Hi, At Thu, 2 May 2002 00:16:25 -0400, Glenn Maynard wrote:
> > * input methods > > Any way to input complex languages which cannot be supported > > by xkb mechanism (i.e., CJK) ? XIM? IIIMP? (How about Gnome2?) > > Or, any software-specific input methods (like Emacs or Yudit)? > > How much extra work do X apps currently need to do to support input > methods? Much work. I think this is one problematic point of XIM which caused very few softwares (which are developed by XIM-knowing developers, who are very few) can input CJK languages. X.org distribution (and XFree86 distribution) has a specification of XIM protocol. However, it is difficult. (At least I could not understand it). So, for practical usage by developers, http://www.ainet.or.jp/~inoue/im/index-e.html would be useful to develop XIM clients. I have not read a good introduction article to develop XIM servers. I think that low-level API should integrate XIM (or other input method protocols) support so that XIM-innocent developers (well, almost all developers in the world) can use it and they cannot annoy CJK people. Gnome2 seems to take this way. However, I wonder why Xlib doesn't have such wrapper functions which omit XIM programming troubles. > It's little enough to add it easily to programs, but the fact that it > exists at all means that I can't enter CJK into most programs. Since > the regular 8-bit character message is in the system codepage, it's > impossible to send CJK through. Well, I am talking about Unicode-based softwares. More and more developers in the world start to understand that 8bit is not enough for Unicode because it is a unversal fact. I am optimistic in this field; many developers will think 8bit character is a bad idea in near future. However, it is unlikely many developers will recognize the need of XIM (or other input method) support in near future because it is needed only for CJK languages. My concern is how to force thse XIM-innocent people to develop CJK-supporting softwares. > How does this compare with the situation in X? Though I don't know about Windows programming, I often use Windows for my work. Imported softwares usually cannot handle Japanese because of font problem. However, input method (IME?) seems to be invoked even in these imported softwares. > > * fonts availability > > Though each software is not responsible for this, "This software > > is designed to require Times font" means that it cannot use > > non-Latin/Greek/Cyrillic characters. > > I can't think of ever using an (untranslated, English) X program and having > it display anything but Latin characters. When is this actually a problem? For example, XCreateFontSet("-*-times-*") cannot display Japanese because there are no Japanese fonts which meet the name. (Instead, "mincho" and "gothic" are popular Japanese typefaces.) Such types of implementation is often seen in window managers and their theme files. --- Tomohiro KUBOTA <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> http://www.debian.or.jp/~kubota/ "Introduction to I18N" http://www.debian.org/doc/manuals/intro-i18n/ -- Linux-UTF8: i18n of Linux on all levels Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-utf8/
