Re: Experiments with classical Greek keyboard input
Thanks to Everyone for your help.
It looks like my system is configured properly, only something is not
working, perhaps in the implementation. I have a SuSE 9.2 which I
installed last year, but I believe I have seen copyright notices
dating to 2003.
I know that 9.3 came out last year, and I think a friend of mine was
telling me that 9.4 was already available.
Only I don't have the time to make such frequent updates. For the
moment, I'll stick with my perl script. It's really no problem. In
fact, it's GREAT!
You know, I have Fedora on another partition. Maybe I'll give that a
try... Oh yeah, I did. It didn't work either, and the configuration
files were virtually identical.
Let's drink a toast... to the next version!
Cheers!
Joe
http://modern-greek-verbs.tripod.com/sarris/
On 5/10/06, Jan Willem Stumpel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Joe Schaffner wrote:
After lengthy consideration, I have come to the conclusion xkb
[..] only maps keyboard events to keysyms, which are not
characters
Many of them really are just characters.
I have these two keymaps i.e. groups on my system:
/etc/X11/xkb/symbols/el -- The one I'm using
/etc/X11/xkb/symbols/gr -- The dirty bastard
Isn't this dirty bastard /etc/X11/xkb/symbols/pc/gr? Which version
of X do you have?
include el(extended)
This shows that you are really using both, because gr includes el.
BTW in newer versions of X there is no el, only the dirty bastard.
key.type = THREE_LEVEL;
key AD11 {[], [ dead_tilde, dead_diaeresis, dead_macron ]};
key AD12 {[], [ dead_iota, VoidSymbol, dead_breve ]};
key AC10 {[], [ dead_acute, dead_horn ]};
key AC11 {[], [ dead_grave, dead_ogonek ]};
};
I assume the list of keysyms captures the shifted state of the
key i.e. dead_acute is on the semi-colon key and dead_horn
is on the same key, shifted, the colon key.
Yes, and in the case of three-level keys, the third level is
accessed by the AltGr key (right-alt, most probably). So that's
how you get the dead macron etc.
Some keys might be four-level, in which case the fourth level is
accessed by means of Shift-AltGr.
dead_grave is on the single-quote key and dead_ogonek is on
the double-quote key.
That's a pretty good layout. I like it.
Why not name these keysyms dead_psili and dead_dasia?
Because these names are not known to the system. However, all
UTF-8 characters are known to the system by default, having
names beginning with U. So the designer of this layout could, and
in my opinion should, have called them U0313 (for the dead psili)
and U0314 (for the dead dasia).
This would have avoided the need for a special Greek Compose file,
the existence of which is just a bother, ergo censeo delendam
esse. There already exists an international Compose file (it is
called the US file but it is really international), which serves
all languages, including ancient and modern Greek, and which knows
how to combine U0313 and U0314 with Greek letters and with other
accents.
Anyway, I activate the gr keymap like this:
setxkbmap us,gr(polytonic) -option grp:alt_shift_toggle
The command syntax is troublesome. There seem to be other ways
of doing it. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to work.
You can put the keyboard options in the X configuration file
(/etc/X11/xorg.conf, or /etc/X11/XF86Config-4).
[..] Yes, I can enter greek characters. The dead_acute seems to
work, but I am not sure if it is outputting a tonos or a acute.
It's probably a tonos.
It should be, because having a separate acute is not considered
correct anymore. The fonts you use should display the tonos as an
acute. But if you really want to have the separate acute (oxia),
there are ways.
None of the other dead keys seem to work.
Any ideas?
All the dead keys can be made to work. It is not magic; it is not
even difficult. I apologise for blowing my own horn, but perhaps
you really should read the bits relating to keyboard and Greek
on http://www.jw-stumpel.nl/stestu.html.
It would be nice to see the entire character map in the same
place.
To get a picture of your character map (or maps, if you have
defined multiple maps) you could try
xkbcomp -xkm $DISPLAY
xkbprint server-0_0.xkm server-0_0.eps
The resulting file, server-0_0.eps, can be viewed with gv. This
xkbprint system seems a little bit flaky, though. You may have
difficulty actually printing the map.
