[XeTeX] Fwd: [Gentium] Update #5 - Gentium Basic and Gentium Book Basic available for testing
Joachim Trinkwitz
jtr at uni-bonn.de
Thu Nov 15 23:29:39 CET 2007
Maybe there are Gentium fans on the list which aren't on the Gentium
announce list …
joachim
Anfang der weitergeleiteten E-Mail:
> Von: Gentium-Announce List <owner-gentiumlist at lists.sil.org>
> Datum: 15. November 2007 12:51:51 MEZ
> An: "Gentium-Announce" <gentium-announce at lists.sil.org>
> Betreff: [Gentium] Update #5 - Gentium Basic and Gentium Book Basic
> available for testing
>
> Gentium-Announce List
> Update #5 - Gentium Basic and Gentium Book Basic available for testing
> - - - - - - - -
>
> Dear friends of Gentium,
>
> Great news! We have been hard at work to complete the first versions
> of
> Gentium that include bold and bold italic. For the first time in
> many years
> we have a major release for you - in a preliminary test version.
>
> We have two new font families in the Gentium clan: Gentium Basic and
> Gentium
> Book Basic. Each has a complete set of four weights: regular,
> italic, bold
> and bold italic. Gentium Book Basic is generally heavier than the
> original
> Gentium and better for some publishing uses. Both families also
> include a
> few OpenType and Graphite smart font features, including optimized
> diacritic
> positioning. I've appended parts of the Gentium Basic FONTLOG below
> to give
> you more detailed information on these fonts.
>
> The new fonts are called 'Basic' because they support a smaller set of
> characters than the full Gentium fonts. They only support basic
> Latin and a
> handful of extended Latin characters. There is no Greek or Cyrillic,
> or even
> full IPA. The purpose is to provide early versions of the new
> weights that
> meet the needs of most Latin script users.
>
> Never fear - we haven't abandoned the main Gentium fonts. Our next
> task will
> be to return to them and complete an update of the existing regular
> and
> italic to add extended Cyrillic, ancient Greek glyphs, Unicode 5.1
> updates,
> and smart font capabilities. We'd hoped to have this completed by
> now, but
> wanted to get the new weights to you as soon as we could. After that
> we plan
> to expand the main Gentium family to include these new weights and
> smart
> font code.
>
> The new Basic fonts are only available in beta test right now. They
> contain
> known bugs, so we don't yet recommend them for everyday production
> use, or
> as the source for derivative versions. The most serious one is that
> the
> lowercase 'z' has too much space in the heavier italic weights. We
> plan to
> release a fixed, final release of the Basic fonts in a month or two,
> once
> initial broad testing is done. So we welcome your bug reports and
> general
> opinions on the design of the heavier faces.
>
> The beta test fonts are available at:
>
> http://scripts.sil.org/Gentium_basic
>
> A few requests:
>
> - please note the limitations and known problems
> - please do not ask us to expand the Basic character set, as those
> needs
> will be met by the complete Gentium font family
> - please report problems to me at the email address below, not via the
> download feedback form on the main Gentium download page
>
> Thanks again for your interest in Gentium, and the many encouraging
> emails
> you have sent.
>
>
> Victor Gaultney
> Gentium /at/ sil.org
>
>
>
> ==========================================================
> FONTLOG
> Gentium Basic and Gentium Book Basic v1.1b1 (test release)
> ==========================================================
>
>
> This file provides detailed information on the Gentium Basic and
> Gentium
> Book Basic font families. This information should be distributed
> along with
> the Gentium Basic and Gentium Book Basic fonts and any derivative
> works.
>
> NOTE: These fonts are intended only for preliminary testing, as they
> contain
> bugs. Many aspects of the fonts, including glyph metrics, may change
> before
> the final release.
>
>
> Basic Font Information
> ----------------------
>
> Gentium ("belonging to the nations" in Latin) is a Unicode typeface
> family
> designed to enable the many diverse ethnic groups around the world
> who use
> the Latin script to produce readable, high-quality publications. The
> design
> is intended to be highly readable, reasonably compact, and visually
> attractive. Gentium has won a "Certificate of Excellence in Typeface
> Design"
> in two major international typeface design competitions: bukva:raz!
> (2001),
> TDC2003 (2003).
>
> The Gentium Basic and Gentium Book Basic font families are based on
> the
> original design, but with additional weights. The "Book" family is
> slightly
> heavier. Both families come with a complete regular, bold, italic
> and bold
> italic set of fonts.
