Default templates with Write to complex script countries

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Martin Edmund Sevior

Default templates with Write to complex script countries

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Hi Everyone,
             Currently Write ships with a set of templates that define
the default fonts. Currently every single one of these templates uses
"DejaVu Serif" as the default font family.

"DejaVu Serif" is great for Western European based Languages but has no
glyphs for complex script languages like Arabic, Hebrew or any of the
Indic countries.

"DejaVu Sans" has much better glyph coverage, especially for Arabic,
however there may be even better font families for Arabic and there
certainly are for many other languages.

OK my point about this is in order to provide the optimum experience for
children in these countries we would like to know which family provides
the best fonts for those countries.

If we don't get this info the next best thing is to change the templates
to use "DejaVu Sans" to countries where we know "DejaVu Serif" doesn't
work.

Does anyone have objections to this?

Cheers

Martin



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Edward Cherlin

Re: Default templates with Write to complex script countries

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On Tue, Nov 18, 2008 at 7:20 PM, Martin Sevior <[hidden email]> wrote:

> Hi Everyone,
>             Currently Write ships with a set of templates that define
> the default fonts. Currently every single one of these templates uses
> "DejaVu Serif" as the default font family.
>
> "DejaVu Serif" is great for Western European based Languages but has no
> glyphs for complex script languages like Arabic, Hebrew or any of the
> Indic countries.
>
> "DejaVu Sans" has much better glyph coverage, especially for Arabic,
> however there may be even better font families for Arabic and there
> certainly are for many other languages.

I put a list of Debian Linux fonts at
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Fonts#Debian_Linux_fonts. It states the
package name, the languages and writing systems covered, and the names
of the fonts. There are similar RPMs, but I don't have the list.

> OK my point about this is in order to provide the optimum experience for
> children in these countries we would like to know which family provides
> the best fonts for those countries.

I can answer that question for some writing systems, and tell you whom
to ask for the others.

> If we don't get this info the next best thing is to change the templates
> to use "DejaVu Sans" to countries where we know "DejaVu Serif" doesn't
> work.
>
> Does anyone have objections to this?
>
> Cheers
>
> Martin
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Sugar mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
>



--
Silent Thunder (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) is my name
And Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, The Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mokurai

http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mokurai
Give One, Get One, from Nov. 17
http://www.amazon.com/xo
http://wiki.laptop.org/go/XO_Giving/International
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Martin Edmund Sevior

Re: Default templates with Write to complex script countries

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In reply to this post by Martin Edmund Sevior
Hello everyone,
               I haven't received much feedback on this so we're going
with DejaVu-Sans for Arabic.

I've setup a section on the Write wiki where people can fill in the best
font for their Language.

http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Write#Description_.26_Goals

Look in the section under "Localization".

Please folks, fill in your font for your Language.

Thanks!

Martin

On Wed, 2008-11-19 at 11:20 +1100, Martin Sevior wrote:

> Hi Everyone,
>              Currently Write ships with a set of templates that define
> the default fonts. Currently every single one of these templates uses
> "DejaVu Serif" as the default font family.
>
> "DejaVu Serif" is great for Western European based Languages but has no
> glyphs for complex script languages like Arabic, Hebrew or any of the
> Indic countries.
>
> "DejaVu Sans" has much better glyph coverage, especially for Arabic,
> however there may be even better font families for Arabic and there
> certainly are for many other languages.
>
> OK my point about this is in order to provide the optimum experience for
> children in these countries we would like to know which family provides
> the best fonts for those countries.
>
> If we don't get this info the next best thing is to change the templates
> to use "DejaVu Sans" to countries where we know "DejaVu Serif" doesn't
> work.
>
> Does anyone have objections to this?
>
> Cheers
>
> Martin
>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Sugar mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar

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Edward Cherlin

Re: Default templates with Write to complex script countries

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On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 3:22 PM, Martin Sevior <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>               I haven't received much feedback on this so we're going
> with DejaVu-Sans for Arabic.

