[256 new] Expansion: include Braille U+2800 to U+28FF

[Alan Bell]

In Unicode, Braille is represented in a block called Braille Patterns (U+2800..U+28FF). The block contains all 256 possible patterns of an 8-dot Braille cell, thereby including the complete 6-dot cell range.[1]

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braille_Unicode_block
  http://unicode.org/charts/PDF/U2800.pdf

[UndiFineD (k.dejong)]

This would be an improvement for accessibility

[David Marshall (dave-daltonmaag)]

I will caution that it's not as assistive in accessibility as you might
think. A multitude of signwriters who thought they were doing the right
thing have discovered that *printing* signs in Braille doesn't actually
help.

The Unicode slots are for when you need to write about and educate the
sighted about Braille, but they should not be used where you want to
produce accessible text. A real Braille font will have the correct
patterns in the A-Z Unicode positions etc, not in the Braille Unicode
positions, and will, of course, be used on output devices which deliver
a texture not an image.

Dave

[UndiFineD (k.dejong)]

ok, so it would be an improvement for accessibility development

[Alan Bell (alanbell)]

yup, totally agree with the point about printing Braille, we were discussing this in -accessibility, it is more of an educational item than an assistive item. We were initially discussing the packaging of a braille font with the glyphs in the A-Z positions when we found out about the unicode positions. For educational purposes teachers have printed braille signs and put stickers or blobs of glue on the dots to teach children about Braille. Educating sighted people about Braille is of value to the people who have to use it. I am a little dubious about the value of the signs at these codepoints vs a separate font with Braille at the A-Z positions though.

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

I think this block is something that should be done pragmatically; it could probably be done by making all the glyphs composites of others (there's an interesting challenge for somebody, working out the most space-efficient tree).

Rather than outlined circles for the gaps, I'd be tempted to just draw the solid circles.

[David Marshall (dave-daltonmaag)]

You're right to wonder about whether a separate font is a better
solution for people who wish to write about and educate about Braille.
Switching to a different font and typing the equivalent Latin character
is likely to be easier than hunting for the correct string of Unicode
characters, but it depends on the mix of different characters, and the
exact application.

Dave

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

Braille is a script. There are many /encoding/ used with Braille; different languages (Braille Music, French Braille, English Braille, Japanese Braille, ...), some whole words in those languages, punctuation, aliasing of numerals.

It is not possible to "translate to Braille" simply by aliasing certain Braille characters to existing Latin positions, just as it is not possible to translate Latin French to Latin British English just by aliasing some glyphs.

To store Braille script in a computer, two main mappings of Braille to codepoints are used; an older method ("Braille ASCII", codepoints BA+0020..BA+005F, six-dots, non-linear mapping) and a newer one (Unicode "Braille Patterns", codepoints U+2800..U+28FF, eight-dots, linear mapping). Neither of these have any bearing on the languages written the script (and one must know this, just as in Latin). Since we are a Unicode font, the latter encoding is what we should be targetting.

It is possible to transliterate between various Latin scripts and Braille to /some/ extent, just as some Latin languages share similar phrases ('colour' in English/Français) but to think that it is possible by simple mapping is misguided. For example, capital letters (in some Braille languages) can be written with two Braille symbols consecutively, while in others whole words might be written with a single character based on context. Each of those must remain separate, in order that it can be fed to a Braille display.

[Alan Bell (alanbell)]

very true, however there are several use cases for Braille, some of which are better served by a separate font. Grade 1 Braille covering the six dot pattern and with a literal translation of Latin ASCII A-Z and 1-9 would be understandable to Braille readers and useful in an educational context or for a sighted person unskilled in Braille transcription to create a template to make a simple sign or lable in Braille with a hammer and centre punch. I couldn't find a suitably licensed font to do this so I made a font last night to cover these use cases http://people.ubuntu.com/~alanbell/LibertusBraille.ttf but this bug/enhancement gets the glyphs in the right place for the Ubuntu font to be used in typesetting Braille and doing it properly. I think Braille is one of those things that you can do easy, or do right, and it is probably best to do both.

[Paul Sladen (sladen)]

Needs some input from the blind/Braille transcription community about:

  1. preferred sizes
  2. whether bold should be rendered as with bigger dots
  3. open circles, or filled circles
  4. only the dots that are "on", or all dot positions drawn (as in Alan's Libertus Braille above).