From: Peter Constable (petercon@microsoft.com)
Date: Tue Jun 14 2005 - 13:33:14 CDT
> From: Mete Kural [mailto:metek@touchtonecorp.com]
> Peter, IMHO, your comparison is not fair at all. Coloring the dot of
an i could obviously
> be more fairly compared to coloring the dot of an Arabic letter beh or
a jim, etc. And
> probably coloring the crossbar of a t would be better compared to
coloring the
> overstrike of an Arabic kaf :) These are not what we are talking about
here. Coloring
> the lam or alef or lam-alef is comparable to coloring the f or i of
the Latin fi ligature.
Think about it: why does someone want to colour part of a ligature
differently than the remainder of the ligature? Probably because they
are discussing something to do with the letterform itself. There's just
as much likelihood, I think, of someone talking about the cross-bar of a
t, etc.
Now, your statement
> You are right that this is not an everyday need. Nor is the need to
color the f or i of a
> fi ligature an everyday need, but I can cite more specialty needs.
and your statement
> These are more
> advanced features that I think serious rendering engine and font
developers should
> implement. I think Microsoft should definitely implement this since
most of web
> browsing done today still relies on Microsoft's rendering engine
functinality.
have a bit of contradiction. You say that MS *should definitely*
implement this, and the reason you give is because most Web browsing
relies on our rendering engine. But using that logic one could also say
that MS should definitely implement any esoteric feature someone might
imagine because most Web browsing relies on our rendering engine.
Obviously, the business need must also be a factor, and you've stated
that there's not that great a need for this.
When someone needs to use colour to highlight portions of a letterform,
they can always use graphics tools. Not to say that MS or other vendors
shouldn't consider the kinds of features you're suggesting, but I can't
see justification for a "should definitely implement" prioritization.
> A quick
> way to implement ligature component coloring could be by doing
basically the same
> thing you are already doing with cursor positioning within a
ligature...
I think this would be up to an application to implement, not something
like our Uniscribe component or a TextOut API.
Peter Constable
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