Fonts/TibetanMachineUni/About_TMUni_Files.txt

71 lines
3.9 KiB
Text

********************** About Tibetan Machine Uni File *****************************
Author: Than Garson
Date: August 18, 2004
Organization: Tibetan & Himalayan Digital Library (http://thdl.org)
The SoureForge 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).
The folder contains several versions of the font plus the table data imbedded 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 glyphg roups 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 Source Forge: http://sourceforge.net/projects/thdltools