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Show HN: unicode.style

unicode.style

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Re: Show HN: unicode.style

#31

Post by SEMW »

cryptonector wrote: post #8
JimDabell wrote: post #7

Screen readers don’t do very well with this, so please only use it for novelty purposes. Otherwise you will unnecessarily be locking people out from what you write.

That really has to get fixed though.

It doesn't and shouldn't.

The whole point of having Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols as separate unicode code points, rather than just using normal latin characters with style markup, is so they can be used when the different letters have semantically different meanings -- in particular in maths when 𝘹 and 𝘅 can be in the same formula, representing different concepts. They're not a replacement for style markup.

In other words, they're different characters specifically so that screen readers can know to read them out loud differently!

Trying to 'fix' screenreaders by having them read anything that them as if they were normal latin characters, to accommodate people who like using the Mathematical Symbols block for fun in places which only allow plain text, would completely defeat the actual purpose of them.

https://www.unicode.org/faq/ligature_digraph.html#Pf6

Re: Show HN: unicode.style

#32

Post by bonoboTP »

robin_reala wrote: post #25
cryptonector wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That really has to get fixed though.

It’s really not a screenreader’s job to guess what a character might be being pressed into service to represent in a given scenario, and to try to work out when that’s inappropriate and it should be using the original specified meaning.

Well, it kind of is. In my mind, a screen reader should read anything that a healthy human can. Ideally even text in images and any sort of weirdness.

Re: Show HN: unicode.style

#33

Post by lucideer »

Android Firefox is just showing me black boxes for those Unicode ranges, so this definitely can't be very effectively used everywhere (I haven't tried yet, but I'm guessing some native messaging apps may have similar issues).

Re: Show HN: unicode.style

#34

Post by jancsika »

This reveals all kinds of bugs in current software.

For example, if I use the tool to make a url italic, then pasting that url into Chrome's url bar gives me back a bunch of unicode rectangles.

But that's not what I wanted. I wanted Chrome's url bar to interpret those unicode code points as an italic version of the actual unicode code points I want. Chrome should add a check for edge cases like these and add branches to map the string to the corresponding non-styled code points automatically.

Someone needs to send lots of bug reports to all the relevant pieces of software that currently have this bug. Firefox, Chromium, probably Edge, Webkit. Those are just the browsers, but I'm sure there are more. I'm not actually sure about Firefox tbh, but maybe just send the bug report first and see if it gets accepted to find out.

Ooh, here's another one-- if you paste some unicode.style'd text into LibreOffice does it convert it to the "normal" code points and add the relevant styling? If not, it should, otherwise it's broken.

Actually, I just realized another issue. If I type something in the url bar that is styled with unicode.style, then there is no way for Chrome to know whether I want it displayed styled or not.

For example, maybe I'm pasting it there temporarily so that I can copy/paste it later in a Tweet. In that case I probably want to keep the current styling for the tweet.

So Chrome should map to the normalized unicode code points (just in case I'm typing a url or want to instantiate a search), but still display the styled version. Then when I copy it again, it should put the unicode.style version into the buffer. And the app which receives the pasted buffer should receive the unicode.style code points. And of course that app should also normalize it underneath while retaining the styled display for the same reasons.

To deal with this complexity, there should probably be a standardized way for all apps to deal with styled text.

Please help by testing every app and filing relevant bug reports.

Re: Show HN: unicode.style

#35

Post by floatrock »

alpb wrote: post #13

I'm having trouble understanding what this does. Apparently there's a popover when you select the text you typed. I had to go to https://github.com/ekmartin/unicode-style to figure this out.

It's a kinda ascii-art thing that 𝔩𝔢𝔱𝔰 𝔶𝔬𝔲 𝔞𝔫𝔰𝔴𝔢𝔯 𝔥𝔫 𝔠𝔬𝔪𝔪𝔢𝔫𝔱𝔰 𝔞𝔩𝔩 𝔣𝔞𝔫𝔠𝔶 𝔩𝔦𝔨𝔢 𝔱𝔥𝔦𝔰. 𝕆𝕣 𝕝𝕚𝕜𝕖 𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕤 𝕚𝕗 𝕪𝕠𝕦 𝕨𝕒𝕟𝕥 𝕝𝕖𝕤𝕤 𝕘𝕠𝕥𝕙𝕚𝕔 𝕞𝕠𝕣𝕖 𝕠𝕦𝕥𝕝𝕚𝕟𝕖.

𝙸𝚜𝚗'𝚝 𝚞𝚗𝚒𝚌𝚘𝚍𝚎 𝚐𝚛𝚎𝚊𝚝?

Re: Show HN: unicode.style

#36

Post by function_seven »

jancsika wrote: post #34

This reveals all kinds of bugs in current software. For example, if I use the tool to make a url italic, then pasting that url into Chrome's url bar gives me back a bunch of unicode rectangles. But that's not what I wanted. I wanted Chrome's url bar to interpret those unicode code points as an italic version of the actual unicode code points I want. Chrome should add a check for edge cases like these and add branches…

I can't tell if you're being serious or tongue-in-cheek, but I like this comment nonetheless.

Did Unicode ever have any business assigning separate code points for italic versions of latin glyphs? Am I ignorant as to their true purpose?

EDIT: SEMI just answered my second question. Math. Makes sense.

