1. #standardization
  2. On the wisdom/utility of moving within the PUA

On the wisdom/utility of moving within the PUA #standardization

Nathan Galt
 

It appears that getting registered in the CSUR is difficult to impossible, though. Even if it doesn't carry the same weight, I would personally love to see our Quikscript block submitted to Rebecca Bettencourt's Under-ConScript Unicode Registry. This would at least provide some semblance of (community) standardisation, and a mechanism to prevent different conscripts from occupying the same codepoints.

On that note, I noticed that the location currently used among the Quikscript community (E650-E67F) is already occupied in the UCSUR by another conscript called Sylabica. Would it be prudent for us to move somewhere else, perhaps the next available position: EB60-EB8F? It would be a very simple matter to create a conversion tool for existing texts, and I would be more than happy to modify the existing open-source fonts Thoth, Abbots Morton Experiment and Quikscript Sans.

In order to do a clean break, we’d need to convert all fonts, documents, and tooling to use the new codepoint set and damnatio-memoriae everything that uses the current codepoint set. This involves:

  • modifying all 5–7 fonts in use
  • modifying all Python, etc. scripts that generate/process/check Quikscript texts
  • modifying all Quikscript texts out there
  • modifying all keyboard layouts out there
  • modifying all webpages out there
  • telling confused newbies “don’t use that PUA setup, use the new one in order to see that thing you wanted to see"

In return, we get:

  • a non-overlapping block in the UCSUR
  • the ability to have mixed Quikscript/Sylabica texts

This doesn’t seem worth it.

What’s more, I’m under the impression that software that modifies .ttf/.otf font files directly is incapable of re-saving something of minor importance. I’m not sure if it’s hinting or kerning pairs or something else, but a lossless changeover from the old block to the new might be impossible without the font sources (.glyphs or .sfd or .ufo).

I can’t say I’m in favor, even if it were as easy as running a five-line Perl script on a bunch of documents and calling it a day.
Brad Neil
 

I think you're right. I hadn't really thought of just how much disruption it would cause, both short- and long-term, for no realistic practical gain for anybody. I just thought it would have been 'nice' if Quikscript were represented in UCSUR - practical considerations are in the way and that's OK. Everyone is still using the present system all the same.
Michael Everson
 

What you want is representation in Unicode, and as far as I can see there is but one path to that.

M

On 31 Dec 2019, at 03:33, Brad Neil via Groups.Io <friedorange79@...> wrote:

I think you're right. I hadn't really thought of just how much disruption it would cause, both short- and long-term, for no realistic practical gain for anybody. I just thought it would have been 'nice' if Quikscript were represented in UCSUR - practical considerations are in the way and that's OK. Everyone is still using the present system all the same.
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