Re: Encoding: Referring people to a list of labels

On 30 January 2014 07:59, Anne van Kesteren <annevk@annevk.nl> wrote:

> On Wed, Jan 29, 2014 at 4:18 AM, Andrew Cunningham
> <lang.support@gmail.com> wrote:
> > Firefox provides no UI to switch graphite support on and off.
>
> Why do you need to switch it off? Per
> https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=700023 it has been
> enabled by default for a while now.
>
>
ON for some platforms after an unspecified version (not for older versions
before path landed)

and not for all platforms i.e. Android (phones and tablets)

I can think of some cases, mainly where there is a divergence of between
opentype and graphite. But for desktop versions they are edge cases.

But primary reason is for Android platform and being able to activate
graphite and disable it when its needed, Firefox for Android ships with the
Charis SIL font which has opentype, aat and graphite tables. The graphite
tables are sophisticated and when graphite is enabled uses more memory
resources, so more efficient to disable graphite support then enable it
when required.

And yes there used to be a Firefox for Android addon to toggle Graphite
support ... but it should be something within the UI


> > An added complication is that some of the graphite fonts I use
> > are both graphite and opentype fonts with the graphite support being both
> > more flexible and more powerful than the openrype implementations.
> >
> > Unfortunately the CSS folks chose to only support opentype fonts
> explicitly
> > in the font modules. Some rules will work others will not.
> >
> > It is pot luck whether graphite is supported or unsupported. There is
> > nothing the web developer can do.
> >
> > They have no control.
> >
> > Maybe the CSS cascade can be used to provide both rules for opentype and
> > graphite features. But such an approach is problematic and awkward.
>
> Sounds like we need more tests.
>
> I am working on some. But problem is that in CSS there is no way to
specify rules specifically for an OT shaper, Graphite shaper or AAT shaper.

so test cases would be using cascade,  in some way that is a hack. Or maybe
a javascript approach.

>
> > The reality is that the browser developers choose what they want to
> > implement.  There are lots of useful and crucial components in CSS that
> have
> > not been implemented or widely implemented.
> > Both Firefox and blink use hb-ng.  So both could use graphite shapers,
>  but
> > blink developers are not interested.
> >
> > Come to think of it,  hb-ng is far from up to date in blink.
> >
> > There is a reluctance to address these issuses within specs,  and there
> is a
> > reluctance to extend multilingual web support among web developers.
> >
> > At the moment guidelines are being developed here for the development and
> > deployment of multilingual government information. Some of the languages
> our
> > government publishes in are languages that either need pseudo-unicode
> fonts
> > or graphite Unicode fonts.
> >
> > I am really tempted to take your comments at face value and make a
> > recomendation that government websites in our juristIction only support
> > Firefox.
> >
> > Begs the question should governments do that.
> >
> > If it was one website...  or a small community....  maybe....
> >
> > But...  even Firefox has a fair way to go before it is an ideal tool for
> > multilingual web typography.
>
> If nobody starts using graphite fonts, Blink will not have a reason to
> support it.
>
>
umm ...

there are quite a few graphite fonts out there, some of the ironies about
blink not supporting Graphite is that some of the fonts in the Google Font
Directory are Graphite fonts. At least one of the fonts Google ships on
Android 4.4 is a graphite font .....

It isn't that they aren't in use ...



> --
> http://annevankesteren.nl/
>



-- 
Andrew Cunningham
Project Manager, Research and Development
(Social and Digital Inclusion)
Public Libraries and Community Engagement
State Library of Victoria
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Melbourne VIC 3000
Australia

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Mobile: 0459 806 589
Email: acunningham@slv.vic.gov.au
          lang.support@gmail.com

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