Re: Latin ligatures and Unicode

From: Michael Everson (everson@egt.ie)
Date: Tue Dec 28 1999 - 08:10:21 EST


Ar 11:27 -0800 1999-12-27, scríobh John Jenkins:

>For me, the AAT and OpenType mechanisms adequately answer this point, as
>they allow full control over arbitrary (or automatic) ligature generation or
>overriding.

But they don't because you can't predict for many instances what "default"
"turning ligation on" could be. There _are_ no default ligatures for many
scripts, times, documents, etc. And I know that the designer can add in a
zillion levels of defaultness, but this is a clumsy kludge that burdens
designer and user alike.

Merle Tenney showed me how the AAT mechanisms work in a font workshop in
London last year. I was impressed. And I have been thinking about it all
this time. And impressive as it is, it doesn't satisfy my needs.

>I'm still trying to figure out what I would consider adequate reasons for
>requiring ligation control in plain text. I haven't seen them proposed yet,
>however.

Portability, John. Also it is not _fair_ that Brahmic scripts have plain
text ligation and European scripts do not.

I am working on that paper....

Michael Everson ** Everson Gunn Teoranta ** http://www.egt.ie
15 Port Chaeimhghein Íochtarach; Baile Átha Cliath 2; Éire/Ireland
Vox +353 1 478 2597 ** Fax +353 1 478 2597 ** Mob +353 86 807 9169
27 Páirc an Fhéithlinn; Baile an Bhóthair; Co. Átha Cliath; Éire



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