Fourth, even though CGJ itself has no displayable glyph, and even though it does not serve as a format control for neighboring characters the way ZWJ and ZWNJ do, it is clear from John Hudson's discussion that it *does* affect rendering in an indirect way. Failing to paint the CGJ results in a problem of attachment points, and it also makes it more difficult for a font maker to define the "ligatures" in the font needed to get the expected results. Making appropriate text display more difficult (or irresoluble) for font designers *is* affecting the rendering.
To be clear, my point was that CGJ *could* be used to affect rendering in an indirect way if it is guaranteed to be painted. I'm not sure that this translates into CGJ being the best solution for the Hebrew mark re-ordering issue. I'm bothered by the fact that the Combining Grapheme Joiner is being posed as a solution for something that is not really grapheme joining. It looks messy, and I can understand why it might appear a hack to Paul.
John Hudson
Tiro Typeworks www.tiro.com Vancouver, BC [EMAIL PROTECTED]
The sight of James Cox from the BBC's World at One,
interviewing Robin Oakley, CNN's man in Europe,
surrounded by a scrum of furiously scribbling print
journalists will stand for some time as the apogee of
media cannibalism.
- Emma Brockes, at the EU summit
