In general: Display is ok, text is not ideal but still read as an Å.

Yup, I'm with Frode on this one. In special tabloid newspaper and celeb colour mags headline fonts often have this feature. Outside of these two examples it is not done.

What is the A with ring like in handwriting? Is it also better written disconnected?

I wonder if a connected ring will feel strange as much as a connected tittle.

I watched Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries last week. In the opening titles and credits it was interesting to see a joined Ö, where the dieresis dots were joined to the top of the O, like a small pair of horns. It looked rather elegant.

Another variant that I've sseen/used* for å and Å is with the ring sunk down into the letter and a thin white outline between. Again, mostly a tabloid thing, but I think it works well enough.

* I used to work at Expressen, the second-biggest Swedish tabloid.

Jens, in handwriting the ring is always separated from the a/A.

Birdseeding,
here is an example for such a compact Å from the Fancy Diacritics group, found by Nina:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ninastoessinger/6551160325/in/pool-779590@N22/

Here's two other versions – one with equally inset Ä and Ö:

http://www.skrattnet.se/images/joke_pic/1569.jpg

Looking for the lower case equivalent, I have definitely set it as such in a headline or two and it looks considerably less jarring.

Here's one, though I have to say at this weight it looks quite awkward too.

http://www.idrottsforum.org/articles/jonsson/bild03.jpg

Well, any story involving aliens or Jesus could make that work.

BTW, how bad would it be to have a dot instead of a ring?

hhp

(Unreadably) bad. An incomplete ring might work better (like a breve or something) but essentially keeping the unweildy ring shape is the only readily legible solution.

Even in a display face? Like if the rings in this sample
http://www.skrattnet.se/images/joke_pic/1569.jpg
were solid instead, what would happen?

hhp

They would be precieved as straight /A/s. Or /Ä/s (handwriting /Ä/s are often written /Ã/.) Or foreign /Á/s. It's all about notan, you see, there needs to be white space in the shape there to be seen as what it is. Are you familiar with the concept? ;)

Touchë.

hhp

Here’s an Å, with the ring as (disconnected) solid square, by Claas. It’s from Danmark, but the language is Faroese, no?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cpbischof/6031983524/in/pool-779590@N22/

Florian "There's a diacritic for that™" Hardwig to my rescue!

hhp

As if to prove my point, that's actually an /Á/ – there's no /Å/ in Faroese.

Exactly. And don't forget there is already an A dot glyph, used in my favourite moribund Fenno-Ugric language, Livonian.

Foiled ågain!

hhp

Johan, thanks for the catch! And I thought Danes don’t lie …

Johan, thanks for the catch! And I thought Danes don’t lie …

We don't, except if we say we won't kill you, then we're lying.

my favourite moribund Fenno-Ugric language, Livonian.

Hmm, I always had you pegged as being more of an Inari Sami guy.

@Florian – Correct. The text on the stone is in Faeroese.

[…] more of an Inari Sami guy.

Yes, that is indeed my favourite among the Sami languages. To some extent, it can be regarded as the missing link between the Sami and the Finnic language groups, having retained more of the Proto-Uralic sound inventory than any other Sami language.

Johan, thanks for the correction! I just assumed it had to be an å without even thinking about the specifics of faroese...

And thank you, Florian, for the link and the corrected tag!