Could ZWS+combining diacritic may be the best solution for
isolated diacritics in text?
From http://www.unicode.org/book/ch04.pdf:
<< * Such characters may be large enough to effect the placement of
their base character relative to preceding and succeeding base
characters. For example, a circumflex applied to an "i" may effect
spacing ("î"), as might the character U+20DD COMBINING ENCLOSED CIRCLE. >>Unless Unicode 4.0 as changed this the words "may" and "might" here would indicate that ZWSP is not *necessarily* the best solution.
There is no specification about what an application *must* do to be conforming in this circumstance, merely indication that an application that does expand spacing for the sake of appearance is not non-confirming. It is *probably* implied that this is the right way to go.
But I would guess that it would also be conforming for an application to not expand spacing at all on ZWSP so that coding of _o_ + ZWSP + COMBINING CIRCUMFLEX + _o_ would place the circumflex centered over _oo_ with its center point between the two letters.
Either result would be useful for different purposes.
It certainly makes sense that in the case of space characters that have a defined width that this width is innate to the definition of the character and in such a case should take precidence over the width of the normally non-spacing combining character.
I would welcome clear instructions by Unicode on this point where either result would be useful in order than applications may be expected to produce results that are consistent with each other. :-)
I would think it would be consistant with Unicode for an application to shrink the width of normal space followed by a diacritic such as a single overdot as exact formatting behavior is not defined in such cases.
Jim Allan
