[HarfBuzz] Language Modularization?

[Ed Trager]

Hi, everyone,

>> You need a dictionary based approach for Khmer for good word breaking though.
>
> Does this include line wrapping? Is wrapping lines at syllable
> boundaries OK for Khmer? (I've been told it's acceptable for other
> languages.)
>

Great question, Thep!

I have also heard that Burmese is another language where you can get
at syllable boundaries fairly easily but word breaking still requires
a dictionary.  So I think your question is the key question : for
high-quality typography, do all these languages --or at least many of
these languages-- of Southeast Asia actually require dictionary lookup
for quality typographic layout?

Maybe people say syllable breaking is "acceptable" because a few years
ago one could not even read Khmer or Myanmar on a computer at all?  So
syllable-based breaks are considered "acceptable" at the stage of
initial implementations?

But if a book is typeset using old-fashioned letter press technology,
then how are the line breaks handled?  In other words, at the level of
highest-quality typography, what is the real cultural expectation?
That's what the goal should be.

We know for Thai, for example, that syllable-based line breaking is
not acceptable.  So I guess I would be surprised if syllable-based
breaking is acceptable for Khmer, Burmese, etc.

So, I guess once again I'll ask if any of you think it would be
valuable to get together in a meeting?  Perhaps this meeting would
need to really be more of a design-and-code meeting where the goal
would be to produce a unified framework for good line breaking?  Maybe
the "academic" meetings fail to produce the next level of working
implementations?

-- Ed

> --
> Theppitak Karoonboonyanan
> http://linux.thai.net/~thep/
>