From: William Overington (WOverington@ngo.globalnet.co.uk)
Date: Sat May 24 2003 - 06:53:32 EDT
Michael Kaplan wrote as follows.
quote
I'll take some of that action, too. Not since W.O. have we had someone
around who has been so insistent that Unicode is missing the requirements of
its users, without really understanding what The "Unicode way" is....
end quote
Well, as I remember it, when I put forward some of my ideas in this forum, a
well-known and much-respected linguist referred me to an ISO document about
characters which document defined character as in an appendix of the same
document and that I then found that my ideas were entirely in accordance
with that definition.
What is the Unicode way?
Is it a road? Is there an intersection with Antitrust Avenue and is the
barrelhead on the pavement near "The Restriction of Progress"?
However, as the matter of matrices has been raised and I have been mentioned
by Mr Kaplan, then I feel that it is only fair that I should be allowed the
opportunity to mention a Private Use Area solution which I devised some time
ago and published on the web.
In relation to matrices, are codes similar to the following what are needed?
U+E2F6, U+E2F7, U+E2F8 as defined in the following document.
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/ast07101.htm
These are my own definitions in the Private Use Area.
The following pages might also be of interest.
The first two are about eutocode graphics. The second needs a Java enabled
browser.
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/ast03000.htm
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/eutocodegraphics.htm
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/ast00000.htm
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo
Yesterday afternoon I updated the version of the Quest text font which is
available at the following web page.
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/font7007.htm
This version includes visible glyphs for 28 code points in the Private Use
Area to do with expressing a sequential multimedia display in a Unicode
plain text file, such as when using the Microsoft WordPad program to author
a Unicode text file to customize a Java program which will produce a display
on an interactive television. That is, the code points display as a symbol
on the screen of a PC during content authorship yet would be acted upon to
change colour, wait for a button push and so on, when acted upon by a Java
program written for the purpose. I am hoping that a Java program suitable
for broadcasting will become available.
I am hoping to add some further symbols for a more advanced multimedia
system which has a programmed learning capability. However, the four Object
Replacement Character Synonym glyphs are all available in the present 1.04
version of the Quest text font.
The place to discuss these matters is the Digital Television Interactive
Broadcasting forum which is run from the http://www.cenelec.org webspace.
These codes will hopefully open up content authorship for the digital
interactive broadcasting platform so that people may prepare content in
Unicode plain text files on PCs and send them in so that they can be
broadcast and used to customize a generic software package which produces a
multimedia display by interpreting the text and the Private Use Area codes
in the Unicode plain text customizing file.
The Private Use Area is entirely suitable for the needs of my research and
for its application. Certainly, if the Unicode Consortium decides to encode
such features into regular Unicode then it has the opportunity to do so and
such items could be codified. However, if that is not what the Unicode
Consortium decides to do, then that is a matter for it, the Private Use Area
is available and much can be achieved by using it. The possibility of
publishing the code points for the eutocode system in a book exists and
indeed if the Unicode Consortium really wishes to decline the chance to
include such codes with the emphasis of the people who are keen to accept a
bet, then the opportunity for publishing a private specification for such
features is available. My view is that it is better to just get something
going using the Private Use Area and not to spend time on trying to persuade
the Unicode Consortium to consider such technology.
In relation to the Private Use Area, it was said that there would be a
change in the wording of the Unicode Standard and I am looking forward to
finding out exactly what the new wording is to be!
William Overington
24 May 2003
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