This is a list of all the software development needs currently in ScriptSource. These are unmet needs for fonts, keyboards, other software and script-related information. To post a new need use the Post a Need button found on this page and others.

• Addition of Bold and Italic face to Abyssinica

  Abyssinica SIL needs extending (bold and italic). Currently typesetters are using fake bold and italic. The font family should continue to be available under the Open Font License.

  Category	Font
  Significance	Important (language use hindered)
  Status	Unmet
  Contact	see Contributor
  Contributor	priestla

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• Bamum Unicode Font

  Research on the Internet indicates that there is no released Unicode font for Bamum. However, there is a Graphite-enabled font available on request from  athinkra.com, for testing. The font will not be publically released until there is OpenType support.

  Category	Font
  Significance	Important (language use hindered)
  Status	In progress
  Status notes	Work possibly underway by Jason Glavy to convert a legacy font to Unicode.
  Contact	ScriptSource staff
  Contributor	sharoncorrell

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• Handwriting font for West Africa

  This request is for languages in Mali. Research would need to be done to analyze whether one handwriting style is in use across West Africa or whether it would have to be specific to Mali. West African languages use special characters (such as eng, open o, combining marks for tone, etc) and those must be included in the font to meet this need.

  Because it is quite likely that others will want to add additional special characters, the font should be made available under an open license such as the Open Font License.

  The font will require OpenType support for combining diacritics.

  Category	Font
  Significance	Useful
  Status	Unmet
  Contact	see Contributor
  Contributor	priestla

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• Integrate Graphite into Harfbuzz

  Harfbuzz is a package that is intended to serve as a unified type layout engine. Harfbuzz's standard behavior is provided through OpenType. Allowing Harfbuzz to interface with Graphite will provide improved support for minority languages that are not supported by OpenType.

  Category	Software
  Significance	Important (language use hindered)
  Status	In progress
  Contact	see Contributor
  Contributor	sharoncorrell

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• Modifiable Lao fonts in multiple styles

  A set of Lao fonts is needed that supports all languages that use the script, has multiple styles (at least regular and bold) and is available under an open license that allows modification and redistribution.

  Skills required	Font design, OpenType expertise
  Category	Font
  Significance	Important (language use hindered)
  Status	In progress
  Contact	see Contributor
  Contributor	gaultney

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• Nastaliq font with Graphite support

  Members of SIL's Non-Roman Script Initiative team are currently experimenting with developing a Graphite-enabled Nastaliq font. Our current approach is to take the  Nafees Nastaleeq font developed by  CLE (Center for Language Engineering) and convert the OpenType lookups to Graphite rules. The reason for using this font is that it is freely available and has a VOLT project which makes it straightforward to decipher the OpenType.

  However, there is a significant question as to whether this is an appropriate style for the communities that are in need of this font. Research is needed to determine the needed style. To obtain an appropriate font, options could include:

  • (1) locate an existing freely available font that is appropriate
  • (2) modify an existing font (this might be an option if a small number of forms need changing)
  • (3) develop a font from scratch
  • (4) work with another organization to develop a font that meets our needs

  An appropriate font would need to support the  recommended Nastaliq subset.

  Project status:

  Convert OpenType lookups to Graphite

  • Basic initial/medial/final forms - DONE
  • Contextual alternates - DONE
  • Cursive connections - DONE
  • Kerning
  • Positioning nuqtas - DONE
  • Positioning other diacritics

  Test and Debug

  • Two-base-form combinations with no nuqtas - DONE
  • Three-base-form combinations with no nuqtas - DONE
  • Four-base-form combinations with no nuqtas - DONE
  • CRULP standard Urdu ligatures - IN PROGRESS

  Optimize

  Add support for minority languages

  Skills required	Knowledge of Arabic script and nastaliq style script in particular; font design; Graphite programming
  Category	Font
  Significance	Important (language use hindered)
  Status	In progress
  Contact	see Contributor
  Contributor	sharoncorrell

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• OCR in Ethiopic, Bengali, Gujarati scripts

  It would be valuable to add training data to the Tesseract OCR engine to support OCR for Ethiopic, Bengali and Gujarati.

  Skills required	Language skills, familiarity with Unicode, access to data. (See  Tesseract)
  Category	Software
  Significance	Important (language use hindered)
  Status	Unmet
  Status notes	Other OCR engines also could do it; Tesseract provides some training files. CRL, Readex, World Newspaper Archive could use it.
  Contact
  Contributor	clriley

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