RE: [1.2T-LC] i18n comment 1: Explanation of ligatures (ISSUE-2102)

Here are some suggestions for wording in 10.2:

[1] Remove the parens from "(Note that for proper rendering of many languages, ligatures are required for certain character combinations.)" and tack on to the end "and are not optional typographic features.  For example, this is the case for most languages throughout South and South East Asia."

[2] Add another bullet point, perhaps in 3rd position, that says something along the lines of

[[
Context-sensitive glyph positioning - In many scripts, the precise positioning of the glyph for a given character (especially diacritics) will vary according to the visual context.  For example, Thai tone marks are rendered above the base consonant, but need to be moved upwards further if a vowel-sign also appears above the base consonant. The same character is used in memory, but the final location of the glyph is sensitive to context.
]]



[3] Add another bullet just after the one above something like...

[[
Complex positioning of character glyphs - In scripts, such as those used for Indian languages, a combining vowel character that appears after a base consonant in memory may be displayed to the left of the base consonant, or on two sides of the base consonant, ie. the left-most glyph in rendered text may not be the first character in a text element.  Indeed, such vowel characters may be rendered to the left of, or on more than one side of, a <em>cluster</em> of consonants that ends with the character they follow in memory.  On the other hand, a Hindi RA character at the beginning of a consonant cluster in memory may be displayed over a following vowel sign to the right of the following syllabic cluster.  The location in which glyphs are displayed, from left to right, in these scripts can differ significantly from the order of the characters in memory.
]]


If you add some additional wording along the lines of the above, and given the changes already made,  I believe you will satisfy our comment.

Thank you.

RI


============
Richard Ishida
Internationalization Lead
W3C (World Wide Web Consortium)

http://www.w3.org/International/
http://rishida.net/



> -----Original Message-----
> From: Doug Schepers [mailto:schepers@w3.org]
> Sent: 11 October 2008 03:59
> To: ishida@w3.org
> Cc: www-svg@w3.org; public-i18n-core@w3.org
> Subject: Re: [1.2T-LC] i18n comment 1: Explanation of ligatures (ISSUE-2102)
> 
> Hi, I18N-
> 
> Thanks for your review and comments.
> 
> ishida@w3.org wrote (on 10/10/08 3:40 PM):
> > Comment from the i18n review of:
> > http://www.w3.org/TR/2008/WD-SVGMobile12-20080915/
> >
> > Comment 1 At http://www.w3.org/International/reviews/0810-svg-tiny/
> > Editorial/substantive: E Tracked by: RI
> >
> > Location in reviewed document: 10.2
> > [http://www.w3.org/TR/SVGMobile12/text.html#CharactersAndGlyphs]
> >
> > Comment: "(Note that for proper rendering of some languages,
> > ligatures are required for certain character combinations.)"
> >
> >
> > "Composite characters - In various situations"
> >
> >
> > "Some typography systems examine "
> >
> >
> > "In some languages, particular sequences of characters "
> >
> >
> > I would change 'some' and 'various' to 'many'.
> 
> All fixed. For this and subsequent responses, please see the revised
> wording in the Editor's Draft to see if the changes are satisfactory. [1]
> 
> 
> > Ligatures are required
> > in scripts all across Asia, and composite messages are even more
> > common. Especially since this is SVG Tiny, and will therefore play a
> > role in the mobile Web, I think it's important to make implementers
> > consider support for complex script features. I did some testing of
> > the font features and noted that OpenType features required for the
> > Indic scripts I tested were not supported. This is a common scenario,
> > and has been for a long time. I don't think implementers are actually
> > aware of the fact that ligatures and such are not just frilly
> > features for most languages throughout Asia.
> 
> Oh, surely there can't be that many people that use Asian languages! ;P
> 
> 
> > I'd generally like to
> > see a little more emphasis on this in the document. (I'd have
> > actually liked to see a graphical example of rendering in a complex
> > script here - i may be able to provide one if you like.)
> 
> We're willing to add more treatment of this, if you have something
> specific in mind.  We would certainly appreciate sample wording or an
> SVG image, if you have a representative sample.
> 
> While we are following up on possibly expanding our explanation of this,
> could you please let us know if this response satisfies your comment in
> general?
> 
> [1]
> http://dev.w3.org/SVG/profiles/1.2T/publish/text.html#CharactersAndGlyphs
> 
> Regards-
> -Doug

Received on Monday, 3 November 2008 16:45:34 UTC