Re: [Freetype] fonts handling in Java

[Werner LEMBERG]

> I am building an editor in java for sanskrit.  In sanskrit for each
  character two glyphs have to be displayed.  Is there any classes
  available in java to handle glyphs like this or how do I have to go
  about it, can anyone please help me in solving this problem

Firstly, you are on the wrong mailing list if you ask for help
w.r.t. Java programming.  Secondly, the assumption that you need two
glyphs for a single input character is plain wrong -- this is neither
true for the ISCII standard nor for Unicode.

It is possible to map Sanscrit input sequences to glyphs which are one
and two character cells wide (Emacs Sanskrit support works like this),
but this is a different problem and not aesthetically pleasing.

I strongly suggest that you read the relevant chapters in the Unicode
book about processing Indic scripts; it is available online from
www.unicode.org.  Working implementation (written in C and C++ IIRC)
are available in both `Pango' and `ICU'; the `yudit' text editor also
has Sanskrit support, IIRC.  It might be easiest to create Java
wrappers around those functions first; later on you might try to
replace them with native Java code.

BTW, I vaguely believe to remember that someone is already working on
complex script support in Java.  Have you done some searching in the
internet?


    Werner