Theiling Online    Sitemap    Conlang Mailing List HQ    Attic   

Re: A Font for Pictographs

From:Eugene Oh <un.doing@...>
Date:Sunday, December 14, 2008, 15:32
The font sounds like a great way to type IPA! Character Palette is only good
for minimal use. But when I tried to download your font it turned up a
missing page warning...
Eugene

On Sun, Dec 14, 2008 at 9:35 AM, David J. Peterson <dedalvs@...>wrote:

> 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. >> >

Reply

David J. Peterson <dedalvs@...>