Re: Combining solidus above for transcription of poetic meter

[eduardo marin]

You would need to propose the entire set of symbols, like the caret the reverse 
solidus and the x above, furthermore you would need to make the solidus small 
so it doesn't interfere with the line of text above. So go for it.



De: Rebecca T <637...@gmail.com>
Enviado: viernes, 17 de marzo de 2017 10:53 a. m.
Para: Unicode Public
Asunto: Combining solidus above for transcription of poetic meter

When transcribing poetic meter 
(scansion), it is common to use two 
symbols
above the line (usually a breve [U+306  ̆] for stressed syllables and a solidus
/ slash [U+2F /] for unstressed syllables) to indicate stress patterns. Ex:

 ̆/   ̆  /  ̆   /̆  / ̆/
When I consider how my light is spent

(John Milton, On His Blindness)

Other symbols used in place of the breve are a cross / x (U+D8 × or U+78 x) or
bullet (U+B7 · or U+2022 •).

This approach, however, is problematic; the lack of a combining slash above
character means that two lines of text must be used, and any non-monospaced
font (or any platform where multiple consecutive spaces are truncated into one
by default, such as HTML) makes keeping the annotations properly aligned with
the text difficult or impossible — depending on your email client, the above
example may be entirely misaligned. Being able to use combining diacritics for
scansion would make these problems obsolete and enable a semantic transcription
of meter.

Would a proposal to add a combining solidus above (and possibly a combining
reversed solidus above to support Hamer, Wright, and Trager-Smith notations) be
supported?

Soyombo empty letter frame

[eduardo marin]

The Soyombo proposal is beautiful, but it is missing a very important character 
in my opinion: http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2015/15004-soyombo.pdf

Encoding an empty letter frame will allow for its proper description in plain 
text (as it is clear in the proposal itself), it could be used as an stylized 
cursor in text processors and also we could make zwj sequences such that 
combining with consonants makes it only render the nucleus.

Enconding a flammable sign and others

[eduardo marin]

I'm really surprised this isn't already encoded but while we are at it let's 
also encode a symbol for non-ioninzing radiation, laser hazard, explosion 
hazard, strong magnetic field, chocking hazard, corrosion, slippery floor, 
oxidising, carcinogen and chemical weapon symbols just to name the most 
relevant. Other ones would include uv light, frezzing hazard, hand in the 
middle of cogs, foot or hand under machinery, battery hazard, washing hands, 
fragile symbol, crane hazard, suffocation, high temeperatures and probably some 
I missed.

named character sequences foor tally marks

[eduardo marin]

I love the proposal to add western tally marks because it only occuies two code 
points for a techically equivalent solution: 
http://www.unicode.org/L2/L2016/16065-tally-marks.pdf

L2/16-065 (Proposal to encode two Western-style tally 
marks)
www.unicode.org
1 L2/16-065 Title: Proposal to encode two Western-style tally marks Source: Ken 
Lunde (Adobe) & Daisuke MIURA Status: Individual contribution Action: For ...

However this proposal isn't complete unless we can identify tally marks 2, 3 
and 4 easily and the simplest way is to add named character sequences, where we 
just repeat tally mark one an n number of times.

Missing block element characters

[eduardo marin]

It has come to my attention that there are four semi-graphics characters from 
the ZX-81 character set that are currently un-encoded: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ZX81.chars.00-0A.80-8A.png

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:ZX81.chars.00-0A.80-8A.png]the last four 
characters on the right of which I propose the following names: UPPER HALF 
BLOCK MEDIUM SHADE, LOWER HALF BLOCK MEDIUM SHADE, FULL BLOCK-UPPER HALF MEDIUM 
SHADE and FULL BLOCK-LOWER HALF MEDIUM SHADE. I recommend encoding them in the 
Miscellaneous Symbols and Arrows block or in the Geometric Shapes Extended 
block.

While a compelling reason for encoding is completing this obsolete character 
set (allowing for emulation) a much more convincing case (in my opinion) is the 
fact that it allows for greater artistic freedom for anybody decorating their 
text with Unicode or even creating illustrations: 
https://www.google.com.mx/search?q=utf-8+art=lnms=isch=X=0ahUKEwi406KI4-_OAhVL7SYKHdxfAUsQ_AUICCgB#imgrc=X9T-ssHdaBoJoM%3A

The second argument implies also encoding the vertical counterparts of these 
characters and many more variants of block elements with half shading, but a 
proposal just for these four is a great start before considering and measuring 
the artistic implications.

Another set of missing characters for Atari ST emulation are ATARI LOGO LEFT 
HALF, ATARI LOGO RIGHT HALF, SMILING MAN WITH PIPE UPPER LEFT, SMILING MAN WITH 
PIPE UPPER RIGHT, SMILING MAN WITH PIPE LOWER LEFT and SMILING MAN WITH PIPE 
LOWER RIGHT. These characters are much more objectionable due to their 
specificity and possible trademark issues (although unlikely), the set of 
digits represented as if they were in an seven segment display, could be 
considered a font variation there is also what appears to be a negative 
diagonal and lozenge, and those are even weirder: 
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atari_ST_character_set

Atari ST character set - Wikipedia, the free 
encyclopedia