Re: The future of (C-X-)SAMPA (was: New listserv, better unicode?)

Stephen Mulraney wrote at 2005-06-30 14:26:17 (+0100)

 > I wouldn't suggest for a moment that Unicode replace CXS. Unicode
 > putssome demands on the person who wants to see it, not just on
 > thosethat want to send it. You need to correctly configure your
 > mailer, oreven use a different one in some cases. Also, fonts that
 > are both notugly and contain the IPA range are desirable. And it's
 > not always easyto tell what fonts a successfully configured
 > application *is* using...(although I *think* when I see successful
 > Unicode IPA in thunderbird,it's using the lovely Gentium. Firefox
 > claims not to know about Gentium,but it looks like it's using
 > it...)

Clearly, there's a balance to be struck between promoting Unicode
through use (assuming one thinks it's a good thing in principle, which
many of us here probably do) and causing inconvenience to readers
unequipped to display it.  I'd like Unicode-capable softmare to become
relatively common and easier to use, and actually using it in mail is
one way to promote this end; but of course you can't push things
forward without running into the shortcomings of the existing situation.
Providing dual ASCII/Unicode versions seems like a reasonable
compromise.

(Incidentally, am I the only person who doesn't like Gentium?  The
glyphs seem nice enough at large sizes and it's probably a fine print
font, but on the screen it looks awful, on my system.)

 > My interest in Unicode on the list comes from my interest in
 > orthographies.My conlangs have usually had pretty weird looking
 > Latin or Cyrillic basedorthographies. and I like to use the same
 > scheme, as much as possible.in both notebooks and computer files -
 > and in examples I've sent to thelist in the past. Some examples
 > from past posts, from when mypermanently unfinished (better,
 > unbegun) lang was called ML4:

 > >>_ukt

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