A picture speaks a thousand words.
Here is a picture. These are the last three words of Genesis 3:14, as rendered by v1.04 (unreleased) of the SBL Hebrew font. In the first word, the holam is encoded before the vav, and so is positioned on the right side (actually, a ligature glyph is substituted in this case, although most of the other marks you see are dynamically positioned); a series of contextual rules prevent the holam from being applied to the dalet in this case. In the second word, the holam is encoded after the vav, and so is positioned on the left.
I'm going to release a beta version of this generation of the SBL Hebrew font shortly, because we need to test the contextual lookups against every instance in which this display of holam_vav is desired.
Note that I'm fully anticipating that some of the solutions we've provided in the SBL Hebrew font will be changed and the font and documents updated. We're resigned to this. It is my hope that the SBL Hebrew font will contribute to the discussion and search for better and standard solutions, as it seems to be. There's nothing like an imminent release of software to get people talking.
John Hudson
<<attachment: Gen3,14-fixed.gif>>
Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com Vancouver, BC [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The sight of James Cox from the BBC's World at One,
interviewing Robin Oakley, CNN's man in Europe,
surrounded by a scrum of furiously scribbling print
journalists will stand for some time as the apogee of
media cannibalism.
- Emma Brockes, at the EU summit
