>John, > >> You are trying to find a solution to a problem that has already >> been solved in a better way, and in the process you will create >> more problems for anyone who uses your solution. So give it >> up already. > >I will buy a drink for whoever can truly make William understand this point >so that he can move his intellect onto useful issues for which solutions >are actually needed. > >And William himself is not disqualified from this; if he figures it out on >his own I would be happy to buy the drink for him. ;-) > > >MichKa > >Michael Kaplan >Trigeminal Software, Inc. -- http://www.trigeminal.com/ >
This discussion seems to be related to the digital divide. Suppose that someone has access to a PC which has Windows 95 or Windows 98 and has Microsoft Word 97 installed. The person wishes to produce a print out of a transcription of a piece of text from an 18th Century English book, by keying in a copy of the text and then printing it out. The person finds that the text has a ct ligature in it. How does the person produce the desired finished result? My suggested solution is to try to obtain a TrueType fount which contains a ct ligature, add the fount into the PC, open a Word 97 document, key the text, wherever a ct ligature is needed, use Insert | Symbol and choose the ct ligature from the dialogue box. By there existing a publicly available document which includes within it a pairing of ct with the code point U+E707 the possibility exists that some people might include ct in a TrueType fount and might place it at U+E707 within that TrueType fount. Now, the pairing of ct with the code point U+E707, rather than some other code point, does not affect the use with Word 97 as I have described it, as the Insert | Symbol does not draw the attention of the end user to the code point. However, if that page were saved in HTML format, the code numbers would be passed through to the HTML page, so if the list of code points were widely used by people, then maybe the document containing the ct ligature could be displayed in a web page, interested viewers needing to use a fount with a ct ligature available. Also, the very existence of the list might lead to someone who is authoring a fount choosing to add a ct ligature and various other ligatures into the fount. The existence of the list also hopefully makes it more likely that in the future \uE707 drawn to the screen of a Java applet will produce a ct ligature rather than a rectangular box. Now, if this list of ligatures were not used, how exactly, precisely would the person produce the print out of a transcription of a piece of text from an 18th Century English book, by keying in a copy of the text and then printing it out? I am reminded of the posting some time ago in this discussion list where someone, I cannot remember who was the author, commented on what that author called a great tsu nami (tidal wave) of the computing industry, whereby from the moment that a new version of a product is launched, businesses presume that customers are using the very latest version. Now, businesses doing that may just be using marketing hype, yet there are other issues. When PCs are replaced in big businesses, if the replacement is of perfectly functioning machines which are being replaced with more recent models, fortunately some of the machines do not get scrapped but move to other locations, either to other businesses or to schools and colleges and so on, so that the PCs, whilst not the latest models, do get used to good effect. Also, in the home and leisure market, many people simply cannot afford, and do not need, to buy a new machine. For example, if a PC is largely used for writing and for drawing static graphics, why would someone need to buy a new PC which has much faster processing of animated graphics such as are used in games? So, I wonder what is the answer to the question of how the person wishing to produce the print out of a transcription of a piece of text from an 18th Century English book, by keying in a copy of the text and then printing it out should proceed? Is it a case of "first buy a new PC" or what? The comment has been made "You are trying to find a solution to a problem that has already been solved in a better way, and in the process you will create more problems for anyone who uses your solution.". What, exactly and precisely, is the better way that is claimed? What, exactly and precisely, are the problems which I will allegedly create for other people? These are not rhetorical questions, I really would genuinely like to know. I am quite happy to accept that perhaps a solution to the problem has been found, yet wonder whether that solution is, as of today, only available to people who are on one side of a digital divide. If there really are problems which my list will cause then I will be happy to add a note stating of the problem. Yet I am very concerned that I may be in effect being told here that Unicode is only really intended for people with the very latest equipment using expensive solutions that are only realistically available to rich corporations. My thinking is that the existence of the list, (and hopefully, the list having been distributed in this discussion group, many people will be aware of its existence, and may perhaps have even filed a copy for possible future reference), will hopefully make the availability of such ligatures in founts more widespread and will also hopefully influence people who make software packages, such as relatively inexpensive electronic book publishing packages, to build in a feature so that such ligatures may be accessed from a TrueType fount. The list is not a requirement to code certain ligatures in a certain way, it is simply a list which exists and which can be obtained on the web. The use of the codes in the list for particular ligatures is only as consistent as end users choose to make it consistent. I feel that the Unicode system should be available for all, not just for people who are on the money side of the digital divide. So, if there is a new fount technology which can only be applied using expensive new software then maybe in a few years time it will become available using less expensive software and more people will be able to use it. In the meantime, people need to use what they can. If indeed the existence of a list of private use area code points for ligatures in some way causes some problem of which I am yet to be aware, I will take such action as I feel is both reasonable and within my abilities to avoid those problems being caused. The list is obtainable from our family webspace in England. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/ligature.htm Readers might also like to have a look at the following. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/pai07000.htm A problem for which I am trying to find a solution is as to how someone with only everyday PC type facilities can obtain software which can set the individual parameters of the pHYs chunk of a PNG file, so as to indicate a non-square pixel. This is needed so as to satisfy section 15.1.1 of the DVB-MHP (Digital Video Broadcasting - Multimedia Home Platform) specification which is available at the http://www.mhp.org website. I have searched on the web and asked all over the place about this and not yet found an answer. Is there anyone on this list that knows please? The main index of our family webspace is as follows. http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo William Overington 31 May 2002
