L2/18-181

[Richard Wordingham via Unicode]

On Thu, 17 May 2018 00:34:35 +0100
Michael Everson via Unicode <unicode at unicode.org> wrote:

> This is not a fault of the encoding.
> 
> > On 16 May 2018, at 23:01, Richard Wordingham via Unicode
> > <unicode at unicode.org> wrote:
> > 
> > I think simple Windows keyboards have a limit of 4 16-bit code
> > units; for an Indic SMP script, one couldn't map <x> to a single
> > key, as it would require 6 code units.  

It is a consequence of the policy of avoiding precomposed characters.
If there were a precomposed character for <x>, the keyboard could emit
that character - job done.

One objection is that one would need a sequence of decompositions:

<XA> = <KA_PLUS, SSA>
<KA_PLUS> = <KA, VIRAMA>

Some people are vehemently opposed to unnatural characters like
<KA_PLUS>.

Presumable the official view is that Windows Text Services have taken us
beyond that point, and the likes of <XA> above are not needed.

If X persists, perhaps named sequences should be assigned numbers so
that X can make a generic allocation of keysym codes to named
sequences.

Richard.