Salaam Nadim, > > I agree with the phased approach, but we need to > agree on the phases. If > > your operating systems cannot handle fonts the way > it is assumed by the > > Unicode Standard, than I would agree with you that > you need to opt for > > kludges. > > > > Just count me out. > > I still don't get your reply or both > statements/paragraphs above
I think what Tom is trying to say here (sorry for paraphrasing on your behalf Tom - I wasn't patient enough) is that "if the proposed definitions for substituting two standard harakat codes with a single glyph (such as fatha+[the_proposed_new_tanween_code] code sequence being defined as a sequential fathatan) and other similar cases where a more proper way to handle script rendering is 'added to Unicode' but then rendering engines fail to implement Unicode properly by not implementing these new additions to Unicode (whether because it is more challenging to implement or they just don't want to spend the effort to implement it because they think it's not important for them to support classical/Quranic Arabic, even if it is now part of Unicode), then I am not interested in taking part in participating in yet another set of hacks instead of a more proper way simply because there are already numerous hacks out there and I am sick of them." The changes that Tom is proposing would (if accepted) become part of the Unicode specification. For example the definition of fatha-[the_new_proposed_code] code sequence being canonically equivalent to a sequential fathatan would be part of the Unicode standard. There are already definitions of canonically equivalent code sequences in Unicode. An example is yeh+hamza_above being canonically equivalent to yeh_with_hamza_above. Rendering engines that claim that they support Unicode "should" implement this feature of Unicode. If they don't have the expertise to implement it or they are unwilling to implement it they should at least allow others to provide patches for implementing this feature (of course this only applies to open source) and not prevent the proper implementation of the Unicode specification. This is because implementing these features would not just be providing support for classical/Quranic Arabic that they don't really care too much about but it would also be implementing the Unicode speficication in its entirety. Let's say the above described feature (a new logical tanween codepoint that triggers the rendering of contexual tanween variants) gets added to Unicode 4.0.3 and a rendering engine wants to support Unicode 4.0.3, then they have to implement this feature, otherwise they are not right in saying that they support Unicode 4.0.3. So basically what Tom is saying (and I agree too) is that if rendering engines will not support the entirety of a new Unicode specification release because of whatever reason, I don't want to work out yet another set of hacks. Sorry again Tom for paraphrasing for you. Please confirm whether I represented what you tried to say properly. Kind regards, Mete _______________________________________________ General mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.arabeyes.org/mailman/listinfo/general
