From: Behnam (behnam.rassi@gmail.com)
Date: Sun Mar 07 2010 - 12:22:28 CST
I didn't follow this thread so if my remarks are out of context I
apologize in advance.
The Arabic display in browser is not dependent on browser unless:
a) the webpage doesn't have a designated default font
b) designated default font of the webpage is not installed in your
computer
In both cases, the font in use is the default font of either the
system (usually in Mac) or default font that has been set in the
browser (usually PC).
Safari doesn't allow to override designated font of the webpage but
most browsers do
Some fonts are designed with a 'generic' shape of initial and medial
form of Arabic characters. In design they are identical. In display,
the initial form has some white space on its right side, but the
medial form has no space on its right (therefore it displays as
joined to the character to its right). This is a font design option.
And from the samples I saw, I suspect it is about Arabic characters
used in MS Arial or Times New Roman (both use the same Arabic
characters). If the webpage has designated Arial for Arabic, it
doesn't matter which browser you use. It will always be displayed
with Arial and those undistinguishable medial forms.
If your intent is proper display of characters in browsers, without
specific manipulation by the users, then you have to designate a
proper font in your page which is a) common in all PCs, b) has not
used the same technic in displaying the medial forms.
I don't know what is currently bundled with PC but Tahoma for an ugly
presentation and 'Traditional Arabic' for a better one comes to mind.
A side note: There is no such thing as 'initial', 'medial' and final
form in Arabic script. Arabic characters join each-other to form a
word. In doing so, they happen to be at the beginning of the word, in
the middle or at the end. This distinction is important to emphasis
that Arabic script is not 'born' with this reductionist computer
interpretation of Arabic characters.
On 7-Mar-10, at 11:33 AM, Raymond Mercier wrote:
> Julian Bradfield:
>
>> When I look at the page, using Firefox 3 on OpenSuse 11, I see
>> letterforms that appear to match those in the table in Daniels and
>> Bright.
>> The font's awful (I've made no attempt to install any specific Arabic
>> support, as I don't read Arabic), but the shapes appear to be
>> correct.
>>
>> Screenshot at http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/jcb/a.gif
>> tell me if I'm wrong!
>
> Now when I install Firefox 3 on Windows the display also fails. So
> it's also necessary to work on OpenSuse ! I never thought it would
> come to that.
>
> Raymond Mercier <Arabic.jpg>
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Sun Mar 07 2010 - 12:35:03 CST
