[Debian-in-workers] Bug#661929: Rachana Malayalam font does not provide for many encoded characters

[Shriramana Sharma]

Package: ttf-malayalam-fonts
Version: 1:0.5.14

Currently as of Unicode 6.1
(http://www.unicode.org/charts/PDF/U0D00.pdf) there are many encoded
Malayalam characters which are not yet supported by the Rachana font.
Please note my other bug #661905 reporting that the current
distributed Rachana font contains bad place-filler glyphs for these
characters, but the Savannah repository version does not contain these
bad glyphs.

However efforts should be made to update the Rachana font to reflect
all the available encoded Malayalam characters.

The list of the encoded characters NOT supported by the existing
distributed Rachana font (but instead having bad place-filler glyphs)
was given in bug #661905. Now I am giving the list of encoded
characters NOT supported even by the upstream Savannah repo version of
the font as of the time of reporting this bug. Basically it is the
same list as before except for the chillu characters 0D7A-0D7F:

Sanskrit-use characters:
0D44 MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN VOCALIC RR (*)
0D62 MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN VOCALIC L
0D63 MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN VOCALIC LL

Pedantic-use characters:
0D29 MALAYALAM LETTER NNNA
0D3A MALAYALAM LETTER TTTA

Old dot reph:
0D4E MALAYALAM LETTER DOT REPH

Numerals and fractions:
(0D66 MALAYALAM DIGIT ZERO)
0D70 MALAYALAM NUMBER TEN
0D71 MALAYALAM NUMBER ONE HUNDRED
0D72 MALAYALAM NUMBER ONE THOUSAND
0D73 MALAYALAM FRACTION ONE QUARTER
0D74 MALAYALAM FRACTION ONE HALF
0D75 MALAYALAM FRACTION THREE QUARTERS

Date mark:
0D79 MALAYALAM DATE MARK

(*  Note that many glyphs of consonants ligated with vowel sign RR are
available, such as the glyphs with the Postscript name k1r2, k3r2 and
so on. But due to the absence of the appropriate glyph for 0D44
MALAYALAM VOWEL SIGN VOCALIC RR in this font, sequences using such കൄ
cannot produce the ligated glyphs.)

Action items:

1) As per bug #661925, the glyph for 0D79 MALAYALAM DATE MARK is
already available within the font but only the mapping is needed.

2) As per bug #661923, the glyph for 0D73 MALAYALAM FRACTION ONE
QUARTER is already available but in the wrong place as the glyph for
0D66 MALAYALAM DIGIT ZERO. That glyph needs to be moved to the right
place within the font and proper mapping must be given.

3) Other glyphs, including the proper glyph for 0D66 MALAYALAM DIGIT
ZERO (as per bug #661923) must be added to the font.

4) The glyphs for 0D62 and 0D63 can be derived from those of 0D0C and
0D61 by making them somewhat smaller and placing them below the base.
[Just mentioning this for your convenience.]

Rachana is a great font as far as glyph quality and support of old
orthography is concerned. Only thing missing now is (to fix the other
bugs and) supporting latest Unicode standard.

The Malayalam Unicode code chart font is itself Rachana only but it
appears the additional glyphs required for the new characters have
been added by the editors and so are not currently included in the
public Rachana distribution. It is important that the Rachana
distribution be capable of representing what its derivative being used
for the standard is capable of. Please make efforts for this.

-- 
Shriramana Sharma