Subject: Re: bug#11075: 24.0.94; Arabic character composition

From: Joost Kremers <[email-masked]>
Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2012 19:23:11 +0100

On Fri, Mar 23, 2012 at 07:06:27PM +0200, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
> > Date: Fri, 23 Mar 2012 16:44:01 +0100
> > From: Joost Kremers <[email-masked]>
> > 
> > Although Emacs 24 has bidi support (yay!), character composition for Arabic
> > does not work for me on OS X. (In the Arabic script, each character has
> > different forms depending on its position in the word: beginning, middle or
> > end. These shapes should be selected automatically by the software, but
> > they are not.)
> 
> Unless you build Emacs with a library that supports Arabic shaping,
> you won't be able to have it.  Does OS X offer such a library?

I don't know, but I suspect it does, because Arabic text is displayed
correctly in e.g. TextEdit. (Though interestingly, neither LibreOffice nor
MS Word do...)

> > On Linux, Emacs needs to be compiled with libotf in order to provide the
> > necessary character composition, which then works perfectly.
> 
> Can't libotf be compiled on OS X?

I haven't tried, but since it's part of both Fink and MacPorts, I suspect
it can.

I can try compiling libotf and then Emacs 24 and see if it works, but it'll
be a few days (perhaps even more) before I have an opportunity (and the
time...) to do so. (OTOH, since libotf isn't part of OS X, it may not be
preferable for Emacs to use it on OS X, especially if there is a native
library.)

Anyway, just let me know if I can help.

J.

-- 
Dr. Joost Kremers
Georg-August-Universität
Seminar für Deutsche Philologie
Käte-Hamburger-Weg 3
D-37073 Göttingen