From: Edward H. Trager (ehtrager@umich.edu)
Date: Mon Apr 25 2005 - 10:17:07 CST
On Monday 2005.04.25 10:32:12 +0100, Arcane Jill wrote:
>
> Hans's solution (to allow a potentially infinite number of glyphs) might
> solve this, because, if some web service existed which could translate a
> number into a glyph, that mechanism would presumably work just as well for
> Unicode glyphs as for PUA glyphs. But it is using a sledgehammer to crack a
> nut, and in my opinion goes way, way further than is needed.
>
> So here's what I would suggest as an alternative. This is out of the scope
> of the Unicode Consortium now, and I suspect the correct relevant body is
> probably the W3C consortium. Anyway, I reckon a small addition to CSS could
> solve the problem, something like:
>
> : font-url = "http://url.of.relevant.font.ttf"
>
> which would allow you to specify, for example, something like:
>
> : p { font-url = "http://url.of.musical.font.ttf" }
>
> to allow web pages containing musical characters to display correctly, or
>
> : p { font-url = "http://url.of.CSUR.font.ttf" }
>
> to allow web pages containing Klingon characters to display correctly, and
> so on. I'm sure those clever folk at W3C can figure out a way of having
> multiple URLs specified to allow a choice of fonts for different codepoint
> ranges.
>
> So, to summarise - I think there /is/ a problem, but I think that the
> solution lies with an extension to CSS, and corresponding changes to web
> browsers to implement that.
>
> Jill
>
> PS. Thanks for the idea, Hans.
>
Hi, Jill,
I think this is a *great* idea, as it would provide a standardized way for browsers
to download and utilize custom fonts for specific niche or non-niche purposes (I believe
Microsoft already has a proprietary technology for doing this, but an open standard like
CSS would be much better). However, I believe the more likely syntax should look something
like the following which is completely consistent with current CSS standards:
.myCSSClass {
font-family:url("http://url.of.relevant.font.ttf");
}
And of course, a set of multiple fonts could also be specified:
.myCSSClass {
font-family:Vera,Arial,url("http://url.of.relevant.font.otf"),sans-serif;
}
Who are the right people at W3C to whom this idea should be directed?
- Ed Trager
Bioinformatics
Kellogg Eye Center
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor
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