Biblical Hebrew Forum

["Trevor Peterson" <abuian AT access4less.net>]

----- Original Message Follows -----
From: "Karl Randolph" <kwrandolph AT email.com>
To: "Peter Kirk" <peterkirk AT qaya.org>, "Jim West"
<jwest AT highland.net>
Cc: b-hebrew AT lists.ibiblio.org
Subject: Re: Unicode cont. was Re: [b-hebrew] 1 Samuel 7:2
Date: Tue, 17 May 2005 11:26:42 -0500

> It looks as if the fault lies with the SBL font.
>
> 1) Apparently the SBL font is only partially unicode
> complient in the first place, which means that its use
> should be discouraged for scholarly discourse.

I rather doubt that this is the problem.

> I have yet
> to see a SBL encoded site that has the points in the right
> places, while unicode encoded sites render well.

I don't understand what this is supposed to mean. Encoding
and font are two different issues. Let me give you a
relevant example. When I write a Web page, I compose
everything in plain text. This means that the characters are
entered irrespective of the font that will ultimately be
used to display the text in the finished Web page. They're
rather ugly, because my text editor (Windows Notepad) can
only use one font at a time, and the font on my system that
displays the widest range of characters is Titus. But I can
see that everything is there, at least. I use markup to tell
the browser which font I think it ought to use to display
Hebrew (a few ranked options), and a backup generic font
type, in case the user doesn't have anything I've suggested.
Now, it happens that I usually recommend SBL Hebrew as the
first choice, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the
encoding used in the HTML source.
>
> 2) the pattern of question marks in George’s
messages
> indicate that his mail server can send and receive unicode
> within plain text messages, but those messages that go
> through the B-Hebrew server have the non-unicode complient
> SBL font stripped out. Unicode complient inserts are
> passed through the B-Hebrew mail forwarder.

They are if they're entered in plain text, but I wonder if
part of the problem is with how George's software writes
HTML. Just thinking out loud here. I really don't know why
it didn't work from his computer through the B-Hebrew
server, but I don't think your explanation is plausible.
>
> Peter mentioned in an earlier message that the SBL font is
> a Windows™ font. That could be the problem.

Again, that should have nothing to do with how the text is
encoded.

Trevor Peterson
CUA/Semitics