From: John H. Jenkins (jenkins@apple.com)
Date: Thu Feb 07 2008 - 13:14:31 CST
On Feb 7, 2008, at 11:06 AM, Sinnathurai Srivas wrote:
> There is also this question, when is it feasible to introduce
> complex rendering and when it is feasible not to introduce complex
> rendering. Do we have a cut-over point, such as character counts or
> any such criteria?
>
Ultimately, almost all scripts in Unicode require complex rendering
for typographically correct layout. Even a brain-dead (display-wise)
language like English needs ligatures. Unicode was designed with
complex layout in mind.
Of course, some scripts can't be displayed at *all* in a reasonable
fashion without complex layout. Typically these are scripts where the
glyph shapes used for characters regularly change in a contextual
fashion or where ligation is required in almost every word, let alone
scripts where the linear display order of glyphs doesn't match the
pronunciation order of the sounds in the words.
Character count is irrelevant, since the Han script has by far the
largest repertoire but is one of the simplest scripts in terms of
layout (although, to be honest, reproducing some older Chinese texts
will require the use of ligatures). It's simply a matter of how the
*visual* form of the text fails to represent the *letters* of the text
in a non-varying way.
The waters have been muddied by improvised solutions imposed by older
character sets. Users of MacRoman, for example, got used to typing an
explicit fi and fl if they wanted them rather than letting the
rendering engine decide, and Arabic got a large number of
compatibility forms added to allow for minimally acceptable Arabic
display on systems which can't change glyphs contextually. This kind
of approach simplifies the problem of *drawing* the text, yes, but it
makes almost every other process (searching, sorting, and so on) much,
much more complex.
> When is this complex rendering non-working situation going to
> change. Particularly in Publishing. I think primarily, the scripts
> need support for publishing rather than applications or web
> applications though these are important too. When is the problem
> inherent to publishing using Unicode-complex rendering going to be
> resolved. Is it time to think of redesigning the encoding itself or
> do we wait for a few more years?
>
It depends on the software you're using and the platform you're on.
Word on Windows can handle most of Unicode without problems. Pages on
Mac OS X can do everything in Unicode. InDesign currently is aimed at
the rendering requirements for Western and East Asian languages, but
I'm sure that Adobe has plans to expand this.
> Finally, when will we be even consider the phenominan of bitmap
> characters in Unicode? (Hand held or giant machinery!)
>
I'm not sure what this question means, since "bitmap" refers to a
style of glyph (which Unicode doesn't deal with), and not a
character. Do you mean bitmap fonts that can be used to draw
Unicode? That problem has been considered and dealt with, at least
for TrueType/OpenType, since they support the use of bitmap glyphs in
the font file and have supported it for years.
=====
John H. Jenkins
jenkins@apple.com
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