[HarfBuzz] New Indic standard?

[Ed Trager]

Hi, Behdad and everyone,

> Something as simple as:
>
> INPUT: U+1234,U+5678 # some comment
> FONT: Some Font Name 24
> OUTPUT: <1,0,0>,<5,10,30>
>
> Where the output tuples are glyph id, X and Y.
> Something like that can be processed into whatever format we end up adopting
> later.

I have an interest in helping out with aggregating / compiling /
constructing an Indic scripts test data set along these lines ...

... whether I really have time to do it is another matter :-)

But at this juncture, I'll just ask the questions first.  Compiling
the INPUT data is straight-forward and I have no questions about that
-- although it still may take some time to achieve a suitable degree
of comprehensiveness.

However obtaining the OUTPUT data will require processing through some
program.  A fairly simple command-line utility linked to a shaping
engine is, in theory, all that is required.

But my first question is: What shaping engine do we consider as the
"Gold Standard" for correct processing for Indic scripts?  In other
words, if I or someone else sits down to write such a utility program,
should said program use Graphite, ATSUI / AAT , or Uniscribe as the
"Gold Standard" shaping engine?

If the answer is "Uniscribe", then must one use the latest version of
Uniscribe in Vista or Windows 7 ? Would Windows 7 be better just
because Vista as an OS is such a dog?

My personal bias, for several reasons, would be to just use Graphite.
Would anyone recommend or object to the idea of writing such a utility
using Graphite?

And of course if such a utility, or something close to it, already
exists, then where can I get the code?

- Ed

>
> behdad