[HarfBuzz] Question regarding the use of HB_SCRIPT_KATAKANA for "regular" Japanese

[Behdad Esfahbod]

On 13-12-22 10:10 AM, Ariel Malka wrote:
> I'm trying to render "regular" (i.e. modern, horizontal) Japanese with Harfbuzz.
> 
> So far, I have been using HB_SCRIPT_KATAKANA and it looks similar to what is
> rendered via browsers.
> 
> But after examining other rendering solutions I can see that "automatic script
> detection" can often take place.
> 
> For instance, the Mapnik project is using ICU's "scrptrun", which, given the
> following sentence:
> 
> ユニコードは、すべての文字に固有の番号を付与します
> 
> would detect a mix of Katakana, Hiragana and Han scripts.
> 
> But for instance, it would not change anything if I'd render the sentence by
> mixing the 3 different scripts (i.e. instead of using only HB_SCRIPT_KATAKANA.)
> 
> Or are there situations where it would make a difference?

As it happens, those three scripts are all considered "simple", so the shaping
logic in HarfBuzz is the same for all three.  Where it does make a difference
is if the font has ligatures, kerning, etc for those.  OpenType organizes
those features by script, and if you request the wrong script you will miss
out on the features.


> I'm asking that because I suspect a catch-22 situation here. For example, the
> word "diameter" in Japanese is 直径 which, given to "scrptrun" would be
> detected as Han script.
> 
> As far as I understand, it could be a problem on systems where
> DroidSansFallback.ttf is used, because the word would look like in Simplified
> Chinese.
> 
> Now, if we were using MTLmr3m.ttf, which is preferred for Japanese, the word
> would have been rendered as intended.

How you do font selection and what script you pass to HarfBuzz are two
completely separate issues.  Font fallback stack should be per-language.

> Reference: https://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=183830
> 
> Any feedback would be appreciated. Note that the wisdom accumulated here will
> be translated into tangible info and code samples (see
> https://github.com/arielm/Unicode)
> 
> Thanks!
> Ariel
> 
> 
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-- 
behdad
http://behdad.org/