Re: Why isn't there a RIGHTWARDS BLACK ARROW?

2013-10-26 18:36, Sindre Sorhus wrote:

> There are:
> ⬅ LEFTWARDS BLACK ARROW (U+2B05)
> ⬆ UPWARDS BLACK ARROW (U+2B06)
> ⬇ DOWNWARDS BLACK ARROW (U+2B07)
>
> But no right arrow. Why is that?

There is
⬅ BLACK RIGHTWARDS ARROW (U+27A1)
The code chart at
http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2B00.pdf
has a cross reference to it, in the description of U+2B05.

My guess is that U+27A1 was included along with other dingbat arrows
(which are mostly rightward-pointing arrowlike symbols) because it had
been included in legacy character codes. It was then regarded as
unnecessary to duplicate it in the Miscellaneous Symbols and Arrows block.

This is somewhat unfortunate. The code chart
http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2700.pdf
says, in the description of U+27A1: “fonts may harmonize this glyph with
the style for other black arrows”. In practice, however, only few fonts
contain both U+27A1 and U+2B05, and in them, they tend to be rather
different in style. In the fonts in my system, only DejaVu Serif,
Quivira, and Segoe UI Symbol use the same style for both.

> These arrows are the most neutral and legible ones, so it's unfortunate
> that one is missing.

Well, yes, for icon-like use they would be suitable if implemented
stylistically similarly and had shapes sufficiently resembling the
representative glyphs. But among the three fonts I mentioned, I think
only DejaVu Serif reflects the same design principles as the
representative glyphs.

Not surprisingly, people mostly use images instead.

Yucca
Received on Sat Oct 26 2013 - 12:47:16 CDT