Unicode Fonts and Vera (was: Encoding problem with Azerbaijani translations of ISO-3166 names)

["Metin Amiroff" <gnome azitt com>]

Hi!

"Danilo Segan" <danilo@gnome.org> writes:

> Well, we should probably work together on extending Bitstream fonts

That's a great idea. I very think that Bitsream Fonts do look really good
but they lack unicode. It would be nice if a TTF fonts junkie with the
help of native speakers could extend that to the level to
include Cyrillic, Arabic, Hebrew and even Greek. 
I think the proprietary fonts like Lucida Sans Unicode and
Arial Unicode MS can help with the glyph layouts here a lot.

I once managed to modify Vera fonts and added Schwa
character to them to meet our needs but I think the topic
here is not only about TTF fonts and I am not such a 
professional in this field. Also we need console fonts
and monospace TTFs too. We had a conversation
about the unicode console fonts with Pablo Saratxaga
in the past and it came to the result that we need a good
console font creator for that job, as current unicode
console fonts we are using are his modifications made by hand.

>and there's a FreeFonts project on Savannah 

Yes, I am aware of that project. Their fonts have a very
good glyph range but lack a little polish in look and kerning.
I think they will impove in time. I alredy use them as monospaced
unicode fonts and they do a really good job. But not yet for
the interfaces.

> Can I count you in to help us (Daf, myself) there with Azerbaijani?

Of course. Actually there is very little to add to fonts to support
Azerbaijani. A small 'Schwa' letter which is a 180 degrees rotated
small 'e' and its capital letter with the same aspects. I can send you
their unicode codes but it can be easily found with gucharmap.

I also want other translators here to respond with their problems
about Vera fonts family and with fonts on Linux in general. It'd be
good to sort out the problems with the missing glyphs they need
to get support of their language.

>(hear that Daf? ;).

I hope he does :)

Thanks
--Metin Amiroff