[A12n-forum] Re: Fwd: Arabic script web site hosting solution for all platforms

["Lateef Shaikh" <sagar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi,
For the Arabic language this solution may be useless, but when we look at the 
languages whose characters are added in Unicode 3 or 4, then it'll take some 
decades when all major OS and browsers support all characters properly and more 
than 75% users are using those machines.
Till then I was looking for an alternate, which I think is ZabanAware. And 
there are almost 80% sites in Urdu language that are in images, so I think for 
users it's not new to see an image based site. The interesting thing in this 
technique is that the images are also created on run time.
Any more comments are welcome.
====================
Lateef Sagar Shaikh
Software Engineer,
KayosWorks

sagar@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: dzo@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Date:  Fri, 20 Jun 2003 10:45:10 -0500

>Thanks, Andrew. Re image files for Arabic script, the old "Arabian Oasis" site 
>at http://www.geocities.com/RainForest/3285/arabic.htm opined that "Arabic in 
>graphic form cannot be justified nowadays. It is more expensive for the 
>publisher and for the user who usually pays by the minute. It is almost 
>completely useless when it comes to re-using it."  ... this was three or four 
>years ago (the site does not appear to have been updated in a while).
>
>Don Osborn
>Bisharat.net
>
>Quoting Andrew Cunningham <andrewc@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>:
>> I've had a look at their website. As far as I can tell if detects 
>> browser version and OS, and if you're running IE6 on win2000/xp it wil 
>> serve up text, for other browsers and operating systems it uses the php 
>> GD function to generate a series of small images for each word. On a 
>> large website, it would dramatically increase the required bandwidth the 
>> site uses.
>> 
>> Also means that text can't be resized for people with vision
>> impairments who many need the text displayed at a larger size to read.
>> 
>> Also prevents people cutting and pasting between that page and other
>> documents, eg if you want to quote something.
>> 
>> Seems a retrograde step to use new technologies to generate "text as
>> image" solutions.
>> 
>> 
>> Andrew
>> 
 




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