Regards, Jan
--
Linux-UTF8: i18n of Linux on all levels
Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-utf8/
--
Linux-UTF8: i18n of Linux on all levels
Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-utf8/
Re: Experiments with classical Greek keyboard input
After lengthy consideration, I have come to the conclusion xkb has
nothing to do with character mapping.
It only maps keyboard events to keysyms, which are not characters i.e.
it creates the (integer-valued, I assume) names of the key
combinations, and 2) it allows you to group the keysyms into
language-specific quasi-keyboards.
I have these two keymaps i.e. groups on my system:
/etc/X11/xkb/symbols/el -- The one I'm using
/etc/X11/xkb/symbols/gr -- The dirty bastard
Here is an excerpt from the latter:
partial alphanumeric_keys alternate_group
xkb_symbols polytonic {
include el(extended)
key.type = THREE_LEVEL;
key AD11 { [], [ dead_tilde, dead_diaeresis, dead_macron ] };
key AD12 { [], [ dead_iota, VoidSymbol, dead_breve ] };
key AC10 { [], [ dead_acute, dead_horn ] };
key AC11 { [], [ dead_grave, dead_ogonek ] };
};
I assume the list of keysyms captures the shifted state of the key i.e.
dead_acute is on the semi-colon key and dead_horn is on the same
key, shifted, the colon key.
dead_grave is on the single-quote key and dead_ogonek is on the
double-quote key.
That's a pretty good layout. I like it.
Why not name these keysyms dead_psili and dead_dasia?
Anyway, I activate the gr keymap like this:
setxkbmap us,gr(polytonic) -option grp:alt_shift_toggle
The command syntax is troublesome. There seem to be other ways of
doing it. Maybe I'm wrong, but it seems to work.
Yes, the keymap is there, I can see it on the task bar. To switch to
another group, I can use the alt_shift combination (another meta
symbol? Where are all these symbols defined?).
Yes, I can enter greek characters. The dead_acute seems to work, but
I am not sure if it is outputting a tonos or a acute. It's probably a
tonos.
None of the other dead keys seem to work.
Any ideas?
Joe
http://modern-greek-verbs.tripod.com/sarris/
PS
The character mapping seems to take place in the per-locale Compose
file (ergo non potest delendum esse). That would make sense, because
you'd need a separate character mapping for each character set. One
group corresponds to many Compose files. The one I seem to be using
is:
/usr/X11R6/lib/X11/locale/el_GR.UTF-8/Compose
Here are some character mappings:
Multi_key greater Greek_alpha : αΌ€ U1f00
dead_horn Greek_alpha : αΌ€ U1f00
Multi_key less Greek_alpha: αΌ U1f01
dead_ogonek Greek_alpha : αΌ U1f01
Multi_key greater grave Greek_alpha : αΌ‚ U1f02
Multi_key grave greater Greek_alpha : αΌ‚ U1f02
dead_horn dead_grave Greek_alpha : αΌ‚ U1f02
dead_grave dead_horn Greek_alpha : αΌ‚ U1f02
Multi_key less grave Greek_alpha: αΌƒ U1f03
Multi_key grave less Greek_alpha: αΌƒ U1f03
dead_ogonek dead_grave Greek_alpha: αΌƒ U1f03
dead_grave dead_ogonek Greek_alpha: αΌƒ U1f03
Multi_key greater apostrophe Greek_alpha: αΌ„ U1f04
Multi_key apostrophe greater Greek_alpha: αΌ„ U1f04
dead_horn dead_acute Greek_alpha : αΌ„ U1f04
dead_acute dead_horn Greek_alpha : αΌ„ U1f04
Multi_key less apostrophe Greek_alpha : αΌ… U1f05
Multi_key apostrophe less Greek_alpha : αΌ… U1f05
Multi_key is a diversionary tactic. I guess it would let me use the
polytonic characters while in monotonic mode. I wouldn't have to
change groups. (I tried it, but it didn't work. However, I could use
all the French characters while in USA mode)
I can see that the dead_horn is intended to function as psili and
the dead_ogonek as the dasia.
