"name" table and platform specific encoding/language

[Manlio Perillo]

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Hi.

I think that the "name" table has some problems.

The second edition of the OFF standard fixed some of these problems
(platform dependent language ids), but there is still some work to be
done, IMHO.


The first problem is with the new format 1.
What is the reason why old platform specific languages IDs must still be
supported?

The second problem is with the supported encodings.

    USHORT    encodingID    Platform-specific encoding ID.

I hope to see all these "Platform-specific" things go away from the OFF
spec, some day.

I know that old applications that does not support Unicode needs the
name table as is; however modern applications and programming languages
supports Unicode, so I think that the "name" table should be changed.

The platformID should be removed, there is no need for it.
The same for encodingID.

I think that the name strings should be simply encoded in UTF-8.


I also think that the list of Microsoft and Macintosh specific language
IDs should be moved in a separate Annex.


Finally, in the "cmap" table, I think that OFF should **recommend** to
use of platform ID 0, and encoding ID 3 or 4.
All the references to Windows or Macintosh specific info should be moved
elsewhere, as recommendations to maintain compatibility with older software.



Thanks   Manlio
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