Re: Useful info for The Quran Project

[Mete Kural <metekural at yahoo dot com>]

Salaamun Aleykum,

One problem is that almost all of the Arabic fonts
that have been developed so far for displaying the
Quran miss a very important fundamental point that the
text should be encoded in graphemes (base letters of a
language), not allographs (variants of a letter).
There is one exception and that is the font developed
by this German company TraDigital (www.tradigital.de).

It is necessary to not use allographs in the encoded
text in order to have a text that is highly useful.
Say you are searching for a word in the Quran and you
use a different allograph of the same grapheme in your
search query, in this case the words that have
different allographs of the same grapheme will not be
matched. There are also several typography related
problems that may come up due to the use of codepoints
for allographs in encoding a text.

Would any of you be willing to contribute to a project
that seeks to develop fonts that encourages the use of
graphemes only?

Peace,
Mete

--- Yousef AL-Harthi <alharthi at kacst dot edu dot sa> wrote:
> Alsalam Alikum,
> 
> King Abdul Aziz City for science and technology 
> release Quran font you can
> take it under GPL license.
> 
> It is allow in this link:
> 
>
http://ceri.kacst.edu.sa/download/KacstArabicFonts-1.3.tar.gz
> 
> Best Regard
> 
> Yousef AL-Harthi
> 
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Munzir Taha" <munzirtaha at myrealbox dot com>
> To: <developer at arabeyes dot org>
> Sent: Tuesday, April 01, 2003 2:08 PM
> Subject: Useful info for The Quran Project
> 
> 
> > I am not sure how Mr Yousuf is proceeding in Quran
> project. What about the
> > font? It's a long time since I've last heard about
> it. I even send a mail
> (in
> > private for good reasons) concerning a serious
> issue to the developers but
> no
> > replies yet ;-) Hope everything is Ok with you
> all.
> >
> > Now, I have passed through a nice information in
> the Internet and want to
> > share it with you and hope you will like it.
> >
> > (see: http://www.unicode.org/iuc/iuc17/a346.html)
> > Encoding the Holy Koran into Unicode
> >
> >
> > Adil Allawi - Diwan Software Limited
> >
> >
> > Intended Audience:
> > Manager, Software Engineer
> >
> >
> > Session Level:
> > Beginner
> >
> >
> > The central document of the Muslim religion, the
> Koran, also represents
> the
> > highest standard for the representation of the
> Arabic language and
> > typography. The text of the Koran is sacred to
> Muslims and as such it must
> be
> > encoded without any errors and in its entirety. It
> is for these reasons
> that
> > any approach in encoding the Koran fully on
> computers is a non-trivial
> task.
> > It is not possible to compromise on any details
> from the design of the
> > typeface to the encoding of the text into Unicode.
> Diwan Software Limited
> > have an ongoing project for the past three years
> to make a complete
> > electronic Koran. Starting with the creation of a
> suitable typeface to the
> > encoding of the text. The purpose of our paper
> will be to show how we have
> > approached this subject and to demonstrate the
> results of our work. We
> also
> > wish to use the opportunity to start a discussion
> on how the Unicode
> standard
> > can best be applied to this purpose and what are
> its limitations.
> >
> >
> > Our work is not just relevant to Muslims and
> scholars of Islamic religion.
> > Although this would be reason enough for our
> project. But also as a key
> > milestone in the development of the Unicode
> standard in its ability to
> > accurately represent texts of all world language.
> The lessons we have
> learnt
> > from our project will also be relevant for anyone
> trying to accurately
> render
> > written texts using computers and encode such
> texts into Unicode. We hope
> > that our presentation would also highlight these
> aspects.
> >
>
-------------------------------------------------------------
> >
> >
>
http://www.diwan.com/english/pages/inside/news/press9.htm
> > Diwan and Sun Microsystems Inc. cooperate to make
> the Holy Koran available
> on
> > the Internet
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > Diwan and Sun Microsystems Inc. cooperate to make
