Re: Quranic Proposal

[Nadim Shaikli <shaikli at yahoo dot com>]

--- Mohammed Yousif <mhdyousif at gmx dot net> wrote:
> On خميس 10 يونيو 2004 17:43, Thomas Milo wrote:
>
[snip snip]
>
> > For instance, the special cases of tanween fall in the domain of
> > character encoding, whereas special positioning of superscript
> > alif as well as trailing alifs falls in the domain of script 
> > rendering or font technology.
> 
> we shouldn't delegate things to 'font technology' just because it
> can be done.

I agree with Mohammed on the various points - I do want to stress that
if we start noting that the font technology (and I'm assuming that means
a rendering engine which has ample smarts to abide by set rules) is the
way to go then I think we've pretty much haven't realized the full intent
and spirit of what is being proposed here.  The technology exists today
with the current font file(s) and display engines to do a prim and proper
job and we should pursue that side of things instead of overhauling all
there is to be done (I might be jumping the gun here and misunderstanding
things, but I thought it would be proper to broach the subject).  I, for
one, want to see a proper Quran in my lifetime using specified Unicode
and not rely on various vendors and developers to finally pick up a 
specification and implement it (I know from experience how hard that will
be (if not impossible) - all one has to do is look at how hard its been
getting people to simply adopt fribidi (ie. the Bidi algorithm (TR#9))
let alone implement it in their display engines and the Quran would be
a much more difficult convince job (politics, bias not withstanding) and
most will simply forgo it citing low need/demands).

> > This doesn't mean that we should stop this operation. The problem with
> > Unicode and Qur'anic script is not the character repertoire, but the
> > instructions for their use. Without such guide lines, Unicode cannot
> > function as a standard.
> 
>  Then please list them one by one and tell us why you think they all exist
>  in the Unicode Standard so we can remove those which are, or confirm
>  those which aren't.

Agreed; it would be best to cite those characters in the context of what
is in the proposal (use the numbers within the table) and again I'm really
hoping this is not in the rendering engine domain (read above).

> > It seems to me that the sajda line needs to be taken care of by mark up
> > similar to underscores in Latin script.

That's what we are suggesting - some manner in which an absolute valued
overscore (if you will) is needed.

As Mohammed notes, there are plenty of examples already in Unicode which
are _very_ similar to what is being requested - I think if we concentrate
on that, we'd get a long way to completing this important task (mind you
the space is available for them and it would _not_ require any rendering
engine changes at all (I have huge reservations if we start going that
route) - ie. a fully specified properly displayed Quran could be realized
the next day Unicode adopts these missing characters).

Regards,

 - Nadim



	
		
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