Observations on Unicode, RunRev and Operating Systems

[Scott Rossi]

Recently, Richmond wrote:

> 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.

Most likely this is Rev, not OS X.

The Mac was designed at its inception to render great typography in multiple
languages.  Unicode support and text rendering in Rev is fairly outdated;
there has never been great typographic control in Rev.

If you're seeing better text rendering in Rev on Windows, I'm not sure why,
but you should try displaying some text on OS X in TextEdit or other text
editing app.  My guess is the text will render (behave) much better.

Regards,

Scott Rossi
Creative Director
Tactile Media, UX Design