Re: font encoding -possible slot assignments for glyphs

[Leong Kok Yong <kokyong@irdu.nus.sg>]

Is the 'copyright' and 'All rights reserved' symbol required or important 
here?
Because by not including it, web publisher will not be able to use this
symbol in their web page. The copyright symbol is at ASCII 169. The 'all
rights reserved' symbol is at 174.
The problem will be more obvious when the this font is used to view an
English-only page containing such symbols. The symbol will be display as a
Tamil character at that code point.




On Fri, 5 Sep 1997, Dr.K. Kalyanasundaram wrote:

> Dear Friends:
> To keep advancing in our discussions for a possible standard 
> font-encoding scheme for tamil, I have now put up a gif image file 
> that shows possible tamil character glyphs that can go in the
> future (standard) font encoding scheme (font) for tamil. The 
> URL reference is:
>     http://www.geocities.com/Athens/5180/charset1.gif
> 
> At the outset let me state that, it is a preliminary version (labelled
> as version 1.0) with some arbitrary slot assignments to the
> choice of tamil character glyphs that I listed earlier with some
> changes. In the 9th row, I have now indicated in parenthesis, 
> possible inclusion of tamil numerals. These numerals are there 
> in the Unicode/ISCII standard set for tamil. The present scheme 
> has all the glyphs that are listed in the unicode set for tamil. 
> It is the outcome of several months discussions (sometimes
> very hot) that we had in these forums. So it is very much your 
> scheme.
> 
> I repeat, it is a draft  (!).  There are still scope for improvements.
>  I humbly request all tamil lovers to have a close and calm
> look at this gif and pass on your comments - positive as well
> as negative. Based on the suggestions, we can revise the
> assignments and review again the revised character/glyph set.
> 
> For the benefit of those who missed earlier discussions (e.g 
> those in tamil.net alone), I just summarise the key points:
> 
> a) To ensure high quality output, kerning process is kept to the
> bare minimum and majority of the tamil character glyphs are 
> kept as such.  Only the ikara and iikara varisai uyirmeis are 
> to be typed using the modifier keys. (thus only 36 out of 256
> are generated this way). Since these are right-end
> modifiers there should not be problems in implementation.
> Also most of the DTP packages that allow romanized/phonetic
> input are "interpreted output" type. For these, high quality 
> versions of the above set of uyirmeis can be stored and 
> called up when necessary.
> 
> b) old style characters (for lai/Nai/nai, Ra, Naa, naa) are kept
> mainly to ensure that, electronic archiving of ancient tamil 
> literature in the original form in which they were first written 
> is possible. We do not have to sacrifice anything for this.
> In Singapore conference, many including Prof. H. Schiffman
> emphasised that only if we make provisions for old  style
> characters it will be possible to electronically reproduce/publish
> literatures that are still in palm-leaf manuscripts. TamilNet'97
> conference held recently in Singapore officially decided to 
> keep these old  style characters in font encoding scheme.
> No one is obliged to use them if they do not want. 
> I propose that DTP packages be written in such a way that the
> default option is the modern version. Old version output given
> as a possible pull-down menu option.
> 
> c) grantha characters: are kept for the same reasons indicated
> above under (b). The modifiers are to be used to get the ikara,
> iikara, ukara, uukara varisais. Since these grantha characters
> are rarely used, one can accept some medium quality output
> for these grantha ones. Here again, softwares can be written
> in such a way to provide high quality output required for 
> commercial publishing houses.
> 
> d) four diacritical markers are included that will allow typing
> tamil in the classical transliterated format, familiar and widely
> used by indologists. This way we can have one single integrated,
> bilingual font that allow typing tamil in tamil script and in
> transliterated format (romanized with or without diacritical
> markers) all at the same time!
> 
> e) space is still there to accommodate tamil numerals. 
> Yes, no body uses them these days. But these are there
> for reasons listed under (b) and also, most importantly, to 
> have the unicode/iscii standard set for tamil as a sub-set.
> If we can keep the unicode set as a sub-set of integrated font, 
> it will be possible to write up a one-to-one mapping table and allow 
> softwares to save tamil text files in these unicode/iscii format.
> This way we can make the present scheme co-exist happily
> in the unicode world and also facilitate smooth transitions
> at a later date. 
> 
> I request again all tamil computing users to have a look at this
> font encoding scheme and see if it has everything you would like
> to see in the standardised tamil font of the 21st century.
> This is rather URGENT and we need input from everyone of you.
> If you do not want to flood the mailing list, please send 
> your comments (positive or negative) directly to me. This way
> I can have some idea on its possible acceptance by the tamil
> community. I will try to summarise the emails I get to my mailbox.
> 
> with best regards,
> Kalyan
> 
> PS:  My apologies to those who are in more than one mailing
> list. I do not know who is which list to filter out possible duplicate
> mails going to the same person.
> 
> --
> *******************************************************************
> Dr. K. Kalyanasundaram,            |
> Institute of Physical Chemistry,   | Tel: 41-21-693 3622 (off)
> Swiss Federal Inst. of Technology  | Fax: 41-21-693 4111
> CH-1015 Lausanne, Switzerland      | Email:kalyan@igcsun3.epfl.ch
> *******************************************************************
>