>
> The supported character set, however, is much smaller than for the
> main
> Gentium fonts. These "Basic" fonts support only the Basic Latin and
> Latin-1
> Supplement Unicode ranges, plus a selection of the more commonly used
> extended Latin characters, with miscellaneous diacritical marks,
> symbols and
> punctuation. For a complete list of supported characters see the
> list at the
> end of this document.
>
> In particular, these fonts do not support:
>
> - Full extended Latin IPA
> - Complete support for Central European languages
> - Greek
> - Cyrillic
> - Any SIL PUA characters (although note that some previously PUA are
> now in
> Unicode 5.1, and included)
>
> A much more complete character set will be supported in a future
> version of
> the complete Gentium fonts. These "Basic" fonts are intended as a
> way to
> provide additional weights for basic font users without waiting
> until the
> complete Gentium character set is finished. So please don't request
> additional glyphs or characters to be supported in the Basic fonts -
> such
> support will become available in the main Gentium family in the
> future.
>
> There are also some other limitations of the Basic fonts:
>
> - They are not completely metric-compatible with the full Gentium
> family
> (some glyphs may have different widths, although changes have been
> minimal)
> - There is no kerning
> - There are no "Alt" versions, or ones with low-profile diacritics
> - The default stacking style for some diacritic combinations does
> not match
> Vietnamese-style conventions (although this may change in the final
> release)
>
> There are, however, some wonderful new features that are still
> missing from
> the main Gentium family:
>
> - Bold!
> - Bold Italic!
> - The slightly-heavier Book family!
> - OpenType and Graphite smart code for diacritic placement!
> - A few useful OpenType and Graphite features
> - Support for a few more recent additions to Unicode
> - Character assignments are updated to conform to Unicode 5.1
>
> In particular, the Basic fonts support a subset of the smart font
> features
> that the Doulos SIL font supports. Those features are:
>
> - Capital Eng alternates
> - Literacy alternates
> - Capital Y-hook alternate
> - Capital N-left-hook alternate
> - Modifier apostrophe alternate
> - Modifier colon alternate
> - Open o alternate
> - Vietnamese-style diacritics
>
> More detail on the features can be seen in the Doulos SIL Technical
> Documentation (link:http://scripts.sil.org/DoulosSIL_Technical).
>
>
> Known Problems
> --------------
>
> We know of the following problems with this test release, all of
> which will
> be fixed in the final release. Please report any other problems you
> encounter.
>
> - The spacing of lowercase 'z' and related composites is much too
> wide in
> three faces: Gentium Basic Bold Italic, Gentium Book Basic Italic,
> Gentium
> Book Basic Bold Italic. That's enough reason to avoid using this test
> release in production enviroments!
> - The width of the space glyph in those same three fonts is too wide
> and
> will be reduced.
> - Capital and lowercase barred-o have dropouts due to overlapping
> contours.
> - The cedilla, ogonek and hook diacritics do not combine correctly
> with base
> glyphs when using Graphite rendering.
> - The sizes of the capital and lowercase saltillo are incorrect.
> - Cursors may not slant correctly for italic fonts.
> - No TypeTuner support.
>
>
> ChangeLog
> ---------
> (This should list both major and minor changes, most recent first.)
>
> 12 Nov 2007 (Victor Gaultney) Gentium Basic/Gentium Book Basic
> version
> 1.1b1
> - trimmed character set down to Basic
> - added additional weights
> - no FontLab source files
>
> 28 Nov 2005 (Victor Gaultney) Gentium version 1.02
> - Changed licensing to the SIL Open Font License
> - Included FontLab source files
> - Fixed some duplicate PostScript glyphs names
> - Fixed italic angle
>
> 19 Sep 2003 (Victor Gaultney) Gentium version 1.01
> - Maintenance release focused on changing internal font
> - Information to reflect the changeover to an SIL project
> - There is only one bug fix - the Greek mu PS name was changed to
> try and
> fix a display/printing problem. There is still no manual hinting
>
> 16 Sep 2002 (Victor Gaultney) Gentium version 1.00
> - First public release
> - No manual hinting is included in this version. Some has been done
> - with
> good results - but is not yet complete enough.
>
>
> Information for Contributors
> ----------------------------
>
> We currently do not encourage contributions - or derivative works - at
> present as there are significant bugs in these test fonts and many
> things
> may and will change.
