
******************** About Tibetan Machine Uni File ***************************

Author: Than Garson
Date: August 18, 2004
Organization: Tibetan & Himalayan Digital Library (http://thdl.org)

The SourceForge CVS folder, thdltools/Fonts/TibetanMachineUni, contains
the alpha version of the Tibetan Machine Uni font, which is an
OpenType, Unicode version of the original Tibetan Machine font.  The
original font, Tibetan Machine, was designed and created by Tony Duff
of the Tibetan Computer company (http://www.tibet.dk/tcc/).  Tibetan
Machine was purchased and made available to the public under the GNU
Public License by the Trace Foundation (http://trace.org/).  This
suite of fonts was converted into a single OpenType Unicode font by
the Than Garson of the Tibetan & Himalayan Digital Library and Chris
Fynn. Tibetan Machine Uni is also governed by the GPL
(http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/gpl.html).

To use the font, you will need software that correctly lays out
Tibetan Unicode fonts.  Some recent versions of Microsoft's Uniscribe
work (but have these been released to end users yet or just
developers?).  Pango 1.8.0 supposedly works, but we haven't tested the
font with it.  Hopefully there are other packages that work also.

The folder contains several versions of the font plus the table data
embedded in the font with the OpenType rendering instructions.  The
following files have been included:

        * TibetanMachineUniAlpha.ttf - This is the "shipped" True Type
                                       version of the font with all
                                       production tables removed.  It
                                       functions as a regular font but
                                       the user cannot view the lookup
                                       tables.
        
        * TibetanMachineUniAlphaFL.vfb - This is the FontLab file from
                                         which the True Type font was
                                         created.

        * TibetanMachineUniAlphaVolt.ttf - This is the True Type
                                           version of the font WITH
                                           the production tables
                                           embedded.  One can view
                                           these tables through using
                                           Microsoft's VOLT program.
                                           VOLT stands for Visual
                                           OpenType Layout Tool. For
                                           details, see:
                                           http://www.microsoft.com/typography/developers/volt/default.htm

        * TableData [folder] - This folder contains the data exported
                               from VOLT that makes up the OpenType
                               Layout tables.  It contains the
                               following files and folders:

                * TMUniAlphaGlyphs.vtd - This is the glyph-definition
                                         table that assigns names and
                                         types to the glyphs based on
                                         their index number.

                * GlyphGroups [folder] - This folder contains 24
                                         tables that define the glyph
                                         groups within VOLT.  The
                                         files are named as they
                                         appear in the VOLT interface.

                * Lookups [folder] - This folder contains 27 tables
                                     the define the lookups within
                                     VOLT.

The naming of the glyph groups is based on the following abbreviations:

        U - refers to a group that takes a certain "u" or zhabs kyu.

        V - refers to a group that takes a certain set of (subscribed)
            vowels that are all at the same height.

        N - means "negative" because the minus sign cannot be used in
            a group name.
        
        B - means an alternative set of glyphs

        ### - numbers in the name refer to the height of the vowel or
              zhabs kyu used.

Example: VN324GLYPHS.vtg - is a group of glyphs which take vowels at
                           the height of -324.
         U0BGLYPHS.vtg - is a group of glyphs which take an alternate
                         zhabs kyu whose height is the baseline (0).
                         The zhabs kyu glyph is itself called
                         uni0F74.alt0b.

The names of the vowel glphys in FontLab and in Volt were created in
the following way: "uni" + hex unicode + ".alt" + height.  Thus,
"uni0F71.altN180" is the subscribed a-chung whose uppermost height is
-180. In this way, the glyph groups are named in a way that easily
corresponds them to the appropriate vowel glyphs. Because there was
greater variety of zhabs kyus (u) in the original fonts, these have
sometimes required a second layer of lookups to apply the most
appropriate version.

The Lookup tables follow the same naming procedure, except that they
do not have "GLYPHS" appended at the end of their names. Thus,
"V252.vtl" contains the lookups for substituting vowels whose max
height is 252. Of course, these lookups are applied to the
"V252GLYPHS.vtg" glyph group, and so on.

Please refer any questions to thdltools-devel@lists.sourceforge.net

        or

to Chris Fynn or Than Garson through the THDL Tools project at
SourceForge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/thdltools
