Originally sent 17 March: got mailing list errors...
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> On Monday 10 March 2003 18:49, Philip Boutros wrote:
> > Hi David
> >
> > The glyphs associated with Unicode characters are well defined. Code points, like "25A0 (BLACK SQUARE)", exist for all the symbols you describe.
> Certainly.
>
> > Given this, is there really a need to add an extra set?
> > If KWord chooses a mapping from its generic bullets to Unicode characters
> > and supports this mapping on import and export then there would be no data
> > loss to and from the open office format.
> >
> >
> > One issue is that there are several things in Unicode that look like a "small circle" but have different code points. Same for squares, arrows, etc.
>
> Exactly, that's the problem. A filter, or another word processor, will never know
> if it handles all the possible cases, simply because there are too many
> possibilities.
> Without starting OO or looking into an existing, can you tell which Unicode
> codes it's going to use, for those 8 bullets it offers? I guess not - which means
> one would have to do this by a "reverse-engineer" method (save and inspect).
>
> What about the following compromise? The file format isn't changed,
> but the documentation for it lists the unicode chars used for those
> common bullets. That way a filter can easily know which if()s it has to write
> (err I mean switch/case ;).
I think this compromise is best. Of course it assumes that there will indeed
be a Unicode glyph for every bullet type a word proc app wants to use. I guess
even if not, an app can extend the set by using the private use area, or some
other dodgy trick.
--
Uche Ogbuji Fourthought, Inc.
http://uche.ogbuji.net http://4Suite.org http://fourthought.com
Universal Business Language (UBL) - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/l
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EXSLT by example - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/library/x-exslt.html
The worry about program wizards - http://www.adtmag.com/article.asp?id=7238
Use rdf:about and rdf:ID effectively in RDF/XML - http://www-106.ibm.com/develo
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Keep context straight in XSLT - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml/libra
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Python Generators + DOM - http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2003/01/08/py-xml.html
Using SAX for Proper XML Output - http://www.xml.com/pub/a/2003/03/12/py-xml.ht
ml
SAX filters for flexible processing - http://www-106.ibm.com/developerworks/xml
/library/x-tipsaxflex.html