>
>
> Acknowledgements
> ----------------
> (Here is where contributors can be acknowledged. If you make
> modifications
> be sure to add your name (N), email (E), web-address (W) and
> description
> (D). This list is sorted by last name in alphabetical order.)
>
> N: Victor Gaultney
> W: http://www.sil.org/~gaultney/
> D: Original Designer of Latin, Greek and Cyrillic glyphs
>
> N: Annie Olsen
> W: http://scripts.sil.org/
> D: Contributed some extended Latin glyphs
>
> N: SIL font engineers
> W: http://scripts.sil.org/
> D: OpenType code and build support
>
> The Gentium project, and the Gentium Basic and Gentium Book Basic
> fonts, are
> maintained by SIL International.
>
> For more information please visit the Gentium page on SIL
> International's
> Computers and Writing systems website:
> http://scripts.sil.org/gentium
>
> Or send an email to <gentium AT sil DOT org>
>
>
> Character Range Coverage
> ------------------------
>
> C0 Controls and Basic Latin (U+0020..U+007E)
> C1 Controls and Latin-1 Supplement (U+00A0..U+00FF)
> Latin Extended-A (U+0100..U+0103, U+0106..U+010E, U+011A..U+0121,
> U+0124..U+0125, U+0128..U+012D, U+0130..U+0133, U+0139..U+013A,
> U+0141..U+0144, U+0147..U+0148, U+014A..U+0155, U+0158..U+015D,
> U+0160..U+0161, U+0164, U+0168..U+0171, U+00174..U+017E)
> Latin Extended-B (U+0181, U+0186, U+0189..U+018A, U+018E, U+0190, U
> +0192,
> U+0197..U+019A, U+019D, U+019F..U+01A1, U+01A9..U+01AA, U+01AF..U
> +01B0,
> U+01B3..U+01B4, U+01B7, U+01CD..U+01E3, U+01E6..U+01E9, U+01EE..U
> +01EF,
> U+01F4..U+01F5, U+01F8..U+01FF, U+021E..U+021F, U+0226..U+0233, U
> +0237,
> U+023D, U+0241..U+0242, U+0244..U+0245, U+024A..U+024B)
> IPA Extensions (U+0251, U+0253..U+0254, U+0256..U+0257, U+0259, U
> +025B,
> U+0263, U+0268..U+0269, U+026B, U+0272, U+0275, U+0283, U+0289..U
> +028A,
> U+028C, U+0292, U+0294, U+02A0)
> Spacing Modifier Letters (U+02BC, U+02C0, U+02C6..U+02C7, U+02C9..U
> +02CB,
> U+02CD, U+02D7..U+02DD)
> Combining Diacritical Marks (U+0300..U+0304,U+0306..U+030C, U+031B, U
> +0323,
> U+0327..U+0328, U+0331, U+033F, U+035F)
> Greek and Coptic (U+03A0, U+03A9, U+03C0)
> Latin Extended Additional (U+1E02..U+1E0F, U+1E14..U+1E17, U+1E1C..U
> +1E27,
> U+1E2E..U+1E3B, U+1E3E..U+1E49, U+1E4C..U+1E6F, U+1E78..U+1E99,
> U+1EA0..U+1EF9)
> General Punctuation (U+2013..U+2014, U+2018..U+201A, U+201C..U+201E,
> U+2020..U+2022, U+2026, U+2030, U+2039..U+203A, U+2044)
> Currency Symbols (U+20AC)
> Letterlike Symbols (U+2122..U+2123, U+2126)
> Mathematical Operators (U+2202, U+2205..U+2206, U+220F, U+2211..U
> +2212,
> U+2219..U+221A, U+221E, U+222B, U+2248, U+2260, U+2264..U+2265)
> Geometric Shapes (U+25CA)
> Latin Extended-C (U+2C60..U+2C62)
> Modifier Tone Letters (U+A700..U+A71A)
> Latin Extended-D (U+A789..U+A78C)
> Alphabetic Presentation Forms (U+FB01..U+FB02)
>
>
>
>
> #############################################################
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--
Dr. Joachim Trinkwitz E-Mail: jtr at uni-bonn.de
Institut für Germanistik, Tel.: 0228-737565
Vergleichende Literatur- Fax: 0228-737479
und Kulturwissenschaft www.germanistik.uni-bonn.de
der Universität Bonn 53012 Bonn
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