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[Andrew Cunningham]

Hi Richard

On 29/02/2008, Richard Smith <rzs at wildblue.net> wrote:

>   I'll take your word for it!
>  but I'm not sure of the difference between "half ring below" and "ogonek" ?
>  (the definition of which i didn't find on my iMac dictionary)
>  Is there a special dictionary for linguistic terms?
>

You are using U+031C in your example, whereas it would appear that Mia
is using U+0328.

Going by the samples i've seen to date: á̜ vs ą́

each of you seem to be using different Unicode characters.

>  I've had some success setting up a Wyandot keyboard with the UKELELE
> program
>  which is free, and allows for creating multiple keyboard layouts.
>  Its fairly simple for computer illiterates like myself. They don't always
> email well
>  but for class handouts or for simply snap-n-drag .jpgs of the handouts
>  to email ...they are ok.

I'm familiar with Ukelele, and starting to use it. Only recently
starting working on the MacOS again.

Email can be a problem, its still the weakest link in Unicode support.
There are some web based email services that are Unicode based, and
some good email clients it you use a POP3 or IMAP account.

The key issue is that not all email clients and web based email
systems can use Unicode

The second issue is that you require a email client or web based email
account that allows you to change the font email messages use to
display the email message with to an appropriate font for your
language. Since for indigenous languages, the default fonts are
usually unsuitable.

At best in Firefox and Opera, you get an ugly ransom effect where the
programs switch fonts inside words to try to try to display glyphs not
available in their default fonts. This font switching can also break
the rendering of combining diacritics.

Its possible to send an email as formatted HTML rather than as plain
text, but not all email clients can render HTML, so not ideal solution
for all users.

When using Yahoo, Hotmail or Gmail, we use Firefox here, and the
Stylish extension. This allows use to setup CSS rules for out public
computers that optimise the display of email messages to use the fonts
the languages we support need to get good display results with email
messages.

Works well.

>  SOME fonts allow me to use a two step key stroke...for  á̜ others fonts
> will mess with my "half ring",
>  so i've gotten accustomed to just running the three step process!
>  Verdana and Lucida Grande which i stumbled on by accident (I liked the
> name!)
>  works great for a two stroke and leaves nice spacing between letters.
>  but it seems L.G. isn't a commonly recognized font on some tribal members
> older computers.

I tend to find supporting on the MacOS is problematic these days.
Apple uses AAT fonts and ATSUI for its rendering system, but many
software developers aren't using it. They tend to opt for OpenType
support instead. So every application using OpenType are doing their
own thing, using their own rendering system, and implementing
different parts of the OpenType specification. Its confusing. And
Apple are also looking at their own OpenType rendering system. So many
different combinations on the one platform. As bad as the Linux
platforms, although there are moves for standardisation on Linux
platforms.

The key issue is the need to support

-- 
Andrew Cunningham
Vicnet Research and Development Coordinator
State Library of Victoria
Australia

andrewc at vicnet.net.au
lang.support at gmail.com