I recommend KACST Book.

> I've setup a section on the Write wiki where people can fill in the best
> font for their Language.
>
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Write#Description_.26_Goals

I added lots more languages and fonts, based on my own opinion of the
available Free TrueType fonts. I tried to select the most readable of
the traditional fonts in each case. My impression is that we will need
more fonts for more languages soon, with expanding deployments. At
some point we will run into the need to handle minority languages and
the languages of history, commerce, and religion needed by each
community. That could include Greek, Hebrew (with Aramaic, and
possibly Yiddish and Ladino), Church Slavonic, Armenian, Syriac,
Coptic, Uighur, and several more Mongolian writing systems, plus many
more extensions of Latin, Arabic, and Cyrillic. But perhaps most of
those can wait until the successors of the XO have more storage.

> Look in the section under "Localization".
>
> Please folks, fill in your font for your Language.
>
> Thanks!
>
> Martin
>
> On Wed, 2008-11-19 at 11:20 +1100, Martin Sevior wrote:
>> Hi Everyone,
>>              Currently Write ships with a set of templates that define
>> the default fonts. Currently every single one of these templates uses
>> "DejaVu Serif" as the default font family.
>>
>> "DejaVu Serif" is great for Western European based Languages but has no
>> glyphs for complex script languages like Arabic, Hebrew or any of the
>> Indic countries.
>>
>> "DejaVu Sans" has much better glyph coverage, especially for Arabic,
>> however there may be even better font families for Arabic and there
>> certainly are for many other languages.
>>
>> OK my point about this is in order to provide the optimum experience for
>> children in these countries we would like to know which family provides
>> the best fonts for those countries.
>>
>> If we don't get this info the next best thing is to change the templates
>> to use "DejaVu Sans" to countries where we know "DejaVu Serif" doesn't
>> work.
>>
>> Does anyone have objections to this?
>>
>> Cheers
>>
>> Martin
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Sugar mailing list
>> [hidden email]
>> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
>
> _______________________________________________
> Sugar mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.laptop.org/listinfo/sugar
>



--
Silent Thunder (默雷/धर्ममेघशब्दगर्ज/دھرممیگھشبدگر ج) is my name
And Children are my nation.
The Cosmos is my dwelling place, The Truth my destination.
http://wiki.sugarlabs.org/go/User:Mokurai
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Martin Edmund Sevior

Re: Default templates with Write to complex script countries

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Some javascript/style in this post has been disabled (why?)
RE: [sugar] Default templates with Write to complex script countries

Thanks Edward,
              That is awesome work already.

Cheers

Martin



-----Original Message-----
From: Edward Cherlin [[hidden email]]
Sent: Thu 11/27/2008 6:27 PM
To: Martin Edmund Sevior
Cc: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [sugar] Default templates with Write to complex script countries

On Wed, Nov 26, 2008 at 3:22 PM, Martin Sevior <[hidden email]> wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>               I haven't received much feedback on this so we're going
> with DejaVu-Sans for Arabic.

I recommend KACST Book.

> I've setup a section on the Write wiki where people can fill in the best
> font for their Language.
>
> http://wiki.laptop.org/go/Write#Description_.26_Goals

I added lots more languages and fonts, based on my own opinion of the
available Free TrueType fonts. I tried to select the most readable of
the traditional fonts in each case. My impression is that we will need
more fonts for more languages soon, with expanding deployments. At
some point we will run into the need to handle minority languages and
the languages of history, commerce, and religion needed by each
community. That could include Greek, Hebrew (with Aramaic, and
possibly Yiddish and Ladino), Church Slavonic, Armenian, Syriac,
Coptic, Uighur, and several more Mongolian writing systems, plus many
more extensions of Latin, Arabic, and Cyrillic. But perhaps most of
those can wait until the successors of the XO have more storage.

<snip>


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