Re: Re: Unicode Font Maker

["Thomas Milo" <t dot milo at chello dot nl>]

Meor Ridzuan Meor Yahaya wrote:
>> Thomas,
>> Are you suggesting that the font is a tremendous improvement because
>> the font does not have any ligature? This is a sincere questions, not
>> to belittle you. I would like to share my experience in this regards.
>> Although I'm neither a professional font developer nor expert in the
>> field, I do find a problem with fonts without ligature. Of course ,
>> this can be solve, but need some consideration.

I am strongly in favour of ligatures, but against malfunctioning or
incomplete ligatures. Hence my somewhat sarcastic comment.

>> Actually, I've done some work on this to the extend that all typical
>> ligature is replaced, and I would say the font I develop is good. The
>> font does have more alternatives then just lam alef sequence. I've
>> sent a screenshot of the font to Mete, and Gregg if I'm not mistaken.
>> The positive point about it is that software will be able to display
>> an individual glyph with different colors. Plus, this approach will
>> definately works under Linux without any problems. So, that is the
>> plus side.
>> On the other hand, with this type of font, we will need some serious
>> work when trying to justify a text /paragraph. Paul Nelson describe
>> on Microsoft page that IE 5.5 supposedly have 3 mode for arabic
>> justification: inter-word, tatweel and newspaper (if I'm not
>> mistaken)
>> Anyway, basically here's how the 3 mode should work:
>> 1. Inter word: inserting spaces between words. This is the most
>> typical type of justification for any script.
>> 2. Tatweel : this is specific to arabic, and the most common method
>> for arabic.
>> 3. Newspaper : spaces inserted inter-word and some intra-word. I'm
>> not
>> so sure if tatweel is used.
>>
>> Anyway, that's the theory. When I try to use it (by using CSS), guess
>> what? The inter-word key does not work! It still insert tatweel here
>> and there. So, what is the problem? Just imagine a tatweel inserted
>> between lam and alef ! That is just an example, althgouh they might
>> be
>> smart enough not to do that. Anyway, I can confirmed that tatweel
>> will
>> be inserted , and we can't really control it. So, maybe not for lam
>> alef, but sequence like yeh reh will difinitely be effected. And is
>> does look wierd.
>>
>> After I found this problem, I stop further improving the font. I hope
>> this can be solved, but not sure how. Of course, this is not a major
>> issue, bt I do not want to waste my time much on something that might
>> not work. Just want to share my experience  with people here. This is
>> one of the reason why I mentioned before that I really would like to
>> see people work seriously on Arabic justification problem.

II would rather stay independent of OpenType and the MS approach and prefer
to stick to my own technology.

t