* install gobby
* gobby.debian.org
* debconf18/bof/non-latin-issues

Issues with non-latin script
============================


Font rendering issue(s)
* CJK Han unification

right to left writing
---------------------
Good support in QT and GTK. Not so where they are not used. Specifically: not in a terminal.
pipe into bidiv

r2l (bidirectional) - hebrew, arabic, farsi, urdu and others
  Not only R2L - Some glyphs have to modify (ligate with?) the preceding one.

harfbuzz - Can properly render multiple glyphs sorting out fine positioning
between them. Requires the information from the fonts

Rubyscript(?) is an aid to pronunciation that adds aids for pronuntiation.
Furigana(?) in Japanese is fully supported. This seems to be a tension issue
in Taiwan, it's hard to find proper typesetting. Contact should be made for
collaboration! Norbert Preining offers his support. (Zhuyin 注音符號)
Example: W3C Ruby support: http://rocksaying.tw/archives/2912837.html

Question - Is there a standard way to encode Furigana/Rubyscript i.e. to UTF8, into a stream of characters?

Linux kernel console
* Useless for CJK, at least
  (Workarounds: CJKTTY patch, fbterm, ... or kmscon -- Linux KMS/DRM based virtual Console Emulator? https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=700210 )

(reports of reproducible-builds issues derived from RTL - don't remember exactly what triggered them..?)

Another issue to discuss - Input methods... fcitx (chinese development) has excellent support. The mixes between keyboard layouts and input methods leads to really confusing situations.

===========================
the following questions are raised after the the discussion but i felt it is good to document them here for reference

1. Shortcut issues when switching keyboard layouts. For example switching between Hiragana(that is, japanese keyboard layout) and Dvorak. 
2. XIM doesn't support both "cursor following" and "preedit" to be present at the same time. It is a switch between "On the spot" and "Over the spot" (XIM also comes with a lot of other warts that need to be addressed)
3. up-down, right-to-left layout that is prevalent in both traditional chinese and japanese. This layout is not well supported.