From: John Hudson (john@tiro.ca)
Date: Sun Nov 23 2008 - 23:36:16 CST
Karl Pentzlin wrote:
> At least, this. This can be accomplished by an algorithm...
An algorithmic approach to mark positioning is certainly a desirable
fallback when a font does not contain specific anchor positioning data
for the base+mark sequence. This, of course, means that the layout
engine will need to query whether the font contains anchor positioning
for the glyph sequence -- a blind check for the presence of e.g. a
<mark> layout feature in an OpenType font is not sufficient, since such
a feature may support e.g. Latin+mark combinations but not Cyrillic+mark
--, and if not then apply the algorithm.
There are, of course, things that the algorithmic approach won't be able
to handle reliably: marks that attach to the base in different
horizontal positions depending on the shape of base (e.g. ogonek), marks
that are by design not centred but e.g. above the right side of the
lettter, and the substitution of flatter accent forms above capital and
ascending letters.
> At least, there is a significant progress visible in Vista regarding
> Latin combinations. As doing this for Cyrillic also does not imply
> any real new mechanism, may I expect the same level of support for
> Cyrillic in the next SP for Windows Vista?
In a service pack? I would consider this very unlikely unless there was
a request from regional marketing people identifying a significant user
need.
Microsoft recently released the initial beta of Windows 7. At least one
of the MS fonts in this release (Cambria) includes <mark> anchor
attachment data for Cyrillic and Greek as well as Latin.
John Hudson
-- Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com Gulf Islands, BC tiro@tiro.com You can't build a healthy democracy with people who believe in little green men from Venus. -- Arthur C. Clark
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