>Similarly Microsoft should give more API support to TrueType Open and
>Apple to GX typography so that the intricacies such a ligatures and
>direction can be more generally available for any language.
GX typography has plenty of support in the API; unfortunately, you have
to install QuickDraw GX to get that API, and most people don't. GX even
supports Unicode, including full bidi and complex scripts such as
Devanagari. More limited support for advanced typography is available
without GX if you have the appropriate localized Mac OS system, or a
Language Kit. For example, the Arabic Language Kit adds bidi support, and
our upcoming Indic Language Kit will support Devanagari (and a couple of
others). The language kits don't include the non-script related features
of GX, though, such as optical alignment, variants, and vertical text.
On the bright side, as we've publicly stated recently, we will be merging
our GX typographic technology with the excellent work done in OpenStep
(thanks, Rick!) for our new operating system, code-named Rhapsody. Then
all this great support (including support for Unicode) will be available
in the base system.
Please forgive me if this came off a little like an advertisement, but it
seemed (mostly) on-topic. Rather than continue, if anyone has any further
questions please e-mail me privately.
David Goldsmith
Text and International Software Architect
Apple Computer, Inc.
goldsmith@apple.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.2 : Tue Jul 10 2001 - 17:20:33 EDT