Template talk:Arabic alphabet Nastaliq shapes

this doesn't work

@OwenBlacker: the extension character used ـــــ doesn't work in nastaliq fonts it needs to be change to zero width joiner. Irtapil (talk) 02:37, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

@Irtapil: Where are you finding it not work? It's used twice in He (letter) § hāʾ — showing gol he and do cashmī he — and is displaying correctly for me, in Noto Nastaliq Urdu; do you know in what font it's failing? — OwenBlacker (he/him; Talk; please {{ping}} me in replies) 22:21, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

It doesn't fail completely, it creates the forms, but the tatweel character is for horizontal styles, not nastaliq, so it doesn't connect quite properly, and tatweel overlaps other characters rather than joining them. zwj creates the forms unobstructed. Though many characters also have more than 3 forms, e.g. kaf and gaf look different before tall letters like lam and alif. And all the ba shaped letters change direction before some letters and turn vertical. Irtapil (talk) 05:36, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

the tatweel seems to be invisible in noto, so same as zwj, but tatweel is confusingly obstructive in the Windows font Urdu typesetting, which is what i see all the wiki nastaliq stuff in despite having noto nastaliq also installed. It was too ambiguous to work out which font i was actually seeing on the page, but comparing comparable examples locally i think i'm seeing the widows font. zero width joiner looks fine in both, but it's still a bit misleading to show just 3 forms.

Above is what i see on the Ha page.

this is what i see currently, it does kind of show the forms, but it's messy and confusing, and zero width joiner would do it better. uninstalling the windows font would fix it for me, but it's still going to display badly for a large proportion of people extension character viewing it. Irtapil (talk) 06:04, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

updated Irtapil (talk) 02:52, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

@OwenBlacker: the extension character work in some nastaliq fonts, but not windows Urdu Typesetting, one of the most common (see above). Irtapil (talk) 02:43, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

another issue is that Nastaliq letters have more than three forms.

Naskh letter forms				Nastaliq letter forms
isolated glyph	with tatweel			isolated glyph	end after	mid between		start before
	end	mid	start		ٮ	ٮ ا	ٮ ی	ا	ی
wiktionary: ئ	ـئ	ـئـ	ئـ	ئ	ٮئ	ٮئا	ٮئی	ئا	ئی
wiktionary:پ	ـپ	ـپـ	پـ	پ	ٮپ	ٮپا	ٮپی	پا	پی
wiktionary:ن	ـن	ـنـ	نـ	ن	ٮن	ٮنا	ٮنی	نا	نی
wiktionary:ق	ـق	ـقـ	قـ	ق	ٮق	ٮقا	ٮقی	قا	قی
wiktionary:ک	ـک	ـکـ	کـ	ک	ٮک	ٮکا	ٮکی	کا	کی
wiktionary:گ	ـگ	ـگـ	گـ	گ	ٮگ	ٮگا	ٮگی	گا	گی

Irtapil (talk) 03:27, 9 May 2020 (UTC)