Re: [WMASTERS] Font Standards : Observations / Suggestions

["Ravindran K. Paul" <ravink@pop.jaring.my>]

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We have I believe come to almost the end of the discussion, but
it has to be noted that there is still no agreement on what should
be included and what should be left out.

There are in my mind still several other matters that have not 
even been addressed yet, but at this time, I believe the following
matters and issues must be considered.

1.	This discussion is just between a minority group of
individuals who have no "authority" to implement any standard
or reform. As such, this attempt is limited to a group of 
individuals attempting to set a standard. 

2.	Considering this lack of authority to implement reforms
our sole task should be to allow interaction between existing 
products. I, as a commercial vendor and definitely all other 
commercial vendors will have to supply all the characters requested
by customers, this includes all the grantha chracters, old tamil,
sri and ksha. It is not an option. 

As for tamil numerals, I don't even know what they look like and I
don't think any vendor has implemented them in their standard
character set. I would thus prefer it to be left out.

Thus, if we are interested in getting as many vendors as possible 
to accept this standard, all characters have to be included. 
Alternatively, people like Muthu and I might privately agree to
a superset of this standard to accomodate the characters we need.

3.	I personally believe that if this discussion was carried 
out in a public gathering from the Tamil using public, we would
be forced to adopt all characters.

4.	Further as someone pointed out, if my font has grantha
characters and the new standard does not, how are we supposed 
to translate the text??

5.	One other matter that has been completely ignored is 
the quality of fonts in the ikara and iikaara varisai. Muthu
and I had brought this matter earlier, but it has not been discussed.
The shape of the kokki for "yi" and "pi" id differnt from "ki". I 
would request that 2 or 3 extra spaces next to the "kokki" symbol 
to allow for more aesthetic fonts.

6.	Although there is some disussion on sorting, I believe 
this matter is not that simple. Most of us want the ability to sort
and uses indexes using current software like dbase, access and 
excel and other such standard software. This would require an 
entirely different encoding. 

7.	One character that has not been considered is the ri, rii
and ir characters. It must be noted that in Singapore ri, rii and ir
are a combination of the "ra" and the "kokki" and "pulli", but as
far as I know in Tamil nadu and Malaysia it 'kAll(‘)' + the kokki
and pulli. I would like some comment on this matter.

It should be noted that most of the members of this discussion
are gravitating towards and all inclusive font, especially as
echoed by George Hart. I would only request that it be truly
inclusive, especially considering commercial considerations.

I would like to stress again here that as it stands now, this 
standard is just an agreement between like minded individuals 
and has no official recognition. We can only hope that 
recognition will follow, once we demonstrate that it 
is indeed a "good" standard.

Thank you.

Regards,

Ravi
http://www.itstation.com


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