as if the problems are minimal,
    and that version I can just about accept. But if Philippe is correct
    about what he says about UAX#29 and UAX#14, there are some more serious
    problems. It is certainly highly inappropriate for non-spacing
    diacritics to be considered word boundaries. Philippe's quotations also
    show that Unicode does concern itself with details of character
    positioning and not just with plain text. Since Unicode does specify all
    kinds of properties to do with spacing, breaking, word and sentence
    boundaries, bidi behaviour etc etc, it is within the scope of Unicode
    and indeed the responsibility of Unicode to define appropriate values of
    all of these properties for spacing diacritics. I accept that some
    things I have mentioned may have gone beyond this responsibility, so I
    will withdraw those comments and continue to push only for appropriate
    values of the properties which Unicode does define. And, if Philippe is
    correct, many such properties are currently inappropriately defined, and
    so either the text needs to be changed to correct these mistakes or a
    new mechanism needs to be introduced. 

    -- 
Peter Kirk
peter@qaya.org (personal)
peterkirk@qaya.org (work)
http://www.qaya.org/

    This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Mon Aug 11 2003 - 07:00:53 EDT