Re: Ligatures

[Clément Pit-Claudel]

On 18/05/2020 15.33, Eli Zaretskii wrote:
>> From: Pip Cet <address@hidden>
>> Date: Mon, 18 May 2020 19:19:19 +0000
>> Cc: Stefan Monnier <address@hidden>, address@hidden
>>
>>> An alternative which might be nicer is to "split" the composition:
>>> display it as if a ZWNJ character was inserted at point.  Thus, moving
>>> forward one buffer position into the ffi would show f followed by a thin bar
>>> cursor followed by the fi; moving forward one more buffer position
>>> would show ff followed by a thin bar cursor followed by i.  Etc.
>> I tried something like that (with a variable-pitch font), and the
>> effect is nauseating because the rest of the line shifts as the width
>> of the word at point changes.
> The idea is that this is used only rarely.  Most use cases don't need
> to deconstruct a ligature that way; after all, that's what ligatures
> are for.

In an earlier thread, you mentioned programming font ligatures — wouldn't it be 
very common to deconstruct such ligatures, like → into ->?
Maybe the effect wouldn't be jarring with monospaced fonts, but for these the 
simple approach of subdividing the glyph works nicely too.