Hi,
Is there any font technology (truetype, opentype, cleartype, ATSUI,
Unicode, UCS or others?) that will allow the dynamic placement of
diacritical markers?
What I want to be able to do is dynamically place say an
arrow(diacritical marker) to specific points in the font to indicate
that area.
For e.g. the font may be a pictograph of a face. I would like to
represent the pictograph only once but be able to dynamically place an
arrow to specific parts of the face to indicate say chin or hair or
nose etc.
Thanks in advance
Tigerberry |
Request for Question Clarification by
jbf777-ga
on
17 May 2003 13:15 PDT
Hello -
As I understand fonts, they're really not intelligent entities. I.e.,
I may be wrong, but I've never heard of being able to configure a
particular character within a font on a dynamic basis. They're
typically just files that reside in some sort of font directory that
are read by the operating system or a program. What you're looking to
do is normally confined to the realms of drawing programs, such as
Adobe Illustrator or Corel. Please let us know how we can assist you
further.
Thanks,
jbf777-ga
GA Researcher
|
Clarification of Question by
tigerberry-ga
on
17 May 2003 16:38 PDT
Hi there,
This question really needs to be answered by a computing fonts or
typography expert. Fonts ARE intelligient and OpenType provides for
glyph substitution and dynamic composition of 2 or more glyphs to
allow a composite character to be printed. e.g.
É = E + [accent]
i.e.
Dynamic Composition Glyph = Base Glyph (E) + Diacritical marker (the
[accent])
What I need to know is whether the diacritical marker used in the
dynamic composition can be placed dynamically in any position relative
to the base glyph. That is placing the accent in any location on top
of or next to the E.
If this is possible, which font technology supports it - as listed
previously?
Hope this helps.
Tigerberry
|
Request for Question Clarification by
jbf777-ga
on
17 May 2003 17:20 PDT
Hi -
Yes, I'm certainly not an expert in typography. The dynamic
compositions and substitutions are definitely news to me. I have seen
such variations in characters, but only in static, pre-configured
character maps. What program are you using to do such dynamic
alteration? Is it some sort of font manager?
jbf777-ga
GA Researcher
|
Clarification of Question by
tigerberry-ga
on
18 May 2003 05:41 PDT
Hi,
With all due respect you obviously do not have the technical expertise
to answer my question. Can you please pass the question on to someone
who has expertise in the area or I will have no alternative than to
request a refund.
Thanks
Tigerberry
|
Request for Question Clarification by
jbf777-ga
on
18 May 2003 08:25 PDT
Tigerberry -
I didn't answer your question, and I don't plan to. I simply was
asking for clarification so that any one of us can get a better
understanding of what it is you're looking for.
jbf777-ga
GA Researcher
|
Request for Question Clarification by
jbf777-ga
on
18 May 2003 08:26 PDT
The way his service works, you are only charged when a researcher
*answers* your question. Clarification requests and comments are not
answers.
jbf777-ga
GA Researcher
|
Request for Question Clarification by
jbf777-ga
on
18 May 2003 08:49 PDT
that should say "this service"
|
Clarification of Question by
tigerberry-ga
on
18 May 2003 10:42 PDT
Hi there,
Thanks Serenata for the URL but I have already read the document
previously. I have completed extensive research already on the web.
What I was hoping for was if someone at google answers had a vast
knowledge on current font technologies who would know the answer or be
able to research through knowledgable sources a definitave yes or no
and if yes what technology.
I have consulted microsoft typography web pages / agfamonotype /
apple. Having posted a message on comp.fonts a reply stated that it
may be possible if opentype provides a dynamic accent provision in
their GPOS table. Having consulted the spec of this table, I am still
no further forward.
At the current time I have a font which has dynamic composition of
diacritics, for eg I have one glyph which represents a face. I have a
seperate glyph with the same face but with the addition of a pointer
to the top of the face indicating hair. I have another face glyph -
this time with a pointer pointing to the bottom of the face -
indicating a chin. Therefore, what I have is several representations
of the same base glyph only differing in the pointer position.
Ideally, to allow expansion of the language, I would like to represent
the face glyph only ONCE but allow a pointer to be placed at any part
rather than having to represent the same base glyph perhaps 10 or so
times where the only difference is in the position of the pointer. I
therefore, do not want to hardcode the position of the pointers, but
somehow allow for the dynamic placement to the base glyph - which will
allow extension of the language. If for eg I have not created a
pointer to a specific point in the glyph - for arguments sake lets say
the left side in the middle - this would indicate the cheek - there
would be no way this could be represented at run-time if a user wanted
until the glyph was added. By having the dynamic placement it allows
a user to have the flexibility to create new words by merely pointing
the pointer where they want, thus not depending of the addition to the
font.
Existing font technologies allow for dynamic composition which allows
a diacritical marker to be placed with the base glyph at a set point
defined with co-ordinates. I want to go a step further with my font
and have dynamically placed pointers which means in essence I only
have to represent base glyphs once which will allow the position of a
pointer to be at the users choice.
Please note this question relates to the fonts abilities and not to
that of the application which will process the font.
Hope this helps.
Tigerberry
|