> the Holy Koran available
> on
> > the Internet.
> >
> > Diwan is cooperating with Sun on the next release
> of Sun's Java technology
> to
> > make the Holy Koran available in its complete form
> on the widest variety
> of
> > computer platforms via the Internet. The results
> of our work will be
> > demonstrated on the Sun Microsystems stand at
> GITEX 2000 in Dubai from
> 28th
> > October to 1st November.
> >
> > Diwan announced at the 17th Unicode conference the
> completion of their
> > encoding of the Holy Koran into Unicode together
> with a typeface capable
> of
> > rendering all the calligraphy of hand-written
> Korans. This project for the
> > first time bridges the gap between hand-drawn
> Korans and computer
> typography.
> >
> > Unicode has made it possible for the first time to
> encode the Holy Koran
> with
> > all its correct marks and annotations. Diwan has
> completed a family of
> > intelligent typefaces which are capable of
> rendering the Holy Koran
> > automatically from the plain text of the encoding.
> Based on the
> award-winning
> > Mishafi font, Diwan's typeface fully supports the
> long held traditions,
> > especially those of Hafs ibn Sulaiman al-Kufi and
> other well known
> > authorities, of encoding the Koran.
> >
> > Using the features of the forthcoming Java version
> 1.4 it has become
> possible
> > to make the text of the Holy Koran work on nearly
> all computer platforms
> > regardless of built-in support for Arabic. Diwan
> has worked with Sun to
> make
> > sure the text engine built into Java 1.4 supports
> the features necessary
> for
> > Diwan's typeface to render the Koran encoding
> correctly. Diwan will also
> work
> > with Sun on future enhancements to their Java text
> support to allow for
> more
> > advanced typographic features.
> >
> > Diwan has created an applet that contains our
> Koranic typeface and
> components
> > of Diwan's al-Nashir al-Sahafi desktop publishing
> application. The applet
> > will read the text of the Koran as Unicode from a
> database server and
> display
> > it correctly formatted on the client's computer.
> As the applet is built on
> > Sun's Java technology it will run immediately on
> any platform that has a
> Java
> > 1.4 Runtime. The applet and the database are
> hosted on one of Sun's
> high-end
> > servers which provides the necessary power to make
> the text available to
> > millions of subscribers via the Internet. Diwan
> will be showing this
> system
> > at the Sun Microsystems stand at GITEX 2000.
> >
> > "Sun Microsystems is delighted to welcome Diwan
> Software Limited onto its
> > stand at GITEX, and is proud to learn that Sun's
> Java technology is being
> > utilized by Diwan to provide access to the Holy
> Koran on the majority of
> > computer platforms and over the Internet," said
> Amanda Cummins, Business
> > Development Manager, Sun Microsystems. Diwan
> Software is a strategic
> member
> > of the Sun Developer Connection - Sun's online
> community for developers
> using
> > the Java and Solaris platforms.
> >
> > Adil Allawi, technical director of Diwan Software
> adds: "Diwan has spent
> more
> > than 3 years completing the Holy Koran and a
> typeface capable of matching
> the
> > work of the best calligraphers. With Sun's Java
> technology this has helped
> us
> > realize our dream of making the full word of the
> Koran available
> immediately
> > to millions of people on all computer systems."
> >
> > ------------------------------------------------
> >
> > You will find a little more info at the links. I
> tried to find more info
> but
> > couldn't. Java 1.4 is still beta. Sun's site says
> nothing useful about
> this.
> > Any comments?
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > --
> > Munzir Taha,
> > Telecommunications and Electronics Engineer,
> > Certified Internet Webmaster, (CIW),
> > Microsoft Office User Specialist, (MOUS),
> > New Horizons Computer Learning Centers,
> > Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
> > _______________________________________________
> > Developer mailing list
> > Developer at arabeyes dot org
> >
> http://lists.arabeyes.org/mailman/listinfo/developer
> >
> >
> 
> 
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