Re: Composition of not included Chinese characters

From: John H. Jenkins (jenkins@apple.com)
Date: Mon Sep 24 2007 - 15:27:35 CDT

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    On Sep 24, 2007, at 12:55 PM, Gerrit Sangel wrote:

    > I want to write Biáng biáng (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biang) in
    > an
    > ordinary text. As far as I know, the character is not included in
    > Unicode, so
    > it seems that there is no possibility to just write it.
    >

    It is not currently in Unicode, but the UTC has submitted to the IRG
    for inclusion in a future version. FWIW, it's IDS is ⿺辶⿱穴⿰月
    ⿰⿲⿱幺長⿱言馬⿱幺長刂.

    > I read about the Ideographic Description Characters, but as far as
    > I’ve
    > understood it, they are only for graphically description of a
    > character, so
    > the reader has to compose it for himself in his mind or rather on a
    > sheet of
    > paper.
    >

    For most cases, you can easily do it in your mind because only two or
    three characters are being combined.

    > But I’d like to write these characters in a usual text so that the
    > user can
    > read it normally. Would this be possible or is there a plan to offer
    > this
    > feature (maybe something like Cangjie)?
    >

    It is not currently possible. The problems of producing an arbitrary
    glyph on-the-fly from an IDS and having it look halfway decent are
    very complex, and there's almost no utility in it. There is the CDL
    description scheme also under development which does better than IDS,
    but except for Wenlin, there are no products currently shipping taking
    advantage of it.

    And, in case anybody wondered, the CDL for this monstrosity is:

    <cdl>
            <comp char='' uni='ef92' points='40,0 128,34' />
            <comp char='月' uni='6708' points='37,41 52,117' />
            <comp char='幺' uni='5e7a' points='58,32 75,72' />
            <comp char='長' uni='9577' points='58,78 75,118' />
            <comp char='言' uni='8a00' points='76,32 93,72' />
            <comp char='馬' uni='99ac' points='76,78 93,118' />
            <comp char='幺' uni='5e7a' points='94,32 111,72' />
            <comp char='長' uni='9577' points='94,78 111,118' />
            <comp char='刂' uni='5202' points='116,30 128,118' />
            <comp char='辶' uni='8fb6' points='0,10 128,128' />
    </cdl>

    =====
    John H. Jenkins
    jenkins@apple.com

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