Combining marks considered harmful

[Andreas Prilop]

When doing some tests with combining diacritical marks
http://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/combining-marks.html
I found a strange rendering of U+0361 "ligature tie" in
Internet Explorer 6 (six) - but not in IE 7.

I have this special test page
http://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/temp/messy.html
When I view it in Internet Explorer 6 (six), I see several
letters with grave accent (`). For example,

DZ ÈZ dz èz

which seems to be independent of the font.

Anyone else?

[Mitch]

Post by Andreas Prilop
I have this special test page
http://www.unics.uni-hannover.de/nhtcapri/temp/messy.html
When I view it in Internet Explorer 6 (six), I see several
letters with grave accent (`). For example,

The display is fine with Internet Explorer 7, FireFox and Safari in Windows
Vista. The problem you encounter with Explorer 6, by the way, maybe due not
to IE6 itself, but to the way your version of Windows treats complex
scripts. Have you tried to download FireFox to see if it has the same
problem ?

Throughout the different versions of software, some of the Foreign fonts I
used to have do not work, or work less reliably for instance. Sure, we used
to adress ligatures in a not so standard way.

The funny part is when Microsoft introduces a really great system with
OpenType and Glyph substitution, while still producing applications that do
not support it. As a matter of example, the Windows
Vista NotePad, one of the least sophisticated program, can show amazing
glyph susbtitution. I have a font with the not so classic st, ct and Qu
ligatures. Works great with NotePad. Does not work with WordPad and even
less with Word. The only application that does that great is InDesign from
Adobe. Amaziningly enough, Internet Explorer 7 does not either.

OpenType is a great improvement as far as ligatures are concerned. Problem
is, the inconsistence of Microsoft tools defeats the purpose of haveing such
a great technology. Just hope one day we get in Roman half of the technology
feast they through into Arabic, Malayam and other complex, calligraphy based
script that work great in Internet Explorer since Windows 98. Why such a
sloppy job for Roman scripts ?

[Andreas Höfeld]

Post by Mitch
OpenType is a great improvement as far as ligatures are concerned. Problem
is, the inconsistence of Microsoft tools defeats the purpose of haveing such
a great technology. Just hope one day we get in Roman half of the technology
feast they through into Arabic, Malayam and other complex, calligraphy based
script that work great in Internet Explorer since Windows 98. Why such a
sloppy job for Roman scripts ?

American approach to writing. People who can't make proper opening
quotes (Tahoma, Trebuchet MS) or confuse threw and through are too
sloppy to bother with complicated stuff such as ligatures. I'm threw
with them.

[phil chastney]

I'm threw with them.

shouldn't that be "thru"?

[Andreas Höfeld]

Post by phil chastney

I'm threw with them.

shouldn't that be "thru"?

Well their you go ;-)

Andreas