RE: Why people still want to encode precomposed letters

From: vunzndi@vfemail.net
Date: Sun Nov 23 2008 - 08:39:07 CST

  • Next message: Vladas.Tumasonis@mif.vu.lt: "RE: Why people still want to encode precomposed letters"

    Quoting "Don Osborn" <dzo@bisharat.net>:

    > A couple of quick questions. First, about how long would the list of
    > cominations be?
    >

    Very long, though a worth while list, over a thousand, so let's say
    thousands of combinations.

    >
    > Second, if the number is significant, might it make sense to approach this
    > as a "Web 2.0" task, using perhaps a wiki? Under such an approach, very
    > short articles could be designed to give minimal documentation and
    > references, as well as relevant technical information. There would of course
    > be some details to resolve about who can contribute, how contributions are
    > vetted, etc., but the biggest issue would probably be the resources to
    > set-up and maintain such a resource.
    >

    IMHO it would be hard for such a set up to carry much weight. There is
    also the question of how one deals with combinations which in several
    languages and the required rendering is different.

    >
    > The bottom line is that (a) there appears to be a need for some such
    > resource and (b) no individual or expert group could be expected to come up
    > with all combinations that need support. The question is whether we're only
    > talking about a relative handful of cases, or whether the number of
    > combinations is significant enough to require a new resource to present
    > them. (I assume that there will always be the potential for new combinations
    > to arise, which would be another reason to have a resource that users could
    > contribute to directly.)
    >

    Large, though a new use of an existing resource might well work.

    >
    > Don
    >
    > --------------------------
    > Peter Consable wrote on Saturday, November 22, 2008 10:30 PM:
    >
    > How would you suggest anybody do the homework needed to discover that
    > arbitrary & not-well-documented language X uses combining character sequence
    > <Y, Z>? Can you predict who might take an interest in a particular combining
    > mark sequence two years from now?
    >
    > ...
    >
    > --------------------------
    > philip chastney wrote on Sunday, November 23, 2008 6:37 AM:
    >
    > ... if the spec were restricted to known combinations found in natural
    > languages with alphabetic orthographies, the list needn't be that long
    >
    > this list could encompass ligatures as well as characters with diacritical
    > markings, and include ligatures with diacritical markings -- maybe not
    > three tied characters, though, unless it was clear that they were few in
    > number -- and probably not vowel shaping
    >
    > such a list would be an asset to font designers
    >
    > and it would help re-assure users of minority languages that their needs are
    > known, and will (eventually) be met
    >
    > Unicode.org's website would be suitable repository
    >
    > ...
    >
    >
    >
    >
    >



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