Re: MS Windows and Unicode 4.0 ?

From: Christopher John Fynn (cfynn@gmx.net)
Date: Wed Dec 03 2003 - 14:52:56 EST

  • Next message: Curtis Clark: "Re: MS Windows and Unicode 4.0 ?"

    > An adequate proposal for a complex script should surely include a proper
    > account of the script behaviour and sample glyphs of presentation forms.
    > And so such a proposal should include all that is needed for a
    > developer, and is available some time before the new script is
    > officially standardised.

    There may be a few samples of presentation forms & conjuncts in a proposal -
    but I've yet to see a proposal for Indic script that contains a comprehensive
    set of all the presentation forms required to render all text written in that
    script.

    Character encoding proposals for complex scripts do not contain sufficient
    information for a developer to write rules for a layout engine for the script
    or enough information for a type designer to develop a font for the script.

    If such information were a requirement I suspect a number of scripts that have
    already been encoded in the standard would not be there yet.

    > >If you code chart type glyphs are enough for you then on Windows if you have
    MS
    > >Office there is always Arial Unicode.

    > Except that this font is stuck at Unicode 2.something. Or is there any
    > sign of an update?

    The version I have on my machine dated 03 June 1999 does contain characters
    added with Unicode 3.0 though I haven't checked to see if all characters added
    with Unicode 3.0 are all there. I also haven't looked at later versions,
    including the one shipped with Office 2003 - maybe it has been updated.

    - Chris



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