amf@ecs.soton.ac.uk (Andrew Fountain) (02/21/90)
Let's suppose, for the sake of the arguement, that there will be a new version of Windows out soon. Is it likely that font handling will be improved. More specifically: I am developing fonts for Greek, Hebrew, Arabic etc. One of the problems is the large number of combinations of characters and accents. The only solution at present is to store each combination as a separate character. There are too many combinations to do this with some languages. Now in Presentation Manager fonts are handled slightly differently in that it is possible for a character (such as an accent) to have zero logical width, and an offset that makes it appear over the previous character. This is accomplished by storing three pieces of information about each character instead of the one that Windows 2.11 stores: Instead of a simple width, it stores the logical width, physical width, and horizontal offset. Another advantage with the PM fonts is that italics (where one character may overlap the next) are much more successful. What I need to know is that if there were to be a (purely hypothetical) new version of Windows, would it improve font handling in this way? Please mail me direct, since we frequently lose board messsages at this site. amf@ecs.soton.ac.uk Andrew Fountain Tel: +44 703 592831 Dept of Electronics and Computer Science Fax: +44 703 593045 University of Southampton Telex: 47661 SOTONU G Southampton SO9 5NH England