Mystery solved https://ionathan.ch/2026/02/16/angzarr.html #unicode #typography

(Me running some old VT320 firmware in a simulator.)
“I know, I could dump the memory and use the #Unicode pictures for control codes instead of putting ‘.’ everywhere non-ASCII.”
(Looks up the block at U+2400.)
“What? Only pictures of C0 codes? Where are the C1 codes?”
No one ever submitted a proposal for them? 😢

I just released version 8.0 of UniChar, the Unicode character viewer app I created nearly 12 years ago! Has some big new features. I spent a good amount of time polishing it for iOS 26 ✍︎
https://apps.apple.com/us/app/unichar-unicode-keyboard/id880811847
#iOSDev #IndieDev #Unicode

found a radical dragon today ⻯
and a radical ghost ⻤
and rad city ⻏
rad clothes ⻂

#typography #unicode

https://www.ssec.wisc.edu/~tomw/java/unicode.html#x2E80

#FreeBSD’s entry-level ee(1) text editor recently gained full #Unicode support 🎉
Huge thanks to @_bapt_
- much appreciated!

One more step toward making FreeBSD even more welcoming… #GenZ, we’re ready for you

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Internationalise The Fediverse

We live in the future now. It is OK to use Unicode everywhere.

It seems bizarre to me that modern Internet services sometimes "forget" that there's a world outside the Anglosphere. Some people have the temerity to speak foreign languages! And some of those languages have accents on their letters!! Even worse, some don't use English letters at all!!!

A decade ago, I was miffed that GitHub only supported some ASCII characters in its project names. There's no technical reason why your repo can't be called "ഹലോ വേൾഡ്".

Similarly, I'm frustrated that Mastodon (the largest ActivityPub service) doesn't allow Unicode usernames and has resisted efforts to change.

So I built a small ActivityPub server which publishes content from an Actor called @你好@i18n.viii.fi - it is only a demo account, but it works!

Some ActivityPub clients report that they are able to follow it and receive messages from it. Others - like Mastodon - simply can't see anything from it. Take a look at the replies on Mastodon to see which services work. You can also see some of its posts on the Fediverse.

What Does The Fox Spec Say?

The ActivityPub specification says:

Building an international base of users is important in a federated network.Internationalization

I can't find anything in the specifications which limits what languages a username can be written in. But there are a few clues scattered about.

The user's @ name is defined by preferredUsername which is:

A short username which may be used to refer to the actor, with no uniqueness guarantees. 4.1 Actor objects

There's nothing in there about what scripts it can contain. However, later on, the spec says:

Properties containing natural language values, such as name, preferredUsername, or summary, make use of natural language support defined in ActivityStreams.4. Actors

So it is expected that a preferred username could be written in multiple scripts. Which implies that the default need not be limited to A-Z0-9.

The ActivityStreams specification talks about language mapping.

Finally, the ActivityPub specification has some examples on non-Latin text in names.

So, I think that it is acceptable for usernames to be written in a variety of non-Latin scripts.

But What About...?

There are usually a few objections to "Unicode Everywhere" zealots like me. I'd like to forestall any arguments.

What about homograph attacks?

Well, what about them? ASCII has plenty of similar looking characters. I doubt most people would notice when a capital i is replaced by a lower L - and vice-versa. Similarly the kerning issue of an r and n looking like an m is well known. Are mixed language homographs more dangerous? I don't think so.

What if people make names that can't be typed?

Well, what if they do? Maybe not being found by people who can't type your language is a feature, not a bug. But, anyway, clients can let users search for other people, or copy and paste their names.

What about weird "Zalgo" text?

It is up to a client to decide how they want to render text input. The "problems" of strange Unicode combinations are well known. This is not a hard computer-science problem.

What about bi-directional text?

The spec makes clear this is allowed.

Do people even want a username in their own script?

I have no evidence for this. But I bet you'd get pretty frustrated if you had to switch keyboard just to type your own name, wouldn't you? In any case, why can't I have a username of @😉

What's Next?

If you build ActivityPub software, give some thought to the billions of people who don't have names which easily fit into ASCII.

If your software can see @你好@i18n.viii.fi and its posts, please let me know.

