[Webkit-unassigned] [Bug 77568] Different font glyphs for Hebrew/Yiddish not being displayed

[bugzilla-daemon at webkit.org]

https://bugs.webkit.org/show_bug.cgi?id=77568





--- Comment #7 from Steve White <Stevan_White at hotmail.com>  2012-02-03 04:07:50 PST ---
Hi Matt!

Not sure just who you mean by "we" here.

And I'm a little bewildered by the suggestion that this would *force* somebody to do something.  This is an *enabling* technology.

* If "we" means "we web page designers"
    We may be providing a web font with these special features.
    We do so by specifying the language with the 'lang' tag.
    But no, we don't *have to*.
    On the other hand, if we can rely upon browsers to do the right thing,
    this *allows* us to use the language-specific features of the font.

* If "we" means "we WebKit developers"
    We simply pass the "lang" tag properly to the font rendering layer.
    It will do the rest.
    And our product will look good compared to the competition.
    But no, we don't have to excel, or even keep up with the competition.

As to "correct font": yes, separate fonts can be used to display Hebrew and Yiddish, even though they differ only in the placement of a few letters.  Likewise with various versions of Cyrillic, and even Latin.  
It's a waste, in several ways.

This longstanding OpenType technology *enables* a simple way to make fine typographic distinctions between languages.  If you're not a native reader of those languages, it seems a little delicate.  But to native readers, it can make a big difference.

Let me emphasize that this is easy.  Just properly pass the 'lang' attribute down to the underlying font rendering libraries.

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