Bundle Noto fonts for complex scripts

[bitigchi]

Currently it is not possible to view web pages/text in following languages. Granted Haiku does not have support for RTL or complex languages at the moment, this is a ticket to add fonts for these scripts, once support has been implemented (or just bundle all Noto fonts).

• Arabic scripts and variants
• Hebrew
• South-Asian languages
• Runic scripts
• Mongolian

[alpopa]

What about integration of Harfbuzz, which was GSoC project in 2017?

​https://www.haiku-os.org/blog/digib0y/2017-05-06_gsoc_2017_adding_harfbuzz_support_to_haiku/

​https://github.com/stippi/DemoHarfbuzzApp

I can see correctly (?) written Chinese (top-to-bottom) Arabic (right-to-left) and Cyrillic scripts. As far as I know, Mongolian language uses Cyrillic alphabet and I personally have no issues using Haiku with Russian locale.

[bitigchi]

Replying to alpopa:

What about integration of Harfbuzz, which was GSoC project in 2017?

​https://www.haiku-os.org/blog/digib0y/2017-05-06_gsoc_2017_adding_harfbuzz_support_to_haiku/

​https://github.com/stippi/DemoHarfbuzzApp

I can see correctly (?) written Chinese (top-to-bottom) Arabic (right-to-left) and Cyrillic scripts. As far as I know, Mongolian language uses Cyrillic alphabet and I personally have no issues using Haiku with Russian locale.

I should have been clearer, I meant Traditional Mongolian, which is written vertically from top-to-bottom. Recently Mongolia announced transition from Cyrillic script to Traditional script in the next couple of years.

​https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mongolian_script

[pulkomandy]

What about integration of Harfbuzz, which was GSoC project in 2017?

The project failed, with a demo app that was written with a lot of input from the mentor and very few work from the student. No changes have been made to Haiku from that GSoC project. The project idea is still available if another student wants to try it.

[pulkomandy]

We don't want to bundle the whole set because it includes some historical scripts we don't really want by default, so there is a separate "noto_regional" package for those. I just moved Thai from the "regional" to the main package since we now actually use it. I will do the same for Arabic and other languages when we have the translation completed, and we will have to look into the rendering algorithm indeed (but that is a separate ticket).

[bitigchi]

Replying to pulkomandy:

I will do the same for Arabic and other languages when we have the translation completed, and we will have to look into the rendering algorithm indeed (but that is a separate ticket).

It's highly unlikely someone will show up for translating Arabic or any other complex script without proper rendering support first. But respects to sompon for doing this without any rendering support at hand, that's an exception indeed.

[pulkomandy]

Yes, but without anyone to collaborate and review the work, I have no idea if what I manage to display is correct. Arabic is probably a much larger topic anyway due to the writing direction...

[bitigchi]

Replying to pulkomandy:

Yes, but without anyone to collaborate and review the work, I have no idea if what I manage to display is correct. Arabic is probably a much larger topic anyway due to the writing direction...

I studied some Arabic at university, and I think I can still find my way round it. I can definitely help you with the letters, and the layout whenever you need help.