Are the names of the keysyms important?
If not, why not call them dead_psili and dead_dasia?
Question: The greek-locale Compose file contains character mappings
for all the composed characters.
Where are the mappings for the simple, non-composed greek characters?
It would be nice to see the entire character map in the same place.
On 4/14/06, Joe Schaffner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Thanks Jan,
Your message gave me some encouragement. I'll try starting the
gr(polytonic) map again tomorrow, and experiment with the dead keys,
but I don't have much time to lose. It took me 2 or 3 hours to do the
perl script, and I have lost days experimenting with system software.
The problem I have with system software is that it usually makes a
fool out of me, and I don't find the xkb intuitive at all. By
intuitive, I mean it reads my mind and does what I want.
I found the mono Greek map quite intuitive, but I believe I saw a
program somewhere which had a Gui keyboard with all the keys marked. I
was wondering, is there anyway to see the poly greek keyboard on my
system?
Ceterum censeo /usr/lib/X11/locale/el_GR.UTF-8/Compose esse delendam.
I was happy to find it, because it listed all the poly greek
Re: Experiments with classical Greek keyboard input
Thanks Jan,
Your message gave me some encouragement. I'll try starting the
gr(polytonic) map again tomorrow, and experiment with the dead keys,
but I don't have much time to lose. It took me 2 or 3 hours to do the
perl script, and I have lost days experimenting with system software.
The problem I have with system software is that it usually makes a
fool out of me, and I don't find the xkb intuitive at all. By
intuitive, I mean it reads my mind and does what I want.
I found the mono Greek map quite intuitive, but I believe I saw a
program somewhere which had a Gui keyboard with all the keys marked. I
was wondering, is there anyway to see the poly greek keyboard on my
system?
Ceterum censeo /usr/lib/X11/locale/el_GR.UTF-8/Compose esse delendam.
I was happy to find it, because it listed all the poly greek
characters, but I was a bit surprised to find it in a 'locale'
directory, well, in an X11/locale directory. I'd eventually like to
sort out the locale and the keymap stuff, because at first glance, I
don't know what one has to do with the other.
Joe
http://modern-greek-verbs.tripod.com/
PS
I found a key conflict with my program. Sometimes I need to enclose
greek text inside parentheses, like this:
(εἶμεν)
[damn, these windows fonts suck]
In this case I don't want dasia epsilon and I don't want a space
between the LP and the epsilon, so I encoded the text like this
(me)~ιμεν)
The m is an undefined tag which the browser conveniently throws
away, respecting the spacing, like a b or an i.
I realize my program only works on text files. It won't help entering
poly Greek into OO, but I do all my work in gedit.
===
On 4/14/06, Jan Willem Stumpel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
Joe Schaffner wrote:
Hello Thomas,
It looks like we're all looking for non-standard ways to
capture polytonic Greek in Linux. This must mean no keymap
exists. Given one hundred years I'll figure out xkb and write
one.
xkb is not so difficult to figure out. At the moment you can
already enter polytonic Greek with it, and if you set the
Greek/Latin switch to a single key (I use left-windows), entering
mixed text consisting of Greek and Latin is not difficult.
The problem is: what is, from a user point of view, the desired
behaviour of the keyboard? At the moment xkb gr(polytonic) has:
key US GR keysym with gives
AD11 [ [ dead_tilde α ᾶ (perispomeni)
shiftAD11 { { dead_diaeresis υ (=y) ϋ (dialytika)
altgrAD12 « dead_macron α ᾱ (macron)
AD12 ] ] dead_iotaα ᾳ (iota subscript)
shiftAD12 } } VoidSymbol α α (does nothing)
altgrAD12 » dead_breve α ᾰ (breve)
AC10 ; ´ dead_acute α ά (tonos/oxia)
shiftAC10 : ¨ dead_hornα ἀ (psili)
altgrAC10 ΅ [not defined]α α (does nothing)
AC11 ' ' dead_grave α ὰ (varia)
shiftAC11dead_ogonek α ἁ (dasia)
altgrAC11 [not defined]α α (does nothing)
AC and AD indicate the third and fourth keyboard row from below,
respectively. The number indicates the position of the key
counting from the left, but not counting shift, capslock, tab.
