Re: Arabic issues in GNU Freefont

["Steve White" <stevan dot white at googlemail dot com>]

Adnène (and arabeyes folks),

I have made changes to the Arabic part of GNU FreeFont FreeSerif face,
so that now (to my eyes) it adequately displays the sample at
    http://people.w3.org/rishida/scripts/samples/arabic.html

I intend to make a release of the font family soon, and really need a
native reader to have a look at it.

You can find the changes in CVS:

    cvs -z3 -d:pserver:anonymous at cvs dot savannah dot gnu dot org:/sources/freefont
co freefont

If you need a pre-built version, let me know and I'll send you one.

Adnène, you mentioned that the diacritics were too far from the glyphs.

Currently, the separate diacritics in FreeFont are placed evenly,
without regard for the previous character's height.  This could be
improved, but will take more work.

Or is that what you are talking about?  Many glyphs have the
decoration built-in, and I would regard the spacing as being the
designer's intention.

Please have a look.  Keep in mind we are first striving for usability
here, and beauty second.

Thanks!