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Til orientering

Så er der en ny testversion af vel nok en af de smukkeste Unicode serif
skrifter til download og test. Kan hentes her gratis.
http://scripts.sil.org/cms/scripts/page.php?site_id=nrsi&id=Gentium_basic

mvh. Erik Richard

-------- Original Message --------
> 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.

--
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Rgds. Grüße, Mvh. Erik Richard Sørensen, Member of ADC
<mac-man_NOSP@M_stofanet.dk> <http://www.nisus.com>
NisusWriter - The Future In Multilingual Textprocessing
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