Re: [Freebangfont-devel] plan to create an unified layout table

[Sayamindu Dasgupta]

On Fri, 2003-01-31 at 16:38, Taneem Ahmed wrote:
> Hey guys,
> 
> I remember someone here mentioned about having an unified OpenType
> layout table for Bangla fonts, and I think it is about time. MS has
> published a detailed document about creating Bangla fonts, and I think we
> should come up with a *full* font.

...hehe - M$ Office 97 in Win XP supports Bangla with our fonts ;-)


> Having said that, I do know how much
> work is involved to create a OpenType font, and I really appreciate
> all the works done here. 
> 
> Now here is a plan to make it easier to create new Bangla OpenType fonts.
> 
> 1. Create one complete *master* Bangla OpenType font. This means all the
> developers put together their experience and understanding to create the
> layout table.
> 

We need to get some good looking glyphs....


> 2. Give each glyph in this font an unique name (this is important)

Yep - I usually follow k kh g gh... for the consonants and kk , kt, etc
for the conjuncts

> 
> 3. Create program(s) such that if one wants to create a new Bangla
> OpenType font, then:
>    * s/he creates a TrueType font which has the same number of glyphs
>      (and same names) as the master font, and
>    * use the program to merge the layout table info to this font.
> 
>  One great thing about this process would be that people won't be stuck
> with windows to create OpenTYpe fonts.
> 
>  BTW, I have already played with number 3. There are already existing
> programs (GPLed) that dumps out OpenType fonts into xml format, and
> reconstruct the font back based on this (or edited) xml file. I don't
> think it will be difficult to modify this program. I volunteer for this
> part.

Yep - but do they handle positioning??
Positioning has to be there for hrasha-u and related things.
Otherwise, you need newer glyphs

-- 
Sayamindu Dasgupta [ http://www.peacefulaction.org/sayamindu/ ]

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