Is this in Unicode?

[John Hudson]

I'm trying to rationalise a strange set of legacy fonts, and have
encountered an odd symbol that I do not recognise. I've browsed through the
likely Unicode blocks, looking for something similar, but have not found
anything. So, here's a chance for the boffins and mavins to show off by
identifying this glyph and telling me if it is a Unicode character (and
which one, please). I have put a small graphic online at

http://www.tiro.com/transfer/thing.gif

Note that the dashed lines in the graphic are not part of the glyph, they
indicate baseline and sidebearings.

Many thanks,

John Hudson

Tiro Typeworks  A man was meant to be doubtful about
Vancouver, BC   himself, but undoubting about the truth;
www.tiro.comthis has been exactly reversed.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]   G.K. Chesterton

Re: "Giga Character Set": Anything besides noise

[Curtis Clark]

At 02:12 PM 10/11/00, Rick McGowan wrote:
>Has anyone on this list used CGS? How can I can get a demo of their 
>Klingon support?

"Fifteen battle cruisers surround your position. Turn over all documents 
involving Klingon support immediately, or be destroyed."


--
Curtis Clark  http://www.csupomona.edu/~jcclark/
Biological Sciences Department Voice: (909) 869-4062
California State Polytechnic University  FAX: (909) 869-4078
Pomona CA 91768-4032  USA  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

charts.unicode.org is available

[John H. Jenkins]

Subject says it all
-- 
=
John H. Jenkins
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.blueneptune.com/~tseng

Re: A binary that runs on Win9X and WinNT

[Michael \(michka\) Kaplan]

I would sooner rip my lungs out  then speak ill of a much needed technology,
but one drawback to Cheops is that *all* Unicode Win32 API calls go through
Cheops, even when you are running on NT4 or Windows 2000. At least that was
true in the version they were promoting at the last Unicode conference.

How significant this drawback truly is would depend on the application in
question.

michka

a new book on internationalization in VB at
http://www.i18nWithVB.com/

- Original Message -
From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Unicode List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2000 4:32 PM
Subject: Re: A binary that runs on Win9X and WinNT


>
> Basis Technology's "Cheops" product (
> http://www.basistech.com/products/Cheops.html ) does exactly this, and
does
> it admirably.  We managed to get our 5 million+ line C++ tool suite up and
> running under Win95/98 as a Unicode MFC application using Cheops with only
> makefile changes - no source modifications.
>
> It won't give you Unicode functionality under Win9x as MS Office does, but
> it will allow you to continue to support Win9x platforms while providing
> full Unicode support on NT/2000.
>
> --
> Toby Phipps
> PeopleTools Product Manager - Globalization
> PeopleSoft, Inc.
> [EMAIL PROTECTED]  +1-925-694-9525
>
>
>
>
> "Lars Marius
> Garshol"  To: "Unicode List"
<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>  l.priv.no>Subject: Re: A binary that
runs on Win9X and WinNT
>

> 10/11/2000
> 01:19 PM
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> * Lars Marius Garshol
> |
> | We have considered implementing compatibility versions of the
> | wide-string functions that basically map to code-paged text, but
> | this seems like an awful lot of work and in any case it seems
> | basically incredible that nobody has done this before.
>
> * Michael Kaplan
> |
> | Microsoft has a white paper on writing a Unicode app for all
> | platforms, see the articles section on
> | http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/ for details.
>
> This white paper describes the solution that we have already
> considered and are hoping to avoid.  Such a set of hand-written
> wrapper functions around the Win32 API functions must have been
> written dozens of times already?  Doesn't someone offer this as a
> product somewhere?
>
> (Of course, since Microsoft themselves must have solved this problem
> for their own applications, why on earth do they not make the solution
> available?)
>
> --Lars M.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>

Re: A binary that runs on Win9X and WinNT

[toby_phipps]

Basis Technology's "Cheops" product (
http://www.basistech.com/products/Cheops.html ) does exactly this, and does
it admirably.  We managed to get our 5 million+ line C++ tool suite up and
running under Win95/98 as a Unicode MFC application using Cheops with only
makefile changes - no source modifications.

