Standaridized variation sequences for the Desert alphabet?

[James Kass]

Martin J. Dürst responded to Michael Everson,

> Overall, we may have up to four variants, of which
> three are currently explicitly supported in Unicode.

Yes.

> Are all of these used as spelling variants?

Is there another possible use?

> Is the choice of variant up to the author (for which
> variants), or is it the editor or printer who makes
> the choice (for which variants)?

The author, see below.

> And what informs this choice?

Personal preference and/or spelling reform as well as whether the
material was machine printed or hand written.

> If we have any historic metal types, are there
> examples where a font contains both ligature
> variants?

Apparently not.

John H. Jenkins mentioned early in this thread that these ligatures
weren't used in printed materials and were not part of the official
Deseret set.  They were only used in manuscript.

Best regards,

James Kass