The column US shows which symbols are engraved on the physical
keys of a standard US PC 104 keyboard. The column GR shows what
is engraved on the physical keys of a Greek keyboard, according to
Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Keyboard_layout#Greek). I
do not know how standard this is (in Greece).
The keysyms dead_ogonek and dead_horn are only interpreted as
dasia and psili if the locale is el_GR.UTF-8. To use gr(polytonic)
with 'international' UTF-locales, these keysyms should be replaced
by 0x1000314 and 0x1000313 respectively (edit the file
/etc/X11/xkb/symbols/pc/gr).
Combinations, like ᾄ, are also possible; you have to use a fixed
order:
-- iota subscript first
-- accent second
-- breathing third
So for ᾧ you woud enter the keystroke sequence (keys as marked on
a US keyboard) ][v. [The order, I admit, seems unnatural. The
order that you propose looks better. This can be changed in the
Compose file, and maybe it should be filed as a bug -- but where?
Where does the Compose file come from?]
This works in openoffice, mozilla, and any text-mode editor you like.
The question is, is this a workable system in practice? I am sure
any desired keyboard behaviour could easily be made to work with
the tools we have (editing the files in /etc/X11/xkb and the
Compose file).
For instance, earlier on the list, Simos Xenitellis called
attention to a proposal for polytonic handling in Linux:
http://planet.hellug.gr/misc/polytonic/
This document has some keyboard combination tables of which a
small part is given below:
tonos/oxia ΄Dead key (;) + vowel
dialytika ¨ Dead key (:) + vowel (only υ, ι)
perispomeni
Re: Experiments with classical Greek keyboard input
Hello Thomas, It looks like we're all looking for non-standard ways to capture polytonic Greek in Linux. This must mean no keymap exists. Given one hundred years I'll figure out xkb and write one. In the meantime: 1) I wonder if Yudit has a built in map for polytonic Greek. It has a monotonic map, which only works in Yudit, but thank God for Yudit, because xkb is pretty tough to deal with right out of the box. With Yudit you do not need xkb [but if you've managed to configure the Grk keymap, Yudit will goof up. It need the straight, vanilla flavored keyboard]. 2) Borrowing a trick from a macro add on to Microsoft Word back in Windows 98 -- which had no polytonic Greek either -- I've gotten used to using the special characters on normal keyboard to enter poly Greek. )/α is a greek alpha with psili and oxia, ~ω is a greek omega with perispomeni )~|η is a greek eta with psili, perispomeni and ypogegrammeni or in latin, soft breathing, circumflex and iota subscript \ε is a greek epsilon with varia (i.e. grave) accent. The encoding always begins with the breathing (if it exists) followed by the accents (if they exist) followed by the iota subscript (if it exists). [My locale Config file at home has listed all the combinations in any order, but I find that tedious.] The perl script works. Here it is: http://modern-greek-verbs.tripod.com/sarris/poly.pl I tested it on this page: http://modern-greek-verbs.tripod.com/sarris/lexicon.html (I would have posted the resulting page, but I won't be able to upload it until tomorrow. technical problems at the University) Just capture your document using the mono Greek keymap, but don't use the tonos, just the unaccented vowels, marked up with my dead key characters, then run the script over the file: $ ./poly.gr lexicon.html tmp.html The temporary file has all the lower case polytonic Greek vowels. I haven't noticed any conflicts with normal punctuation (yet). I don't need the uppercase for my lexicon. This is ideal for me because I can capture both mono and poly greek using just the mono Greek map. Joe http://modern-greek-verbs.tripod.com/ On 4/12/06, Joe Schaffner [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Hi All, I'm getting closer... closer to the motherload, to hitting paydirt. I've been trying to follow your discussion on the gr(polytonic) key map, but I need some more background... I could set my key map to gr(polytonic) as you suggested in your mail, using the 'setxkbmap' as you described, but the keyboard did nothing useful. Maybe the configuration files are obsolete. I am using SuSE 9.2 and Gnome. My .profile: export LANG=el_GR.UTF-8 setxkbmap us,el -option grp:alt_shift_toggle I need to use the polytonic Greek characters. I am translating a Lexicon of Ancient Greek Verb: