Section E.5. Unicode Consortium s Web Site

E.5. Unicode Consortium's Web Site

If you would like to learn more about the Unicode Standard, visit www.unicode.org. This site provides a wealth of information about the Unicode Standard. Currently, the home page is organized into various sections: New to Unicode, General Information, The Consortium, The Unicode Standard, Work in Progress and For Members, Key Specifications and Technical Publications.

The New to Unicode section consists of four subsections: What is Unicode?, How to Use this Site, FAQ and Glossary of Unicode Terms. The first subsection provides a technical introduction to Unicode by describing design principles, character interpretations and assignments, text processing and Unicode conformance. This subsection is recommended reading for anyone new to Unicode. Also, this subsection provides a list of related links that provide the reader with additional information about Unicode. The How to Use this Site subsection contains information about using and navigating the site as well hyperlinks to additional resources.

The General Information section contains five subsections: Where is my Character?, Display Problems?, Useful Resources, Unicode Enabled Products and Mail Lists. The main areas covered in this section include a link to the Unicode code charts (a complete listing of code values) assembled by the Unicode Consortium as well as a detailed outline on how to locate an encoded character in the code chart. Also, the section contains advice on how to configure different operating systems and Web browsers so that the Unicode characters can be viewed properly. Moreover, from this section, the user can navigate to other sites that provide information on various topics, such as fonts, linguistics and such other standards as the Armenian Standards Page and the Chinese GB 18030 Encoding Standard.

The Consortium section consists of six subsections: Who we are, Our Members, Job Postings, Press Info, Policies & Positions and Contact Us. This section provides a list of the current Unicode Consortium members as well as information on how to become a member. Privileges for each member typefull, associate, specialist and individualand the fees assessed to each member are listed here.

The For Members section consists of two subsections that are available only to consortium members: Member Resources and Working Documents.

The Unicode Standard section consists of five subsections: Start Here, Latest Version, Code Charts, Unicode Character Database and Unihan Database. This section describes the updates applied to the latest version of the Unicode Standard and categorizes all defined encoding. The user can learn how the latest version has been modified to encompass more features and capabilities. For instance, one enhancement of Version 3.1 is that it contains additional encoded characters.

The Key Specifications and Technical Publications sections provide all the Unicode technical documentation.

The Work in Progress section consists of seven subsections: Calendar of Meetings, Proposals for Public Review, Unicode Technical Committee, UTC Meeting Minutes, Proposed Characters, Submitting Proposals and CLDR Technical Committee. This section presents the user with a catalog of the recent characters included into the Unicode Standard scheme as well as those characters being considered for inclusion. If users determine that a character has been overlooked, then they can submit a written proposal for the inclusion of that character. The Submitting Proposals subsection contains strict guidelines that must be adhered to when submitting written proposals. In addition, this section provides information about upcoming and past technical committee meetings.