On 07/18/2002 12:33:21 AM Asmus Freytag wrote:
>> The German >>support in the font could still include the rlig lookups John has >>suggested; and an intelligent app might even activate ligatures >>automatically (like the SHY analogy Asmus mentioned) either by setting an >>appropriate feature over the appropriate contexts or by inserting ZWJ into >>strings at rendering time. > >NO.NO.NO. > >German has default ligatures that are *prohbited* at certain locations, but >fine for all other instances... >Anyway, it's the *non*-joiner, not the joiner we are talking about here. Let's forget for a moment whether we're interested in ZWJ or ZWNJ. What do you recommend to be the default behaviour with German text in the context of software that has no particular knowledge of German typography and a user that doesn't know to enter any control characters? (Let's suppose that a font can have German-specific rules, but not the software.) Would you rather have ligatures appear everywhere they would if English (say) had been assumed, resulting in ligatures in inappropriate places, or would you rather have ligatures nowhere, resulting in less elegant typography but also no errors? If you think the former is better (better to get elegant topography by default even if some mistakes occur), then a font doesn't need German-specific rules. Default rules can apply, adding standard ligatures such as fi globally, leaving it up to the user to insert ZWNJ manually where these ligatures would be inappropriate, or leaving it to intelligent software to accomplish the same end by whatever means. If you think the latter is better (better to give up elegant typography as default behaviour to ensure no inappropriately-place liguatures), then that could be achieved by having intelligent software inserting ZWNJ where necessary, but in the absense of such software, the only way to ensure this behaviour would be for fonts to have German-specific rules that do not form the standard ligatures globally. But if that's the case, then it would require specific action to enable the ligatures. I guess one way to implement that is to activate a font feature that turns on (for German) the standard ligatures globally and then leave it to the user or software to override that using a mechanism like ZWNJ. Is that what you're looking for? - Peter --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Peter Constable Non-Roman Script Initiative, SIL International 7500 W. Camp Wisdom Rd., Dallas, TX 75236, USA Tel: +1 972 708 7485 E-mail: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
