[BRLTTY] What is the best way to deal with Unicode characters?

[Dave Mielke]

[quoted lines by Aura Kelloniemi on 2019/09/23 at 13:26 +0300]

>Isn't this the default behaviour already? 

No. I just tested it now to be sure. A character that isn't defined (with an
always rule) within the contraction table then the Unicode replacement
character [U+FFFD] (as defned within the contraction table) is used. If that
isn't defined then all eight dots is used.

I just made the change to do a text table lookup instead, and neitehr dot 7 or
8 are msked out. I think, therefore, that that does what you're looking for.

That leaves us with a decision. We have three choices:

1) The way it is now. Use the replacement character if it's defined, else use
   all eight dots.

2) Use the reaplcement character if defined, else do a text table looukp.

3) Skip the replacement character and just do a text table lookup.

Will one of these do or should we add a (probably rarely used) new selector for
it?

>Because when I enable "Contracted braille mode", all characters not defined in
>the contraction table are still looked up from my text table. just with dots 7
>and 8 masked out.

Odd. Neither the code itself nor my test did that. There's a special condition
within the code that does, but I didn't try to figure out what it is. In any
case, simply falling back to the text table does retain dots 7 and 8.

>But yes, a mode where a contraction table can be used without stripping out
>any dots from would be absolutely great! Could the "Use contraction table" and
>"Mask out dots 7 and 8" -modes be completely separate and independent of each
>other? I know there is probably some historical reason why it is done the way
>it is, but to me it would feel most logical if 6-dots was not related to
>contraction.

It isn't. Dots 7 and 8 are masked out in the special case that six-dot mode is
enabled and a contraction table isn't being used. The historical reason is that
we didn't want to try to search for a new binding on every single model.

-- 
I believe the Bible to be the very Word of God: http://Mielke.cc/bible/
Dave Mielke            | 2213 Fox Crescent | WebHome: http://Mielke.cc/
EMail: Dave at Mielke.cc  | Ottawa, Ontario   | Twitter: @Dave_Mielke
Phone: +1 613 726 0014 | Canada  K2A 1H7   |