It's simply not true that current rendering engines process a letter at a time. You better have a look at OpenType technology. Not all of that is implemented in Windows or Pango, but they already do a bit of Nasta'liq with the implemented parts.
On Fri, 11 Jun 2004, abdulhaq wrote: > On Friday 11 June 2004 20:37, Ahmad Khalifa wrote: > > > Then why not just patch xfs ? > > I personally didnt understand most of your ideas but, i'd be willing to > > help, if you need it. > > > > > > I think you need to read Thomas's pdf(s). He argues that current arabic > rendering techniques on computers is fundamentally flawed because it > (simplifying greatly and generalising) renders one glyph at a time, and also > the nuqaaT/dots are built into the glyph rather than added after rendering > the word (sometimes leading to overlapping or confusing nuqaaT). > > The apparent answer is to build an arabic script renderer which takes entire > words or even sentences and renders them in a much improved way. He has > developed a program called ACE (which I know nothing about) that appears to > address a number of these issues but is fundamentally constrained by the > machinations of Windows. It is also a proprietary product. > > Your help and skills would be greatly appreciated. I think the 'madness :-)' > needs to be taken out first by thrashing out the ideas with anyone who is > interested - as many as possible. > > As to patching xfs, I suppose I am sort-of talking about that, but I think it > would be better to have a rendering server that drew on features of xfs > rather than the other way around. Client programs (to xfs) such as Qt would > have to be modified anyway to pass data by word and not character, so > preserving an xfs-type interface isn't possible (I think). > > I must stress this is just blue-sky thinking at the moment but it would be > great if after consideration we could do something. I don't want to start, > though, without thinking that it's possible to ultimately deliver something > good. > > wassalaam > abdulhaq > _______________________________________________ > Developer mailing list > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > http://lists.arabeyes.org/mailman/listinfo/developer > > --behdad behdad.org _______________________________________________ Developer mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.arabeyes.org/mailman/listinfo/developer
