Re: lynx-dev Display of SGML Greek Math entities -- solution

[Henry Nelson]

> I made changes to
>       src/chrtrans/entity.h   and
>       src/chrtrans/def7_uni.tbl

Well, as for def7_uni.tbl, it's 'a default fallback for any 8bit user's
"display character set".'  To use my own example, my display character
set is "Japanese (EUC-JP)," which means I have a font available to
represent the entire Greek alphabet (except for "ς").  Why would
I want to see "Alpha" when I can see an alpha, albeit in double width?
What I'm saying is, what may be a "pleasing" fallback for one person may
not be so great for another, and what may be perfectly legible to one
may be gibberish to the next.  I think the key word is "_a_ default,"
not "the default."  Everyone is free to change any of those translation
tables to meet their specific needs or preferences.

> 1) Anyone who has used the SGML entities for their intended
> purpose, the display of Greek symbols in mathematical formulas,
> has been disppointed with the way Lynx displays them.
> 
> Currently, lynx tranliterates Greek mathematical characters into
               /may\          =
> their Latin equivalents, rendering them indistinct from Latin
> characters in formulas, and often incomprehensible.  This amounts
> to a loss of information, and is broken behavior.

I think you go too far.  I am not "disppointed with the way Lynx
displays" Greek and most mathematical symbols, at least the ones I
can read or know what they mean :).  I do not believe Lynx's behavior
is "broken."  I put up an example for you to look at:
    http://www.irm.nara.kindai.ac.jp/lynxdev/greek.html

> It would be much better if they were displayed as their raw SGML
> code.  It would be prettier if "α" were displayed as "alpha".

This is a personal preference only.

> Greek alphabetic characters, but goes on to emphasize that the
> mapping used is up to the user agent.

Exactly!

> E000-F8FF "Private Use Area".  The Unicode 3.0 documentation
> <http://www.unicode.org/unicode/uni2book/u2.html>, Ch 13, Explains
> that this range is for "use by software developers and end users
> who need a special set of characters for their application
> programs".  This was the ticket.

"Private Use Area" is just that.  Every user may have his/her own
particular reasons for mapping in that area.   I really can't see much
justification in using that area to _duplicate_ what's already there.

__Henry

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