Red Dot of the day.
🔴
Could not show this in #Python with #Unicode '\u' escape codes and ended up pasting it from https://www.compart.com/en/unicode/U+1F534

Народ, айда форсить наш, славянский, кириллический #fediverseSymbol!
«Три снежинки» — ⁂ — потенциальный повод для многочисленных подъёбок

Польские ребята (@brie) нашли лучшего кандидата — ꙮ, «серафим многꙮкий». Символ, найденный в 1928 году только в одной (!) рукописи, и только из-за этого (!) добавленный в #Unicode несколько веков ждал своего часа
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Мультиокулярная_О

(English version https://im-in.space/@liilliil/113028392518272881 )

#Fixedwidth rendering of #Unicode in terminals and code editors is a hot mess. How much of a hot mess? Use demicode to test your terminals and editors. Now at version 0.5! https://github.com/apparebit/demicode

Unicode à Gogo ! ➎ est enfin disponible !

Le fanzine qui part à la découverte des histoires cachées du standard informatique #Unicode

Dans ce numéro, vous retrouverez des Égyptiens en folie, une chasse aux petits chevaux, une bonne technique pour dessiner les mains et plein d'autres fragments typographiques à jamais encodés. Toujours avec ses stickers !

Le RT est apprécié ヾ(◕𖧗◕)ゞ

https://designbrouhaha.etsy.com/listing/1759523067

#fanzine #typography #pictogram #design

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Hello, I'm an open source software engineer in my late 30s living in #Seoul, #Korea, and an avid advocate of #FLOSS and the #fediverse.

I'm the creator of @fedify, an #ActivityPub server framework in #TypeScript, @hollo, an ActivityPub-enabled microblogging software for single users, and @botkit, a simple ActivityPub bot framework.

I'm also very interested in East Asian languages (so-called #CJK) and #Unicode. Feel free to talk to me in #English, #Korean (#한국어), or #Japanese (#日本語), or even in Literary Chinese (#文言文, #漢文)!

#introduction

Re-#introduction: recurring topics here.

#Wikimedia #Wikidata #Wikipedia #MediaWiki #OpenStreetMap #Wikimania #Wikisource #WikiCite #OpenRefine #wiki #Wiktionary #WikiLovesMonuments #Wikibase #Wikiquote

#i18n #L10n #translatewiki.net #Unicode #CLDR #languages

#Copyright #PublicDomain #PubblicoDominio #Copyleft #CreativeCommons #OpenData #UploadFilters #LicenzaLibera #DatiAperti

#InternetArchive #books #biblioteche #library #Koha #KohaILS #GLAM

#WikiTeam #digipres #ArchiveTeam #XSLT

1/4

#Introduction post for my own Mastodon instance!

• I’m a 44-year-old jack-of-all-trades.
• I grew up in #HongKong, lived in the #US. My partner of 15 years and I moved to #Taiwan in 2020.
• We are “parents” to one remaining dog.
• I speak 6 #languages, and have dabbled in many others.
• Things I will nerd out about: #Unicode, #typography, #typhoons.
• I am a person of faith, but not a fan of organized religions.
• I type in #Dvorak.
• I curate pop music at @soniccruise.

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Learn more and sign up for updates at:
https://www.unicode.org/events/utw/2026

#utw26
#MissingScripts
#Unicode

This event marks a landmark partnership between the Unicode Consortium and the Missing Scripts program - a collaboration between the Atelier National de Recherche Typographique, the Institut Designlabor Gutenberg, and the Script Encoding Initiative at UC Berkeley.

#utw26
#MissingScripts
#Unicode

❣️ (Heart Exclamation) has become a go-to emoji for me. Strangely, I never stopped to think of its origin. Hermann Zapf, of course! It was among dozens of his 1978 Dingbats adopted into Unicode 1.0 in 1991. The block was even initially named after the typeface! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dingbats_(Unicode_block)

Image: detail from ITC Zapf Dingbats specimen booklet via @nicksherman https://flic.kr/p/fvHrm7

#ZapfDingbats #Emoji #Unicode #Fonts

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What have people used for truncation symbols (preferrably unicode)? I keep seeing ones like in the image below for -ae, but I've scrolled through a heck of a lot of #Unicode and haven't found anything. Most of the scribal abbreviations are in Latin extended D, but not this #BookHistory #mss #manuscripts #DH #TEI

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#Introduction

Hello Fediverse! At long last I finally made it here, too.

This account is here to talk all things #Unicode, script‍s, encodings and languages, and as shortcut for you, if you want to give feedback on https://codepoints.net.

That website is there to help _you_ make sense of the Unicode standard, so if you have feature ideas, just drop me a toot!

Apart from that I love to learn strange and niche news about everything related to written (and sometimes even spoken) language.