[smc-discuss] Malayalam Unicode Problem

[Santhosh Thottingal]

The issue is bit complicated, I will try to explain in simple words.

QT4 is old QT library which supports an old way of Malayalam rendering - It
uses Opentypes old rendering specification, identified as "mlym" for
Malayalam. In that the rendering rules for പ്ര, ക്ര, or simply the rules
for ra-sign is defined in a particular way. Old fonts were developed to be
compatible with this. Later a new specification came, identified as "mlm2"
in that the rendering rules for ra sign changed. The old rules and new
rules are incompatible. So now fonts need to be developed according to
mlm2.

Can a font work with both mlym and mlm2 specs? It is difficult. but all the
fonts we maintain - SMC maintain - is written in that way. So you will see
Rachana, Meera, AnjaliOldLipi etc will work with old and new systems.
Microsofts Kartika or other fonts may not work like this.

If possible, I would recommend to use pyQt5 library which will solve this
issues if used with latest Malayalam fonts ( you can get them from
https://smc.org.in/fonts )

The big story about the above mentioned complication can be read from
https://blog.smc.org.in/malayalam-rendering-and-fonts-reph-sign-chapter-1/
and
https://blog.smc.org.in/malayalam-rendering-and-fonts-reph-sign-chapter-2/



-- 
Santhosh Thottingal
http://thottingal.in
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