Duh; a three letter challenge to #Google #Android

Many a #Wikipedia is written in a language that is known by its three letter ISO-639-3 code. All these languages do not have a two letter equivalent like English (en) or Dutch (nl) have. These languages have their own localisation. This includes localisation for the Wikipedia mobile application.

Many people of us want to use this localisation on their Android phone. This is not that straight forward; you have to install an app that allows you to use a user interface in stead of the Android user interface itself.

There is a problem. Android is not ready to support languages that are only known by their three language code. It is probably an oversight and possibly because all the "big" languages have two character equivalents. However there is no language bigger than the language you grew up with.

NB duh is the code for Dungra Bhil, a language from India.
Thanks,
     GerardM

The new #Android

The new "ice cream sandwich" release for the Android smart phones has one feature that makes many Android users in India with a previous release wish for an upgrade..

As you can see to the left, Android supports our WebFonts. Wikipedia articles can be read while other websites in for instance the Kannada language will show the infamous Unicode boxes.

Android is open source software and consequently it should be possible to figure out what it takes to make Webfonts work for the existing installed base. An alternative would be to add support by installing fonts locally on Android; this would be even better because all Indic languages websites become readable.
Thanks,
      GerardM

#HarfBuzz is a transliteration of #OpenType

HarfBuzz is an OpenType text shaping engine. A shaping engine is necessary to properly show the shape of characters that are part of a font. HarfBuzz is the shaping engine that is used for instance by Firefox, Chromium and Android.

As changes to Unicode do not only involve changes to characters but also to the shaping of characters, it is important to have a shaping engine that is up to date and works well with the fonts provided. HarfBuzz is being worked on by strong players in the Open Source world, what the Wikimedia Foundation can do is understand the importance of the stack and work on those parts where it will make an obvious difference; making sure that the scripts, the fonts for its languages are well supported and stimulate the development of tools like HarfBuzz.

More detailed information on HarfBuzz and its current issues for several scripts.
Thanks,
      GerardM

A #font for the #Sourashtra script IV

#Firefox on the #Android has a problem with displaying the Pagul font for the Sourashtra script. Brion checked this out and it failed sadly.

"Browser", the default browser on the Android however shows this page nicely. It showed exactly as it does on a desktop computer "so hopefully that means the ligatures / shaping work correctly on both, rather than that both are broken ;) ".

At this moment the WMF is researching the qualities of mobile devices. In a way, the test by Brion shows how complicated it can be. Do you test the default browser on a device or do you test your favourite browser on a device as well.

The good news is that web fonts work on a default Android.
Thanks,
        GerardM