Forwarding for public archival. See also
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2011Jul/0518.html
http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/www-style/2011Aug/0213.html
-------- Original Message --------
Subject: IVS registry
Date: Wed, 09 Mar 2011 22:44:44 -0800
From: fantasai
To: Steve Zilles
Proposal for improving IVS registry so that it doesn't make font designers
and typesetters cry:
1. Allow multiple registrations per IVS codepoint, so that a registrant
can register a glyph collection that overlaps with an existing collection
without creating duplicate IVS registrations for shared glyphs.
2. Require all glyph variant registrations to include an explanation of
exactly how the proposed glyph variant registration differs from all
other registered glyph variants. If the proposed glyph variant is in fact
identical (i.e. the registrant cannot describe any difference between
the proposed glyph and the existing glyph, other than the typeface style)
to an existing glyph variant, then the registration must use the same
IVS codepoint as the already-registered glyph.
3. Create a mapping table that states which already-registered variants
are identical to each other, and whether any of these are identical
to fully-encoded characters anywhere in the Unicode repertoire. (This
mapping may be updated as new characters are added to Unicode or
mistakes are found.)
4. Ideally, deprecate the use of all but one of the IVS codepoints in each
set of duplicates, so that future content will be iteroperable.
This has several important effects:
1. Tells font designers which differences between registered glyphs are
significant, as opposed to stylistic, so that they can design glyphs
that correctly honor these differences.
2. Prevents duplicate registrations, which avoids wasting IVS codepoints.
3. Provides a canonical representation of the text without losing any
information about the author-intended glyph variants, facilitating
interchange.
4. Creates a standardized, reviewed mapping so that glyph lookups in
applications can accurately look up a particular variant in a font
even if it is indexed under a different IVS.
~fantasai
