Re: Font layouts

Terrence Donnelly wrote:
>
> I'm in the process of making a TrueType font which has more characters
> than can be accessed from a standard keyboard, and I'm wondering about the most
> logical way to proceed.
>
> Each letter has 4 forms: initial, medial, final and separate.  I can put
> the first two into the regular character map as unshifted and shifted
> versions.  The other two characters I would put into the character codes
> from 128-255, and in such a way that they could be accessed using
> Ctrl-Alt and Shift-Ctrl-Alt and the same key as before.  This assumes
> such a thing is possible; my font-making software assures me that it
> is (although I haven't tried it yet); but when I try to access
> existing fonts using Ctrl, Alt and Shift, nothing prints.
>
> Another idea I was toying with was making two auxiliary fonts for the
> second two forms, and calling them "bold" and "italic" members of the
> same font family as the original.  This way, you could select the
> different forms just by choosing Bold or Italic in your word processor.
>
> To produce the letter P, for example, you'd have the following options:
>
> Initial: shifted "p" (i.e. "P")
>
> Medial: unshifted "p"
>
> Final: ALT+0###  or  Ctrl-Alt-p or  BOLD
>
> Separate: ALT+0### or Shift-Ctrl-Alt-p or ITALIC
>
> Does this scheme appear reasonable. or is there a better way to approach
> this?  Also, I'll be working on an IBM, but I can produce a Mac TTF font,
> too.  Does the character mapping have to change for a Mac?
>
> -- Terry
>
> http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Corridor/2711

All your ideas sound logical and interesting.  However, since I faced a
similar situation myself not long ago, I wanted to ask you and anyone
else something:

As you're probably aware, the 4-form system for letters you describe is
very reminiscent of Arabic. On Arabic word processors, the form of the
letter changes AUTOMATICALLY as you type. It's great fun to watch,
especially given (IMHO) the tremendous beauty of the Arabic alphabet. I
mean you type, for example, a ba' (a letter "b"), then a mim ("m"), so
the mim is last and has the final form, but if you then add, say, a lam
("l") the mim changes automatically to the medial form.

I wonder whether you could kind of latch onto an Arabic font in some
way, and then maintain this system? It would be hard work, I'm sure, but
would also be perhaps a more logical way of coping with different forms
of the same letter, and certainly easier once you had it set up.


Good luck whatever way you choose!

        Shaul Vardi