[BRLTTY] Braille tables versus contraction tables.

[Mario Lang]

Dave Mielke <dave at mielke.cc> writes:

> The only significant component of brltty which isn't yet Unicode-based is
> the text tables support. What do you people think of getting rid of
> them and just using contraction tables (whetther or not we
> eventually rename them is another topic)?

FWIW, I've always found it a bit strange that the toggle for contraction
table usage was 6-dot braille.  While it kind of makes sense after some
thought, it still feels a bit strange.  If we switch all of the normal
text tables over to the contraction table system, we could select
between contracted and uncontracted braille just by selecting
the appropriate table, which does seem a bit more logical than the 6-dot hack.
After all, while contraction is historically only used with 6-dot braille,
there is nothing technically hindering you to utilize 8-dot braille while
still using contraction.

> I think there are only two issues we need to pay special attention to. The 
> first is whether or not horizontal navigation works well enogh. The other is 
> the way contraction table support currently splits braille windows at word 
> boundaries.

I think if we switch over to the contraction table system for
normal text tables, the "one character per cell" idiom has to
be preserved, otherwise I totally oppose this change.  Its nice to
be able to define contractions if you need them, but I think
preserving the layout of the characters on-screen is pretty vital to
many current users, me included.

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