Re: xterm with combining characters

[erik@xxxxxxxxxxxx (Erik van der Poel)]

Robert Brady wrote:
> 
> OpenType has a GPOS table which deals with this kind of thing. I'm not
> sure if Type1 has an analogue (well, I guess it does : the GPOS table in
> Type1-style OpenType fonts. ;)
> 
> But BDF fonts have nothing along these lines. This is something that will
> have to be defined. I envisage extra data in BDF and PCF fonts, and
> possibly some magic extensions to the renderer that activate if the XLFD
> ends with -iso10646-1.

No, please don't limit the high-end font functionality to *-iso10646-1
fonts. That's an unnecessary limitation, IMO.

Why not define a new X protocol extension that allows an X client to
receive the font info? OpenType's GSUB, GPOS and kern can be passed to
the client this way. If we have to use something other than
TrueType/OpenType, then at least build some extensibility into the font
format, similar to TrueType's named sections ("GSUB", "cmap", etc).

If you define an X extension for this purpose, new clients can ask the X
servers whether they support it, and can handle old X servers
gracefully. Since both the old and new ways are supported during the
transition period, migration is enabled. That's the beauty of the X
protocol's extension negotiation feature.

[I'm not on linux-utf8, only on fonts.]

Erik
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Linux-UTF8:   i18n of Linux on all levels
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