Issues with vertical text (most specifically, prolonged sound marks)

[citrusella]

I don't know if this is an issue with the file or if for some reason my player can't properly render it, but when Japanese is rendered vertically, the dash that prolongs the sound before it (as in: su_u_paa redii... this thing: ー ) should be rendered vertically, like a straight line downward, but it's not for the sub file I'm using. See below:

Thought I'd mention it here.

EDIT: I believe wavy dashes (the ones that look like tildes: ~) should be flipped as well but aren't. Could be wrong, since I've never had to use one in my limited vertical Japanese writing. XP

[EraYaN]

I am aware and I don't know how to fix it. It is using and "@ font" font so do you know what the replacement character is for that dash (ー)? (without replacing 一)

Someone with more experience in writing Japanese vertically can probably help, we basically need a vertical dash.

[citrusella]

:-/ I just combed over a few Japanese fonts in Microsoft Word just to see if there was a vertical dash present in their character sets, and the only way I could figure to flip it was to open Word in Japanese editing mode and set to vertical text... which still only rotates the character. I'll look around to see if there's any knowledge on this in the vast internet...

[EraYaN]

I found a solution: https://erayan.com/shared/2015-12-01_17-31-57.png looks okay right? (Punctuation is not rotated in @ fonts)

It is this character: (surrounded by spaces)

— (U+2013)

[citrusella]

I'd thought of the idea of using other characters but didn't know if it'd look right, but apparently it does!

That was a quick fix! 0_o

[EraYaN]

You do get weird breaking of lines though :( https://erayan.com/shared/2015-12-01_17-41-31.png https://erayan.com/shared/2015-12-01_17-42-03.png

I think due to the presence of spaces.

[citrusella]

...Ooh.

Perhaps I'll keep looking around, just in case there's a better option. (I actually thought I was onto something before I saw your solution, but the link I clicked was dead. XP)

[citrusella]

I don't know what this guy did, but his dashes are properly aligned, oddly: http://ssadev.blogspot.com/2011/07/vertical-writing.html

Looking at this, it looks like proper rendering of the dashes might require a certain level of HarfBuzz support, but I have no idea if that's even the problem considering some problem characters in that issue aren't problems here (i.e. quotes are properly rotated). Could also potentially be a problem with the font.

invokes Gone with the Wind reference ...I don't know nothing about subbing movies. XP

[EraYaN]

Sadly VSFilter (the ASS renderer) does not support OpenType. Basically the only thing now would be to use a non-space space character so no breaking occurs. ;)

[citrusella]

Ah, that's too bad. :-/

In related (as in, strange rotation) news, there appear to be two types of question mark in use:

? (used in Mezase! Super Lady, among other things) flips onto its side

whereas ？(fullwidth, used in Sleep Wonder's bridge, at least) stays upright

Part of me wonders if the fullwidth ！flips similarly in relation to the Latin/halfwidth form. XP

Upright versus flipped for those seems slightly less important, but I thought I'd bring it up.

[EraYaN]

Fixed in 4ad1ea89