Re: Show HN: unicode.style

#37

Post by bjt2n3904 »

jancsika wrote: post #34

This reveals all kinds of bugs in current software. For example, if I use the tool to make a url italic, then pasting that url into Chrome's url bar gives me back a bunch of unicode rectangles. But that's not what I wanted. I wanted Chrome's url bar to interpret those unicode code points as an italic version of the actual unicode code points I want. Chrome should add a check for edge cases like these and add branches…

Ugh. This just further poisons me against unicode being a good thing. ASCII or bust.

"ABCD" and "𝓐𝓑𝓒𝓓" are the same thing, but they also aren't. Am I supposed to normalize everything on username creation to prevent people from making duplicates?

Re: Show HN: unicode.style

#38

Post by function_seven »

Avery3R wrote: post #27
gkoberger wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It lets you 𝗯𝗼𝗹𝗱 or 𝕤𝕥𝕪𝕝𝕖 stuff in unicode, so plain-text places (like Hacker News) can get formatting.

HN supports italics it's not entirely plain-text

𝙾𝚗𝚎 𝚘𝚏 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚐𝚘𝚝𝚌𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚘𝚗 𝙷𝙽 𝚝𝚘𝚍𝚊𝚢 𝚒𝚜 𝚠𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚌𝚘𝚖𝚖𝚎𝚗𝚝𝚘𝚛𝚜 𝚞𝚜𝚎 𝚌𝚘𝚍𝚎 𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚝𝚘 𝚖𝚊𝚔𝚎 𝚊 𝚋𝚕𝚘𝚌𝚔𝚚𝚞𝚘𝚝𝚎, 𝚝𝚑𝚎𝚗 𝚜𝚘𝚖𝚎𝚘𝚗𝚎 𝚎𝚕𝚜𝚎 𝚑𝚊𝚜 𝚝𝚘 𝚛𝚎𝚙𝚕𝚢 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑 𝚒𝚝 𝚞𝚗𝚏𝚘𝚛𝚖𝚊𝚝𝚝𝚎𝚍 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚋𝚎𝚗𝚎𝚏𝚒𝚝 𝚘𝚏 𝚖𝚘𝚋𝚒𝚕𝚎 𝚞𝚜𝚎𝚛𝚜. 𝙸 𝚌𝚘𝚞𝚕𝚍 𝚜𝚎𝚎 𝚝𝚑𝚒𝚜 𝚋𝚎𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚊 𝚠𝚘𝚛𝚔𝚊𝚛𝚘𝚞𝚗𝚍 𝚏𝚘𝚛 𝚝𝚑𝚊𝚝 𝚕𝚒𝚖𝚒𝚝𝚊𝚝𝚒𝚘𝚗. 𝙵𝚒𝚡𝚎𝚍 𝚠𝚒𝚍𝚝𝚑 𝚝𝚎𝚡𝚝 𝚠𝚒𝚝𝚑𝚘𝚞𝚝 𝚝𝚑𝚎 𝚑𝚘𝚛𝚒𝚣𝚘𝚗𝚝𝚊𝚕 𝚜𝚌𝚛𝚘𝚕𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚐 𝚘𝚗 𝚗𝚊𝚛𝚛𝚘𝚠 𝚜𝚌𝚛𝚎𝚎𝚗𝚜.

Re: Show HN: unicode.style

#39

Post by SEMW »

jancsika wrote: post #34

This reveals all kinds of bugs in current software. For example, if I use the tool to make a url italic, then pasting that url into Chrome's url bar gives me back a bunch of unicode rectangles. But that's not what I wanted. I wanted Chrome's url bar to interpret those unicode code points as an italic version of the actual unicode code points I want. Chrome should add a check for edge cases like these and add branches…

> But that's not what I wanted. I wanted Chrome's url bar to interpret those unicode code points as an italic version of the actual unicode code points I want. Chrome should add a check for edge cases like these and add branches to map the string to the corresponding non-styled code points automatically.

No, it shouldn't. They are semantically different code points. The _whole point_ is that they are semantically different code points (they're from the Mathematical Alphanumeric Symbols block, the purpose of which is for e.g. when you have a formula containing 𝘹 and 𝘅 as semantically different characters, where that difference needs to be preserved in copying & pasing, conveyed to screen readers, etc.

> Ooh, here's another one-- if you paste some unicode.style'd text into LibreOffice does it convert it to the "normal" code points and add the relevant styling? If not, it should, otherwise it's broken.

It really, really, really shouldn't, for the same reason as above.

Mathematical symbols are not a replacement for text styles and markup. Trying to make them that will destroy the thing they're actually useful for, the thing they can do that text styling can't do: preserve their semantics when transmitted in plain text (including for accessibility purposes).

This is not styling. It cannot be normalized away. They are semantically different characters.

https://www.unicode.org/faq/ligature_digraph.html#Pf6

Re: Show HN: unicode.style

#40

Post by floatrock »

netsharc wrote: post #28
JimDabell wrote: post #7

Screen readers don’t do very well with this, so please only use it for novelty purposes. Otherwise you will unnecessarily be locking people out from what you write.

Well, look forward to spammers using this to bypass the spam filters...

Also using similar unicode characters in your username for nefarious spoofing attacks or worse -- https://labs.spotify.com/2013/06/18/creative-usernames/

This is called a Homoglyph attack.

If you accept unicode for strings that should be "unique" (eg username), there are various normalization schemes that basically convert equivalent-ish looking characters into a consistent hash.

I have no doubt spam filters use this.

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