http://modern-greek-verbs.tripod.com/sarris/ Do I even need a special map for polytonic Greek (e.g. gr) i.e. Can I get to the poly Greek characters through the mono Greek map? What is a Multi_key? Maybe I could use it on the mono Greek keymap. That would be the best for me, because I do not like changing keymaps. I can't tell you the number of times I forgotten to switch between Greek and English, only to find I've been typing an English text in Greek! The same thing is even more likely between Greek and Greek. In the meantime, I'm going to write a little script in perl which will read my html and substitute my own key codes to the poly greek unicode. For example, I can capture the Greek vowels like this: )/α would be a greek alpha with psili and oxia, ~ω would be a greek omega with perispomeni I can copy/paste the unicode characters from the .Compose file (attached) into my perl script. This would esentially move the system-layer, xkb keycode mapping process to the application domain, which I can manage. Still, the keymap configuration should be as simple as Perl, no? But where do I get started? Joe http://modern-greek-verbs.tripod.com/ PS What is a tiny elvis? He's a wee-tiny Elvis that can live on your dashboard. Sometimes his fully grown body guards will let him steer the car. Hey, tiny Elvis, would you buy me a Cadillac? This is from my system: /usr/lib/X11/locale/el_GR.UTF-8/Compose # Part 2 # # Greek Extended multi-key and dead key definitions. These have been # machine-generated by a perl script, found at: # http://hal.csd.auth.gr/~vvas/i18n/xkb/polytonic-compose.pl Multi_key greater Greek_alpha : ἀ U1f00 dead_horn Greek_alpha : ἀ U1f00 Multi_key less Greek_alpha: ἁ U1f01 dead_ogonek Greek_alpha : ἁ U1f01 Multi_key greater grave Greek_alpha : ἂ U1f02 Multi_key grave greater Greek_alpha : ἂ U1f02 dead_horn dead_grave Greek_alpha : ἂ U1f02 dead_grave dead_horn Greek_alpha : ἂ U1f02 Multi_key less grave Greek_alpha: ἃ
Re: Experiments with classical Greek keyboard input
considered, then there I want to know about it! In fact Mozilla and Firefox work quite well, even on Windows, but IE 6.0 does nothing at all! In fact, the only poly Greek font on my Xp system is the arial unicode ms which, 1) is sans serif and 2) is a pig (22M byte), even though there are other fonts on the Xp which call themselves unicode. IE doesn not use it though, not even for font substitution. Which brings up the question: The font is a set of glyphs and has nothing to do whatsoever with the character set, so why are we calling them unicode fonts anyway? I assume a font can work with any character set, ISO-8859-7, Unicode, WinGreek, My First Character set, Foobar... any. Any font designers out there? There needs to be a map between the character set and the glyph-set (the font) which I always assumed was in the font itself, because only the font know which glyphs it has implemented. = On 2/3/06, Jan Willem Stumpel [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: Joe Schaffner wrote: [..] With this font, I can capture the entire entry, no problems, pointing fingers, arrows, boxes, tiny-elvises, polygreek etymology... There is virtually nothing I cannot do with the Unicode character set alone. And in another message: http://modern-greek-verbs.tripod.com/home.html#unicode Your document is impressive, and it clearly shows why we need Unicode (a system which allows mixing many different languages in one document) and also why we need input systems capable of switching between languages very quickly (i.e. not requiring going through complicated nested menus). Fonts are not a real problem. There are many fonts which can display both ancient and modern Greek in UTF-8. You do not especially need the XP version of Times New Roman (although thanks for the tip). As far as switching between Latin and Greek is concerned, I would recommend setting the group toggle key to only one single key, not something like control-alt-K. I just set it to Left-Windows which (on my system) is not used for anything useful. It really cycles, i.e. when you get to the end of the possible groups, you get back to the beginning. That does not seem to work for you; I do not know why. Greek is, of course, a language which is enormously important in the history of civilisation, and is therefore of interest to people from many different cultures (or, in computer terms, 'locales'). Such people could very well be resident in Greece, so they need to enter both 'ancient' and 'modern' Greek in their computers with a minimum of fuss. Therefore now I think that there should be either -- one gr keyboard layout which allows entering both modern and ancient Greek. -- two gr keyboard layout variants, one which is optimised for modern Greek, and another one which enables inputting BOTH ancient and modern Greek (i.e both tonos and oxía) - although it might be somewhat sub-optimal compared to a keyboard which is 'modern Greek only'. BTW What is a 'tiny elvis'? Regards, Jan -- Linux-UTF8: i18n of Linux on all levels Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-utf8/
