Re: [css-text] Arabic letters connecting between elements with display: inline

On 27/05/2014 17:43, Asmus Freytag wrote:
> I think inserting markup between parts of an obligatory (or intended)
> ligature is a mistake by the author and requiring complex support to
> force this to "work" is counter productive.
>
> On the contrary, the expectation should be clear that ligatures are
> broken, so that authors can get visual feedback and proof their work.

The problem I see with this is that one of the many possible ligatures 
like lam-meem depends on the font used.  If the content author changes 
the font or a device changes the font from one that doesn't support 
lam-meem ligatures to one that does you don't want to have to go change 
all the markup or disable the effect.

This may however been a different kettle of fish from a lam-alif 
ligature, since the latter makes it more difficult to separate which 
part of the glyph represents which underlying character (at least in the 
form that looks like a crossed ribbon). I suspect, though I haven't 
tested it, that in general non-lam-alif ligatures such the lam-meem type 
keep the glyph representations of the underlying characters separate 
enough to allow differential colouring.

A quick test on Firefox shows that it breaks a lam-alif ligature if 
there is markup between the lam and alif, but that it tries to highlight 
the right parts of a lam-meem ligature.  IE, however, didn't do so.

RI

Received on Tuesday, 27 May 2014 16:56:18 UTC