Re: Encoding Personal Use Ideographs (was Re: Level of Unicode support required for various languages)

 
Ben Monroe wrote,

>> A registered seal might be viewed in the same light as
>> a registered logo.
> 
> I would appreciate it if someone who knows for sure could give me a
> definite answer.

All right.  It definitely might be viewed in the same light.

(It's really subjective.  The best way to find out would be to try it
while keeping the caveat in mind.)
 
>> >I tried PUA in the past.
>> >Most people could not be bothered to install the font.
>> >Also, many people are suspicious, for good reason, of attachments.
>> >It's more difficult than you may imagine to get strangers to install fonts.
>>
>> Users of constructed scripts don't have the advantage of a
>> Unicode Standard, yet manage to exchange data nicely using
>> conventions such as provided by the ConScript Unicode
>> Registry.  If enough users lack computer support for
>> their personal characters, what would be wrong with setting
>> up some kind of PUA registry for personal characters?
>> (One drawback may be that, if the allowable set of I.D.
>> characters excludes ideographic description characters,
>> then the set may well exclude PUA characters, too.)
> 
> The script is clearly Han, not a constructed script.

Right.  I used the ConScript Registry as an example of how such
registries work.  I suggest that, if enough users get together
and make a new registry for han/kanji/gaiji/whatever, that
some popular fonts might include glyphs for a few hundreds
or few thousands of such items.  Then display of any *one* of
those items on any given computer system becomes more likely.

> In any case, I desire to use it whenever writing in Japanese, not just
> for a select limited audience. In the past, most people would not be
> bothered to install it.

If your Japanese is as proficient as your English, get a job translating
a book about Marilyn Monroe into Japanese.  Work with the publisher
to make sure that the proper character is used for Ms. Monroe's surname.
Get the book published.  Presto!  Or, write a paper in Japanese about
the glories or failures of the Monroe doctrine.  Publish it in PDF using
a specialized font...

> In which case, just using <U+2FF5 U+9580 U+9F8D> is the simplest. Even
> if someones environment does not render it as desired (likely), U+9580
> U+9F8D should still display.

If you use <U+2FF5 U+9580 U+9F8D>, either all three characters in
the string should display (most likely), or the desired glyph should
appear (presently unlikely).  Any system which strips the U+2FF5
should be considered non-conformant, in my opinion.

I'm sympathetic here.  I've heard that IRG is trying to work out some
kind of system for representing personal ideographs, but it is my
impression that this effort is still in the preliminary/discussion/
conceptual stages.

Best regards,

James Kass