Re: Experiments with classical Greek keyboard input
Hi Simos, How you doing? Hello to everybody else, Ed Trager, you still there? I'm sure I'm forgetting some of you. Sorry. It's me, Elvis, the guy who had problems with xkb last year. You were all a great help. I could never have fixed the problems myself. My system still works, better than ever.. Sorry, I have to add to this thread after all. The message I sent yesterday did not end up in my inbox, so I can't even respond to myself. Here's what I said: - attached below - This would be my reply: Funny thing happened to me today. When I opened Mozilla I saw it was using the SuSE Free Serif again! I don't know how that happened. It was using the Microsoft TNR. When I go into Edit/Preferences I get a bewildering array of font selections, and no positive feedback, so I couldn't get the TNR back. Not to worry: it's still there, I can select it in Open Office. But I decided to try out the character map program again, this time with the SuSE font, and yes, it too supports polytonic Greek. In fact, the curior monospace also does polygreek. Unusual, the ones that don't. That reminds me why I couldn't use the SuSE free serif: it's too fat. I mean it takes up too much space, so I couldn't fit my dictionary pages on the PDF I created in Open Office. Did you know why Adobe calls it Portable Document Format? It's because the PDF actually contains a subset of the font used to create the document. The mini-font travels around the world with the document, so your recipient sees exactly what you send, even if he doesn't have the special font. Speaking of exotic fonts, I like your Greek fonts, they look great. But I don't understand why you call them Greek fonts, or why some people call them Unicode fonts, for that matter. Any font is a Greek font if it renders the Greek characters, and any font should be usable with any characer set, as long as that internal glyph index maps the character set to the glyphs. So, do you think you can combine the mono and polytonic Greek alphabets into a single character keymap? Joe PS Here's what I said: Hello. I've been experimenting with polygreek too, but I hesitate to add to your already established thread... I took the Times New Roman ttf of a Windows XP system and installed it on my SuSE 9.2 at home. To my surprise, I see this font supports polygreek, so I tried setting a couple entries from a popular dictionary of modern Greek: http://modern-greek-verbs.tripod.com/home.html#unicode With this font, I can capture the entire entry, no problems, pointing fingers, arrows, boxes, tiny-elvises, polygreek etymology... There is virtually nothing I cannot do with the Unicode character set alone. I'm using the character map program to capture the data. I know the Times font is working, because if I select another font, like the SuSE free fonts, or even the Microsoft Arial, which I also ripped off, the polygreek characters are not rendered. I was wondering, since the font worked so unexpectedly well, maybe the monogreek keymap would too. But how would I know? I gather from your correspondence that no polygreek keymap is currently available, but I'm hoping the monogreek map might already do something reasonable with poly greek. True, the monogreek tonos is not the same as the polygreek accents, but it should be possible to combine the two alphabets in a single keymap, just like their part of the same font. This would spare me tha agony of changing keymaps using the what-ever-you-call-it, the xkb accelerator key. (Going from Greek to English is already a pain in the ass.) Would it be possible to extend the monogreek keymap to do polygreek? You'd have one less module to distribute, and one less thing to install. Getting back to the font: The Linux Mozilla displays this document properly on my system at home, but when I go to a MS system at the