[XeTeX] Kashida option for polyglossia or bidi?

[Jonathan Kew]

On 31 Aug 2009, at 16:56, Khaled Hosny wrote:

> IMHO, this level if Kashida support is very poor typographically (and
> calligrapphically).

Yes, it's a very basic hack; it can be helpful for a limited amount of  
adjustment, but if you want extensive kashida stretching, it should  
have more sophisticated rules for choosing where to insert them, with  
some glyph pairs taking priority over others. I don't think it's  
possible to *really* do it right at this level; it needs a much more  
sophisticated line-construction engine.

JK

> Kashida is very font dependant and there are rules
> where (in the word and in the line) to apply Kashida and how long  
> should
> it be etc. and this differs from calligraphic style to another (what
> apply to Nastaliq, for example, doesn't apply to Naskh). Failure to
> follow those rules will result in very low quality output. Even
> applications that claim to provide rule based Kashida support like Ms
> Office or InDesign ME, fail to do it properly most of the time because
> they make certain assumptions that is not granted to be true for any
> font.
>
>
> On Mon, Aug 31, 2009 at 10:39:05AM -0400, Fr. Michael Gilmary wrote:
>> Maybe this is actually something for fontspec? It's language *and*
>> font-specific.
>>
>> Any ideas?
>>
>>
>> -- 
>> United in adoration of Jesus,
>>
>>
>>
>> fr. michael gilmary, mma
>>
>> Most Holy Trinity Monastery
>> 67 Dugway Road
>> Petersham, MA 01366-9725
>>
>
> -- 
> Khaled Hosny
> Arabic localiser and member of Arabeyes.org team
> Free font developer