Re: Making necessary OpenType features on by default

["Idris Samawi Hamid ادريس سماوي حامد" <ishamid@colostate.edu>]

On Fri, 20 Feb 2009 14:02:58 -0700, Khaled Hosny <khaledhosny@eglug.org>  
wrote:

>>>>  Microsoft's OpenType features list page
>>>> (http://www.microsoft.com/typography/otspec/features_ae.htm) gives a  
>>>> "UI
>>>> suggestion" for each feature noting if it should be on by default, I
>>>> think those are what most OpenType enable by default (at least the  
>>>> ones
>>>> I tested).
>>
>>> i've been thinking of a features=default option (as there is already
>>> features=yes|no)
>>
>> Maybe we can have a features=ms_arabic
>>
>> instead of defaulting to MS' recommendation. So in the final high-end
>> user interface we can have keys like
>>
>> featureset=ms_arabic
>
> I think the 'ms' part is't really needed, we can just call it"arabic",
> or are we going to have more Arabic feature sets?

We are almost certainly going to have more :-)

>> But I agree with Hans that this is a matter that needs more thought. For
>> example, Traditional Arabic mixes OpenType and older M$ specs in
>> Uniscribe, so just plugging in the default features that M$ suggests is
>> not sufficient for, eg, vowel function in Tr Ar.
>
> That is beyond OpenType support, since Traditional Arabic is essentially
> broken at many levels, even when Uniscribe is used (vowel marks break
> lam-alef ligatures for example), Ms Arabic fonts are special case since
> they were developed long ago before OpenType and aren't the best
> examples.

OTOH there are a lot of arabic fonts like this around that we want to  
support as well if we can... We a font categorization scheme to fit the  
most used fonts in the this regard.

>> Also, what about Arabic
>> fonts on the mac, so they follow the same specs as M$?
>
> AFAIK, Microsoft's Uniscribe is the reference OpenType implementation,
> and I assume that Apple's OpenType implementation follows its
> recommendations (I can't test that).

This is something we should investigate... uniscribe is quirky in a few  
areas -- it does extra spell-checking beyond what Arabic actually needs,  
for example. That's one reason I'm not comfortable with using it as a  
default standard.

Khaled: Have you considered making an inventory of available Arabic fonts?  
Or does one already exist? We could put together a table of what's  
available, checking for available OT features, etc.

سلام
Idris

-- 
Professor Idris Samawi Hamid, Editor-in-Chief
International Journal of Shi`i Studies
Department of Philosophy
Colorado State University
Fort Collins, CO 80523
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