A last missing link for interoperable representation

[James Kass via Unicode]

On 2019-01-10 11:27 PM, wjgo_10009 at btinternet.com wrote:
> Yesterday I wrote as follows.
>
>> I suggest that a solution to the problem would be to encode a 
>> COMBINING ITALICIZER character, such that it only applies to the 
>> character that it immediately follows. So, for example, to make the 
>> word apricot become displayed in italics one would use seven 
>> COMBINING ITALICIZER characters, one after each letter of the word 
>> apricot.
>
> I have now made a test font. I used a Private Use Area code point and 
> a visible glyph for this test. It works well.
>
> https://forum.high-logic.com/viewtopic.php?f=10&t=7831
>
> Would it be a good idea to encode such a character into Unicode? The 
> first step would be to persuade the "powers that be" that italics are 
> needed.  That seems presently unlikely.  There's an entrenched mindset 
> which seems to derive from the fact that pre-existing character sets 
> were based on mechanical typewriting technology and were limited by 
> the maximum number of glyphs in primitive computer fonts.

The first step would be to persuade the "powers that be" that italics 
are needed.  That seems presently unlikely.  There's an entrenched 
mindset which seems to derive from the fact that pre-existing character 
sets were based on mechanical typewriting technology and were further 
limited by the maximum number of glyphs in primitive computer fonts.

The second step would be to persuade Unicode to encode a new character 
rather than simply using an existing variation selector character to do 
the job.