[TYPO3] TYPO3-english Digest, Vol 55, Issue 87

[Mike Meir]

-----Original Message-----

Date: Mon, 28 Apr 2008 13:56:28 +0200
From: "Christopher Torgalson" <bedlamhotel at gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [TYPO3] Strange problem with UTF-8 menus
To: "TYPO3 English" <typo3-english at lists.netfielders.de>
Message-ID:
	
<mailman.3440.1209383826.18990.typo3-english at lists.netfielders.de>
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[...]

> I don't know if it's exactly relevant, but Korean text (Hangul) which
> is alphabetic-syllabic (i.e. alphabetic letters arranged into
> syllables which are then placed along the basline like letters) *does*
> work fine in with TYPO3/GIFBUILDER. There are few ligatures in Korean
> though (some dipthongs are joined, but I don't know if they're
> separate characters in the font or not)?

Hi

Hangul (Korean) syllables are conceptually combinations of Hangul jamo,
but the vast majority of currently-used syllables have their own Unicode
code points. Code points are generated by keyboard drivers, i.e. they
are combined locally on the client into individual Unicode code points,
so a Korean open type font does not have ligature tables unless it
contains glyphs for syllables which are not encoded.

Korean text is, nevertheless, linear - the glyphs are displayed in the
order in which they appear in the text stream. Indic scripts are not
linear, since a vowel sign may need to be displayed at the beginning of
its syllable, and the only way to achieve this is to reorder the glyphs
involved. For example, if a consonant  is followed by a dependent vowel
in the text store, it may have to be displayed as vowel followed by
consonant for reading (or even vowel1 consonant vowel2).

The question really is whether the incoming text stream is analysed to
identify its script, and then if the script is relevant, is it passed to
a shaping engine before being passed to the rendering engine.

Arabic requires a great deal of ligation and substitution of characters,
although it is linear - so it would be interesting to know if Arabic
text can be used in gif builder. But then, Arabic has historically been
much better supported than Indic scripts.

Best Wishes


Mike Meir
Gate Seven
www.gateseven.net.