Re: [Freebangfont-devel] Re: [Bengalinux-core] Conjunct encoding/representation?

[Sayamindu Dasgupta]

On Wed, 2003-02-05 at 04:16, Shaheed R. Haque wrote:
> 
> Sayamindu,
> 
> Hi...I think you have given me at least half the answer...
> 
> > Actually, as far as I understand, the usage of the private area is
> > immaterial. The glyphs there are never called directly. The position is
> > defined in the OTF tables, and that handles all the hard stuff. For
> > example, if you have a glyph cluster of Ka Hasanta Ka, the tables will
> > substitute that cluster with a single glyph for Kae-Ka.
> 
> OK, it sounds like these OTF tables include the logic I was trying to 
> describe. 
> So now, the remaining part of my question is: can these tables be 
> standardised? 
> I assume that if they could, then it would CONSIDERABLY reduce the effort of 
> designing a font that included conjuncts?
> 

Yes - to a certain extent it certainly does simplify matters.
However, the real "baansh" comes ;-) when you try to handle the GPOS
(postitioning) tables with that approach.
Positioning comes in use when you try to display the vowel signs, ie,
the aa-kaars (matras). I have attached a screenshot of Raga (normal ttf)
showing ku. As you can see, the hrashwa-ukaar is nowhere near ka. This
can be handled using GPOS tables. However, certain developers use extra
glyphs for handling the aakaars (ie, they specify glyphs for ku, khu,
gu, and so on, and display them with GSUB tables).Developers also design
the aakaar glyphs so that they overlap with the normal glyphs.
For example, Akaash does not have any GPOS tables, it handles everything
with the help of the last two methods (and they work - see second
screenshot ;-).
-cheers-
sdg



-- 
Sayamindu Dasgupta [ http://www.peacefulaction.org/sayamindu/ ]

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ku1.png
Description: PNG image

ku2.png
Description: PNG image