Keyboard layout creator

Ah... no need to be stucked to one layout... make your own one using MSKLC

(Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator)

You can get it from here:

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-gb/goglobal/bb964665.aspx

Can we define Lisan ud Dawat

Definitions are a real bore... people don't understand a word from it's definition, but rather from its usage. So it would be a waste to even try to "define" Lisan ud Dawat.

or

Would it?

From a font designer's point of view Lisan ud Dawat is the arabic script with some features of farsi incorparated in it, not all, only a few.

There are many languages which use the arabic script, and add the extra sounds and alphabets which it needs. For example, baluchi, pashto, and other afghan languages.

This seems interesting because, if someone needs support for writing Lisanud Dawat (on a computer of course), then he should look or farsi support, or any of the languages mentioned above... Any software that supports farsi could support Lisan ud Dawat too...

Or at least this is how people thought a few years back... (may be when people used windows 3.1, 95, and ME) but...

Wide spread Unicode support changed all that... it would be the same to say... Windows XP changed all that... Anyway, enough of history...

in the present scenario... Pure Unicode support is still a bit hard to come by... prior to that there were many propriety formats... and many still lurk around and make our life a bit difficult.

(ever faced a file which was arabic, and is now chinese characters?, or french chars? or even junk chars? sounds familiar doesn't it!)

Some times the problems faced raise questions like:

Q: Why should we be even use this format?

A: 'cuz its the STANDARD...

Q: Do we need to follow the standard... cuz Lisan ud Dawat doesn't have it own characterset in unicode? We could use our own format and make it the a standard!

And questions like:

What makes a Standard a Standard?

Which takes us back to our original question what is Lisan ud Dawat?... The boring question of definitions...

Lisan ud Dawat on WIKI

I was surprised to stumble upon this article entry in wikipedia!!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lisan_al-Dawat

I wonder who must have did it?

What is a glyph

I also intend to post properties and qualities of good fonts... but first i think some things need to be cleared...

WHAT IS A GLYPH?

• A glyph is a fancy word for a shape. It is a component that makes up an outline font. For example, the dot on the letter "i" is a glyph, as is the vertical line, as are the serifs. Glyphs determine the shape of the font.
  

• The actual shape (bit pattern, outline) of a character image. For example, an italic "A" and a roman "A" are two different glyphs representing the same underlying character. Strictly speaking, any two images that differ in shape constitute different glyphs. ...

• Every character in a typeface, (eg: G, $, ?, and 7), is represented by a glyph. A typeface may contain more than one glyph for each character. These are usually referred to as alternates.
  

• A displayable character.
  

also check out wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glyph

Burhani Font

This was quite some time ago... but haven't upadated it since... until I update it... have a look:

burhanifont.netfirms.com

Deco type: the maker

It turns out these decoptype fonts are quite famous, built by a german? artist Thomas milo.

Mr. Milo is a pioneer in this arabic fonts stuff, and quite passionate about them, as you can see in this article.