University, and use Internet Explorer, the polygreek and some, but not all, of the special characters are rendered by little boxes. The Firefox on the XP system is a little better, all the glyphs display, but not very nicely, at least not as nice as the Linux Mozilla, which is perfect. There seems to be some kind of glyph substitution going on. I assume the font contains a table which maps the integer-valued unicode character (which comes from the utf-8 byte stream) to a glyph index inside the font. This table must be created somehow when the font is designed, so I can't get at it, but I was wondering why the same font, Microsoft Times New Roman, would behave differently in different application programs, even if they are running on different platforms. Any guesses? Thanks. Joe PS I was very happy with the Font installation program which is part of the KDE desktop. You just open the font directory with Konqueror and click the Install button. Congratulations to whoever did it. (Only I could not figure out how to install the fonts on Gnome. It's probably just a matter of copying
Experiments with polytonic greek
Hello. I've been experimenting with polygreek too, but I hesitate to add to your already established thread... I took the Times New Roman ttf of a Windows XP system and installed it on my SuSE 9.2 at home. To my surprise, I see this font supports polygreek, so I tried setting a couple entries from a popular dictionary of modern Greek: http://modern-greek-verbs.tripod.com/home.html#unicode With this font, I can capture the entire entry, no problems, pointing fingers, arrows, boxes, tiny-elvises, polygreek etymology... There is virtually nothing I cannot do with the Unicode character set alone. I'm using the character map program to capture the data. I know the Times font is working, because if I select another font, like the SuSE free fonts, or even the Microsoft Arial, which I also ripped off, the polygreek characters are not rendered. I was wondering, since the font worked so unexpectedly well, maybe the monogreek keymap would too. But how would I know? I gather from your correspondence that no polygreek keymap is currently available, but I'm hoping the monogreek map might already do something reasonable with poly greek. True, the monogreek tonos is not the same as the polygreek accents, but it should be possible to combine the two alphabets in a single keymap, just like their part of the same font. This would spare me tha agony of changing keymaps using the what-ever-you-call-it, the xkb accelerator key. (Going from Greek to English is already a pain in the ass.) Would it be possible to extend the monogreek keymap to do polygreek? You'd have one less module to distribute, and one less thing to install. Getting back to the font: The Linux Mozilla displays this document properly on my system at home, but when I go to a MS system at the University, and use Internet Explorer, the polygreek and some, but not all, of the special characters are rendered by little boxes. The Firefox on the XP system is a little better, all the glyphs display, but not very nicely, at least not as nice as the Linux Mozilla, which is perfect. There seems to be some kind of glyph substitution going on. I assume the font contains a table which maps the integer-valued unicode character (which comes from the utf-8 byte stream) to a glyph index inside the font. This table must be created somehow when the font is designed, so I can't get at it, but I was wondering why the same font, Microsoft Times New Roman, would behave differently in different application programs, even if they are running on different platforms. Any guesses? Thanks. Joe PS I was very happy with the Font installation program which is part of the KDE desktop. You just open the font directory with Konqueror and click the Install button. Congratulations to whoever did it. (Only I could not figure out how to install the fonts on Gnome. It's probably just a matter of copying the font files to the right directory, but which one?) I assume X windows has its own font api, so Microsoft ttfs should not work right out of the box on an X system. Maybe that's the job of the font server, to convert one interface to another. I have no idea where it is running, as a separate process, as a module linked to the X server, nor do I care... But, my compliments to that guy too, who ever he was. -- Linux-UTF8: i18n of Linux on all levels Archive: http://mail.nl.linux.org/linux-utf8/
