Re: 7-bit and Grantha chars.

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

i think we should considered the harmful effects of using <FONT FACE=....>
See http://www.isoc.org:8080/web_ml/html/fontface.html

We should eventually move to using <LANG> tag to mark the language/charset 
medium. In fact HTML 4.0 has standardized the use of <LANG> tag..

http://www.w3.org/International/O-HTML.html
http://babel.alis.com:8080/web_ml/html/rfc-i18n/rfc-i18n-0.en.html

However, i not against the use of 7-bit font for word processor.


On Tue, 9 Sep 1997, George Hart wrote:

> I would like to keep all the normally used grantha characters, including kS
> and sri.  This is not because of any political agenda, only because I think
> many people will like to use those characters.  They have become a pretty
> standard part of Tamil.
> 
> With regard to upper or lower 128, I think we must differentiate between a
> font meant for the Web and one for use at home with word processors.  We
> have a font we have used extensively (it's available in public domain --
> tamlasr) which uses only the lower 128.  It works extremely well with word
> processors etc.  In fact, I've written a Mac program that takes text in
> Roman transliteration copied to the clipboard, converts it, and puts the
> converted text on the clipboard.  It will selectively change only bold
> text, and put the text into proper fonts.  With this sort of tool, there is
> absolutely no need to use the same font for Tamil and Roman.
> 
> It also seems to me that HTML is evolving in such a way that the font face
> command will soon be universal.  Netscape mail (but not yet Eudora)
> recognize HTML.  Soon, therefore, there will be no need for a font that
> combines Roman (lower 128) and Tamil (upper 128).
> 
> Here, then, is my suggestion:  Let's settle on a standard for both a 7-bit
> and 8-bit font.  AND let's make the two compatible -- that is, positions of
> the 8-bit font are the same as the positions of the 7-bit one, except with
> the first bit set to 1 instead of 0 (i.e. the 7-bit position + 128).  This
> will make conversion extremely simple -- and it will mean that we can
> easily create sorting algorithms etc. that work on both fonts.  George Hart
> 
> 
>