[mpeg-OTspec] DAM2 comments

[John Hudson]

On 05/09/16 13:11, Jonathan Kew jfkthame at gmail.com [mpeg-OTspec] wrote:

> This would appear to ignore/exclude the use of 'init' in Bengali script,
> as well as being a major change from the existing description of the
> features, which mentions "...common in Latin connecting scripts..." as
> well as scripts like Arabic.
>
> I don't know whether there are many examples where these features have
> been used for cursive behavior in non-Arabic-like scripts (at
> https://www.microsoft.com/typography/otspec/features_fj.htm#fina, use in
> Poetica is mentioned, but I don't know if that was an example of a
> shipping product or just a potential example of where it_might_  have
> been used), but the use of 'init' in Bengali, at least, is
> well-established. Is that to be deprecated? Replaced by something else?

The whole point of the revision is that there isn't, and that Adobe 
doesn't use it as described for e.g. Poetica, and the features do not 
actually work as previously described in the spec.

My initial documentation on the proposed change included mention of the 
Bengali exception.
http://tiro.com/OTWG/20160203-Joining_Feature_Proposal_1.2.pdf
It could be called out in the <init> feature description, or noted as an 
exception in the Bengali shaping specification. Personally, I think the 
latter is sufficient, since the exception is only of importance to 
people implementing OT Bengali layout and fonts. The Bengali use in 
<beng> and <bng2> isn't to be deprecated, but a putative <bng3> would 
pass to USE, which would only apply these features to ArabicShaping.txt 
scripts.

JH


-- 

John Hudson
Tiro Typeworks Ltd    www.tiro.com
Salish Sea, BC        tiro at tiro.com

Getting Spiekermann to not like Helvetica is like training
a cat to stay out of water. But I'm impressed that people
know who to ask when they want to ask someone to not like
Helvetica. That's progress. -- David Berlow