It won't give you Unicode functionality under Win9x as MS Office does, but
it will allow you to continue to support Win9x platforms while providing
full Unicode support on NT/2000.

--
Toby Phipps
PeopleTools Product Manager - Globalization
PeopleSoft, Inc.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]  +1-925-694-9525



   
 
"Lars Marius   
 
Garshol"  To: "Unicode List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> 
 
Subject: Re: A binary that runs on Win9X 
and WinNT
   
 
10/11/2000 
 
01:19 PM   
 
   
 
   
 






* Lars Marius Garshol
|
| We have considered implementing compatibility versions of the
| wide-string functions that basically map to code-paged text, but
| this seems like an awful lot of work and in any case it seems
| basically incredible that nobody has done this before.

* Michael Kaplan
|
| Microsoft has a white paper on writing a Unicode app for all
| platforms, see the articles section on
| http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/ for details.

This white paper describes the solution that we have already
considered and are hoping to avoid.  Such a set of hand-written
wrapper functions around the Win32 API functions must have been
written dozens of times already?  Doesn't someone offer this as a
product somewhere?

(Of course, since Microsoft themselves must have solved this problem
for their own applications, why on earth do they not make the solution
available?)

--Lars M.

Re: A binary that runs on Win9X and WinNT

[Michael \(michka\) Kaplan]

From: "Chris Pratley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>

> 3. The application teams are not in the business of Win32 developer
support
> (that is what Windows does)

Well, its actually the Platform SDK, which does draw a lot from Windows. But
developer tools are another division, entirely (per the new structure Steve
Ballmer laid out during the last big re-org).

> 4. This is intellectual property developed to add value to our
applications,
> as with any "feature". So giving it away only helps competitors, which the
> Office team is not particularly interested in.

I also get the impression that this actually not a single solution, but
multiple ones? But I do not have source to look at, this is just what I have
been able to glean from walking processes


> That said, Basis Tech and some other third parties offer solutions for
> developers in this situation. Since they're making a business out of it,
> maybe we shouldn't offer an MS solution... :-)

Well, Microsoft has never let *that* stop them 

michka

Michael Kaplan
Trigeminal Software, Inc.
http://www.trigeminal.com/

RE: A binary that runs on Win9X and WinNT

[Chris Pratley]

The Office team does not make the solution we developed internally for our
own applications available publicly for several reasons:
1. It takes time to extract the code
2. Its priority is always low since it does not help Office
3. The application teams are not in the business of Win32 developer support
(that is what Windows does)
4. This is intellectual property developed to add value to our applications,
as with any "feature". So giving it away only helps competitors, which the
Office team is not particularly interested in.

Now, you might ask, why does the Windows team not make this available to
developers? It sure would help the Windows platform. The reasons for that
are basically that everyone in Windows land works on Win2000/Whistler, not
on ancient history (i.e. Win9x), and they are not that interested in
back-porting capabilities of the new OS onto the old OS. You could argue (as
I have) that shipping this capability would help the new OS because people
would write more apps that take advantage of Win2000's capabilities.
However, it appears (possibly correctly) the issue simply does not rise
above the noise of requested work items.

That said, Basis Tech and some other third parties offer solutions for
developers in this situation. Since they're making a business out of it,
maybe we shouldn't offer an MS solution... :-)

Chris
Group Program Manager
Microsoft Word

Sent with Office10 2202.6 wordmail on


-Original Message-
From: Lars Marius Garshol [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: October 11, 2000 1:20 PM
To: Unicode List
Subject: Re: A binary that runs on Win9X and WinNT


* Lars Marius Garshol
|
| We have considered implementing compatibility versions of the
| wide-string functions that basically map to code-paged text, but
| this seems like an awful lot of work and in any case it seems
| basically incredible that nobody has done this before.

* Michael Kaplan
|
| Microsoft has a white paper on writing a Unicode app for all
| platforms, see the articles section on
| http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/ for details.

This white paper describes the solution that we have already
considered and are hoping to avoid.  Such a set of hand-written
wrapper functions around the Win32 API functions must have been
written dozens of times already?  Doesn't someone offer this as a
product somewhere? 

(Of course, since Microsoft themselves must have solved this problem
for their own applications, why on earth do they not make the solution
available?)

