David J. Perry had written:
An OpenType font that is smart enough to substitute a long s glyph at the right spots is the much superior long-term solution.
This will not work, cf. infra. David Starner wrote:
no matter what the convention, it requires a dictionary lookup for
various case;
A dictionary lookup will not suffice, as there are pairs of words differing only in an "ſ" vs. "s" (long vs. round s), e. g. · Wachſtube ['vaxʃtu:bə] = guard room · Wachstube ['vakstu:bə] = wax tube [Pronounciation in brackets] To substitute a long s glyph at the right spots you must fully analyse the sentence -- grammatically, and in cases as in the previous example, even semantically -- to find the correct spelling. Hence, it is much easier to type the "ſ", and "s", characters in their proper places, and then replace "ſ" with "s", if so desired. Fuzzy searches should equate "ſ" with "s". Apparently, Google.de doesn't do it right: a search vor "Kinderſtube" yields no hits, while a search for "Kinderstube" yields about 10700. Best wishes, Otto Stolz
