Observations on Unicode, RunRev and Operating Systems

[Kee Nethery]

On Sep 3, 2010, at 2:42 PM, Richmond wrote:

> On 9/3/10 11:27 PM, Scott Rossi wrote:
>> Recently, Richmond wrote:
>> 
>>> If one opens a Unicode font with a font development program what the
>>> user sees are lots and lots of glyphs; what most people don't see are
>>> all sorts of
>>> rules as to how they should behave when the end-user types something
>>> using that
>>> font, possibly also using a text-encoding algorithm built into their
>>> operating system.
>>> 
>>> Why should we care?
>>> 
>>> Because, while Windows Vista and '7', and Linux works wonderfully with
>>> Unicode
>>> fonts giving those rules cognisance, Mac OS and Windows XP don't . . .
>> What do you mean "all sorts of rules as to how they should behave"?  Kerning
>> pairs?  Ligatures?  Multi-key characters?  Something else?
>> 
>> If you're really talking about Mac OS (pre OS X), I wouldn't be surprised.
> 
> I am talking about Mac OS X . . .
> 
> To illustrate the point you can download a stack which illustrates the point rather
> nicely:
> 
> http://andregarzia.on-rev.com/richmond/STUFF/Daft_Unicode.zip
> 
> the ZIP file contains the Sanskrit2003 font (which you should install on your system, at least temporarily)
> and a stack which uses the font to illustrate the point.
> 
> I you have access to a number of machines running a selections of operating systems you
> will see the 'problem' in all its glory.
> 
>> AFAIK, Unicode was only in its infancy when Mac OS was around, and general
>> adoption probably took a while.  By then, OS X was coming on the scene, so
>> presumably most/all development efforts were shifted to that OS.
> 
> Well, somebody forgot a thing or two about Unicode with Mac OS X, and the Apple people
> probably need a "prod" about that.
> 
>> Regards,
>> 
>> Scott Rossi
>> Creative Director
>> Tactile Media, UX Design

I'm no unicode expert and I applaud your efforts. I see two possible places for a bug in unicode for the stack you have provided: Mac OS X, or the user installed Sanskrit font. 

Might you have an example that uses any of the fonts that come bundled with Mac OS X? That would rule out the user installed font as the problem and point directly to the OS. If you could provide such an example, I could absolutely file it in the Apple bug system. 

If the bug only occurs with the provided Sanskrit font, do you have a unicode organization recognized validator (kind of like http://validator.w3.org/) that would indicate that the provided Sanskrit font passes all validations imposed by the standard. Again, if there is a way to prove the font is 100% valid, and there are display problems on the Mac OS X, I could file that bug in the Apple bug system. 

Kee Nethery (who is a neophyte Unicode user)