Noto Nastaliq support for Balti Graf U+08C8

[lateef-shaikh]

Title

Noto Nastaliq support for Balti Graf U+08C8

Font

NotoNastaliqUrdu-Regular.ttf
NotoNastaliqUrdu-Bold.ttf

Issue

This is actually a request not an issue. Recently Balti Graf U 08C8 is added in Unicode 14 version.
Can you please add this alphabet in Noto Nastaliq font? It's shape is similar to Arabic Gaaf.

[r12a]

fwiw https://r12a.github.io/uniview/?charlist=%E0%A3%88&char=08C8

[simoncozens]

This would require considerable design work. Currently we have a gaf equivalent of every kaf glyph - 182 of them - which adds the sarkash. This is because, in theory, the sarkash is shaped specifically to fit the length and angle each gaf rasm form. (In practice, there are around eight-ten different sarkash shapes.)

To support graf, we would potentially need another 182 glyphs with a hamza-shaped sarkash, and a rewrite of the layout rules.

Alternatively, one thing we could try is to consider the sarkash to be a diacritic, and attach it to gaf with anchors: a different anchor for each of the angle/length variants of the sarkash, obviously. This would have the advantage that we could reduce the glyph set and simplify the rules by getting rid of all the kaf glyphs, as well as being able to support graf by just adding a new set of hamza-shaped sarkashes.

But I haven't seen any other font take this approach (pasting the sarkash onto kaf with anchors) and I wonder if there's a good reason why they don't... @khaledhosny, any thoughts?

[khaledhosny]

I have done this in many fonts, but most of them are simpler designs (with 1–3 shapes of the sarkash). I think there shouldn't be an issues with this, unless it somehow gets involved in spacing decisions (e.g. specific gaf kerning) which would then need to be done differently.