Philipp Reichmuth wrote as follows. >Hello, William, > >This is sort of lengthy once more. Forgive me and put me in your score >files. :-)
What please is a score file? >Note that asking Microsoft to have Notepad support courtyard codes is >a lot more work and a lot less likely to succeed than working with >custom XML files. Especially on older hardware, for obvious reasons >(if new software is needed, it will probably require newer hardware, >too) Well, actually I was not thinking in terms of large companies taking up courtyard codes, though they are welcome to do so if they so wish. What I had in mind was individuals and smaller companies who might write and publish on the web desktop publishing packages and electronic book authoring packages and the like. >Having to work around a software vendor's decision to use U+XXXX from >the PUA to mean, say, "BOLD" when XXXX is in the PUA and I need to >process it for my *private* use, is not trivial. It puts everybody >right back into pre-Unicode times. That is why I have asked if end users might kindly agree not to use the U+F300 to U+F3FF block of the Private Use Area for other allocations if they could possibly avoid it, suggesting that perhaps they might feel that they would benefit from that as well. It is possible that such agreements can work. For example, since the publication of code points in the Private Use Area for the symbols of the Phaistos Disk I have decided not to clash them with any code point allocations of my own. No one asked me to do that, I did it for my own interest in the Phaistos Disk. Later I realized that it also avoids any font developer needing to decide whether to include the Phaistos Disk symbols or some of my allocations in a given font, so that is potentially another advantage for my research of my having avoided making any allocations in the same places in the Private Use Area as the Phaistos Disk code points are placed. I know that using Private Use Area allocations is not mainstream, yet those people who choose to use Private Use Area allocations are able to act in their own interests by taking into account uses of the Private Use Area by others if they so wish, notwithstanding that they are not in any way obliged to do so. >With glyphs in the PUA, the problem is less bad than with control >characters. Putting control characters in the private use PUA and >expecting I am not expecting them to do so. I have published the code points and if people choose to use them so as to provide a consistent encoding format which is independent of any one manufacturer, they are welcome to do so. There is no question whatsoever of me expecting people to take up my ideas. >others to adhere to them is dangerous and, to some extend, >disrespectful of other people's need of private characters in the PUA. Well, as I am not expecting people to adhere to them, then it cannot be disrespectful. Publishing code point allocations on my own initiative merely provides the opportunity for an agreement to use particular code points for particular meanings to be wider than just two people as the sender and receiver of a particular document. This is not an expecting, requiring and disrespectful approach, it is simply enthusiasm for pushing the envelope of what is possible if some people voluntarily agree to some particular code points having particular meanings in relation to only certain uses of those code points. >It might be a good idea to move your Courtyard Codes to the Corporate >Use PUA subarea, partly because in your suggestion that everybody else >should share the codes, you are beginning to act like a software >vendor, and partly because it saves other people hassle. Well, as far as I am aware, by putting courtyard codes in U+F300 through to U+F3FF I had effectively done that, while also allowing space above them for manufacturers of software. I chose U+F300 through to U+F3FF so as firstly not to clash with any part of U+E000 through to U+EFFF, secondly so as not to jam up the top part of the Corporate Use Subarea and thirdly so as not to clash with what is, in effect, the Symbols font Subarea. Indeed, I only became aware of the location of that latter area from a posting in this list. As the Unicode Technical Committee is considering rewording the section of Chapter 13 of the Unicode specification about the Private Use Area, I feel that it would be helpful if the fact that symbol fonts use that area of the Private Use Area could be stated in the book. I realize that there may well be concerns that such a mentioning might be seen as endorsing that usage, yet the alternative is that people using Unicode are not able to find the location of the area used by symbol fonts easily. A form of wording which states that readers might like to know that that code range is often used for symbol fonts and may choose to use or ignore that use as they think fit would be better than just not mentioning the matter, as not mentioning the matter could lead to problems for new end users. >Especially given that no software whatsoever supports the codes, and >if it did, one would have to work with custom application software >(that knows that U+XXXX means "BOLD") and/or with special >Courtyard-Code-compatible fonts that know about Golden Ligatures, of >which there are none in existence today. The golden ligatures collection is of character glyphs and is a separate thing from courtyard codes which are mostly control codes for formatting and markup. As far as no fonts or software being available today, well that might well be true. However, that might change. Please know that I am not expecting a major reorientation of the software industry, it is just a matter that if someone does like to make a font which includes, in a Unicode compatible manner, whole precomposed ligature glyphs which are accessible directly from a code point, whether for ligatures such as ct or ch or for long s b or for ppe, then there is available a set of code point allocations, which, while not standard, are perhaps more likely to be consistent than any other set of code point allocations which might otherwise be used. As for writing software which recognizes courtyard codes, well maybe people might use courtyard codes in computing generally, and if so, good, yet a primary reason for introducing them is for using them in educational software packages to be broadcast on digital television channels throughout the world using the DVB-MHP (Digital Video Broadcasting - Multimedia Home Platform) system. DVB-MHP uses Java and Java uses Unicode, so DVB-MHP programs which are broadcast use Unicode. These telesoftware programs are a specialist niche in broadcasting, yet, though I say it myself, telesoftware is an extremely powerful computational technique and hopefully in the next few years will begin to fulfil its potential. There is much to be done, yet it is an exciting field and Unicode is a key feature in being able to use it effectively throughout the world. Thank you for your help. William Overington 14 August 2002
