HI Romain, It's really a good news that Android 4.0 would be fixing the CTL issues. I can see that Android 4.1.1 has OTF support to some extent and only GSUB tables are supported but GPOS seem to be totally broken or not implemented.
I wish the text support were added far earlier because as of the time of writing, 40% devices are on 2.3.x and roughly 30% devices are on 4.0.x which does not have a very good support for CTL. Only 23% of devices are on 4.1.x that seem to have GSUB of OTF supported. The way I am thinking to work around is to write a font render in Java that reads GSUB tables and glyfs either from TTF font files or those converted to XML via fontTools (TTX). What I am not sure is: 1. Performance - Not sure if it would be terribly slow to draw each ligature through outlines. 2. Anti aliasing - Initially, the curves would lack anti aliasing so not sure how text would look on lower text sizes. Also, count the true type hinting as well. I would start a separate thread on that later, interested developers can join hands, I have a rough idea and we can divide the work. On Friday, November 4, 2011 9:24:20 PM UTC+5, Romain Guy (Google) wrote: > > It's a problem we are aware of and Android 4.0 is a step in this > direction. We've improved support for BiDi text and we will continue our > effort towards proper CTL support. > > On Fri, Nov 4, 2011 at 2:57 AM, Al Sutton <[email protected]<javascript:> > > wrote: > >> You are unlikely to receive an official response from Google on this list. >> >> Afaik Google does not directly target markets with the core Android >> operating system. Device manufacturers decide which markets they wish to >> target and so they may either add their own customisations or submit >> customisations for any specific market to Google. >> >> If you wish to resolve the issues you mention please contribute those >> patches in the way described at >> http://source.android.com/source/submit-patches.html >> >> Al. >> -- >> T: @alsutton W: www.funkyandroid.com >> >> The views expressed in this email are those of the author and not >> necessarily those of Funky Android Limited, it's associates, or >> it's subsidiaries. >> >> On 4 Nov 2011, at 09:47, Sahaja wrote: >> >> Since May 2009 there have been many issues posted to the Android issue >> tracker< http://code.google.com/p/android/issues/> complaining about >> the lack of proper complex text layout (CTL) support on Android >> devices - particularly with regard to Indic scripts and languages - >> yet little seems to have been done to address this. >> >> Related issues include: : >> >> 1618, 2600, 3008, 3027, 3029, 4153, 5925, 4153, 6283, 8103, 9045, >> 9248, 9859, 10685, 10750, 11999, 12674, 12981, 13022, 13967, 14234, >> 15171, 15895, 16306, 16939, 16144, 17011, 17279, 17291, 17445, 17563, >> 17573, 17576, 17803, 17850, 17992, 18178, 18235, 18392, 18859, 18936, >> 18950, 19050, 19352 19410, 19466, 19470, 19691, 19735, 19946, 19963, >> 21284, 20141, 20161, 20198, 20485, 20486, 20655, 20744, 20772, 20785. >> 21196, 21382 >> >> This is not something difficult to fix. OpenSource code (Pango/ >> Harfbuzz) exists in most Linux distributions to handle this. Yet, for >> some reason, Google has not implemented complex script support in >> Android. >> >> This affects use of hundreds of South and South East Asian languages >> including Bengali, Dzongkha, Farsi, Gujarati, Kannada, Khmer, Hindi, >> Malayalam, Marathi, Myanmar, Nepali, Sinhala Tamil, Telegu, Thai, >> Tibetan, Urdu as well as many Africa languages. >> >> Adding fonts and input methods does not help without the underlying >> complex script support. >> >> Right now there is far better support for these scripts on Apple >> iPhone, Linux phones and even Symbian devices. >> >> Why does it seem like Google / Android is doing very little to address >> this matter? Aren't they interested in the huge South Asian market? >> >> - Chris >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Android Discuss" group. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<javascript:> >> . >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [email protected] <javascript:>. >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en. >> >> >> -- >> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups >> "Android Discuss" group. >> To post to this group, send email to [email protected]<javascript:> >> . >> To unsubscribe from this group, send email to >> [email protected] <javascript:>. >> For more options, visit this group at >> http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en. >> > > > > -- > Romain Guy > Android framework engineer > [email protected] <javascript:> > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Android Discuss" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/android-discuss?hl=en. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
