From: Ernest Cline (ernestcline@mindspring.com)
Date: Wed Apr 28 2004 - 17:34:59 EDT
> [Original Message]
> From: Peter Kirk <peterkirk@qaya.org>
>
> On 28/04/2004 12:00, Ernest Cline wrote:
>
> >
> >There will always be scripts that Unicode will not support, either
because
> >they are constructed scripts with no real use, rare or ancient scripts
that
> >lack sufficient examples to determine how the script should be encoded,
> >or are picture fonts. This last we can discount, because the existing
> >private use area supports them adequately. ...
> >
>
> Don't count on it. The PUA as Ken envisages it doesn't provide adequate
> support for anything at all.
Oh? How does the existing PUA fail to support a picture font adequately?
- Pictures don't have casing.
- While a Bidi Class of ON would suit them better, L is adequate.
- They don't have any need for any of the minor properties of PropList.txt.
- The Line Break class does not usually matter for these characters either,
because of their usual positions and because XX is usually treated as
if it were AL, which they would have if they were given a more precise
value.
Given the typical uses of picture fonts, the lack of the optimum Bidi Class
for the characters a picture font contains is not significant enough to
worry
about it in itself, especially with bidirectional override characters
available
in the rare cases where multiple symbols from a picture font are used in
sequence in the middle of a stretch of RTL text. ZWSP and WJ can handle
the few cases where the default line breaking behavior of Line Break
class XX is inadequate. The existing PUA is adequate for picture fonts
precisely because they don't need very much. A case can be made for
improving the Private Use repertoire, but picture fonts have at best a
non-speaking role in the chorus line in that production.
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