From: Peter Kirk (peterkirk@qaya.org)
Date: Fri Mar 26 2004 - 19:27:32 EST
On 26/03/2004 14:03, Ernest Cline wrote:
>...
>
>It would be nice tho, if there was something like a Private Variation
>Selector.
>
>...
>
>
>
I can also see some advantages in this. The current PUA system allows
private interchange of characters which are completely distinct from
existing characters. But there are many characters which people might
like to interchange privately which are in fact variant forms of
characters already encoded, and which share the identity and all or most
of the character properties of already encoded characters, differing
perhaps only in their glyph or in some minor property. If these are
distinguished from the existing characters only by Private Variation
Selectors (PVS), which would be default ignorable characters, they can
retain all of the existing character's properties except for those which
a private implementation chooses to override.
If a text encoded in this way is processed or displayed by a regular
implementation with no understanding of the PVS, it should be processed
meaningfully except that the property changes will be ignored; and it
should be displayed meaningfully although with the regular glyph for the
character. This is a consequence of the PVS being default ignorable.
I would expect that a rendering engine would be able to ignore the PVS
when standard fonts are being used; but to render the <character, PVS>
sequence with the alternate glyph if the font specifies the glyph as a
kind of ligature for this character sequence.
I would also expect that the existence of such a feature would be a
useful way of deflecting a significant number of less well thought out
new character proposals (including some which are being suggested for
Hebrew).
-- Peter Kirk peter@qaya.org (personal) peterkirk@qaya.org (work) http://www.qaya.org/
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