Re: A Font for Pictographs

Oh, I can tell you why--and let me tell you, when the change�occurred, I was NOT
happy.��I, as some may or may not know, am a 100% Mac person, and�have
been since I started using computers (my first was an Apple�IIe). Back when I
started in linguistics, Mac was still running OS 9�(now known as "Classic"
[well, actually now non-existent: what�*used* to be known as "Classic" during
the early days of OS X]).�In those days, you'd download a font like the SIL
font, and all�the characters would be mapped to keystrokes, as the
following�(on the left is the keystroke, on the right is the X-SAMPA
character�[which, of course, would print out as an IPA character]):��s =
[s]�S = [S]�z = [z]�Z = [Z]�e = [e]�E = [E]�d = [d]�D =
[D]��etc.��You can see why this would be an ideal system.��Anyway,
I used to use this font called the Kansas University�Linguistics Department
IPA font (called KULDIPA2). I liked this�font because it allowed you to write
*all* the upper and lower�case letters, *and* it had most of the
run-of-the-mill IPA symbols.�This way, when I wrote up my dictionaries in
AppleWorks (another�defunct program), I could just use one font for the whole
thing.�What a relief! The way it worked, though, was it made use of�Apple's
"alt" key and the "alt+shift" combination, and mapped�most every symbol to a
bunch of weird places, e.g.:��alt+5 = [E]�alt+6 = [U]�alt+k =
[D]��They were totally counter-intuitive, but once you learned
the�keystroke for each character, you could write up an entire�document
with one font, including upper case letters *and*�punctuation. It was
wonderful!��Then came OS X. Of course, it was wonderful in many ways.�One
thing it did, though, was it killed these fonts that are created�just like
the fonts I make (which is why Sidaan's font displays�correctly, by the way),
because it opened up Unicode to Macs.�Because of that, *all* the SIL fonts
switched to Unicode mappings.�This is why if you download and install a SIL
font now and just�type, it looks just like an ordinary font. In order to
properly use�it, you have to use the Mac's "Character Palette", which, in
my�opinion, is hopelessly inefficient. Of course, for
philosophical�reasons, this is better (if you type shift+a, you should get
the�grapheme "capital A", not some other character), but it makes�life
difficult for conlangers. In fact, the result of this was once�I switched
over, it just about destroyed all my old documents.�That Kansas University
font didn't work at ALL anymore, and�I had to go back and replace EVERY
SINGLE ENTRY in just�about every dictionary I had using that font. I'm still
not done�with Zhyler, in fact (which is why, I don't know if
anyone's�noticed, I haven't done anything with that language in,
oh,�about...three, four years? My old dictionary still isn't
fully�converted yet!).��So, what to do? Well, I did a couple of things.
First, all the fonts�I create are mapped to keystrokes I know, using the old
alt and�alt+shift Mac rows (it probably doesn't make much sense to�Windows
users, but it does to me). Second (and this is relevant�for you, Eric), I
created a new font called DaveIPA. What is it?�It's the old SIL font. The
only difference is I created it so it works�just like the old one does--just
like the mapping above. If you�download this font and install it, it'll work
just like the old one.�Using my font creation program, I basically opened up
the new�SIL font, scrolled down to the Unicode locations of the IPA
characters,�and pasted them into the places where I was used to them
being,�and made that a font. This font certainly isn't as useful as
the�regular SIL font for those who are used to dealing with Unicode,�but
you might rather like it, Eric. If you'd like to give it a whirl,�you can
download it here:��http://dedalvs.free.fr/dl/daveipa.ttf��I understand
that this is a Mac-only, non-ideal stop-gap solution,�but until there's a
better way to Unicode on a Mac, I'm sticking�with my
font.��-David�*******************************************************************�"sunly
eleSkarez ygralleryf ydZZixelje je ox2mejze."�"No eternal reward will forgive
us now for wasting the dawn."��-Jim
Morrison��http://dedalvs.free.fr/��On Dec 13, 2008, at 10∞24 PM, Eric
Christopherson wrote:��> On Dec 13, 2008, at 8:00 PM, Eric Christopherson
wrote:�>�>> On Dec 13, 2008, at 6:49 PM, Gary Shannon wrote:�>>�>>> ---
On Sat, 12/13/08, Gary Shannon <fiziwig@...> wrote:�>>>�>>> The font has
been corrected to work properly with Microsoft�>>> Internet Explorer. The new
version has been uploaded to my page:�>>>�>>>
<http://fiziwig.com/glyph/fragz01.html>�>>�>> Has anyone gotten it working
on a Mac? I'm having no luck.�>�> Also (and maybe this is part of the
reason it's not working for�> me), could someone help me out with
symbol-encoded fonts on Macs?�> There are certain fonts - like Symbol and the
old SIL 93 IPA fonts�> - which don't seem to work in OS X like on Windows.
Namely, in�> Windows if you select Symbol and start typing normal ASCII�>
characters with it, they come out as Greek letters of other�> symbols; but in
OS X it just shows regular Roman text. Why is that,�> and is there a way to
change it?�>�> That seems to be true of some conscript fonts on web pages
too -�> they show up as regular Roman text. For some reason, David's
Sidaan�> font displays correctly.�

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