--Lars M.

RE: "Giga Character Set": Anything besides noise

[Kenneth Whistler]

I'd have to agree with Carl's assessment.

Digging a little further, I note that:

Coventive Technologies is a Taiwan-based Linux company founded in
September, 1998, according to their web site (which doesn't scroll
pages correctly, either with IE or NN, by the way). Hmm. Isn't Taipei
the home of the "better" Chinese character encoding-of-the-month
syndrome?

The announcement on LinuxDevices.com, copied from the white paper
posted on www.coventive.com is so riddled with errors and
misconceptions that it is hard to figure out exactly what they are trying
to say, except that GCS is better than Unicode, so you should buy their
Linux systems. Clearly, however, they are not promoting a *standard*, but
rather a proprietary (and patented--they say) internal processing system that
is supposedly more efficient and faster than Unicode -- though their claims
appear to be nothing more than market hype. ("For example, GCS handles
Korean font files 1500 times faster than Unicode..." Huh? I guess they
measured the file I/O in one case and not in the other.) But since they
are not promoting a standard for characters, that can only mean that
they are apparently depending on other people's standards for defining
the characters. And that means that their "multilingual" solution is
just code pages hiding behind a "mathematical encryption algorithm".

A quick search of U.S. patents turns up nothing for "Giga Character Set"
or "Coventive", so I cannot even evaluate the technical claim of the
patent -- if one does, in fact exist, as opposed to just a patent filing,
and that possibly (probably?) not even in the U.S.

John and Rick have already commented on the "sheesh!" factors about
many of the claims in the white paper.

I'll be sure to stay out of the way of the stampede of eager customers
chomping at the bit to buy into a proprietary "display code" approach
with completely undefined interoperability with anybody else's data
or for that matter with the Internet itself, just because these
guys assure it that it runs real fast and that unlike Unicode, it
"preserve[s] the characteristics of language."

--Ken

> David,
> 
> I have not but it seems like they are hawking it because they own the
> patents on it and want to make money.  But with "A different algorithm is
> developed for each language" reminding me of the horror of codepages and
> "GCS 'calculates' or derives the correct character and font" brings to mind
> a glyph oriented system, it seems that GCS will be another DOA idea.
> 
> Carl
> 

RE: Unicode 3.0 OS implementation URLs?

[Carl W. Brown]

Elaine,

I would expect that the number is probably zero since it takes time for the
standard to be incorporated into the systems and then the system would have
to be tested.  I know of no OS sophisticated enough to support Unicode that
could put out a new properly tested release in a year.

Carl

-Original Message-
From: Elaine Keown [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2000 2:15 PM
To: Unicode List
Subject: Unicode 3.0 OS implementation URLs?


Hello,

I'm still trying to get information on which operating systems have
implemented
Unicode 3.0it's important for Hebrew and Aramaic.

I'm speaking about all this at a professional meeting next month

Could list folks refer me to suitable URLs for Microsoft, Apple, Sun,
Linux?

Thanks again, Elaine

___

Free Unlimited Internet Access! Try it now!
http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/altavista/index.html

___

Re: Unicode 3.0 OS implementation URLs?

[Ienup Sung]

Hello,

Solaris 8 Unicode locales implement Unicode 3.0 and there are several
documentations available, for instance, white papers and other technical
docs at:

http://www.sun.com/developers/gadc/technicalpublications/index.html

and some overview and technical details at:


http://docs.sun.com:80/ab2/coll.45.13/I18NDG/@Ab2TocView?Ab2Lang=C&Ab2Enc=iso-88
59-1

Above URL reachs to docs.sun.com's Solaris 8 International Language
Environments Guide and the book contains a chapter on "Overview of 
en_US.UTF-8 Locale Support".

With regards,

Ienup


] Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 13:15:27 -0800 (GMT-0800)
] From: Elaine Keown <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
] Subject: Unicode 3.0 OS implementation URLs?
] To: Unicode List <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
] MIME-version: 1.0
] Content-disposition: inline
] 
] Hello, 
] 
] I'm still trying to get information on which operating systems have 
implemented 
] Unicode 3.0it's important for Hebrew and Aramaic.
] 
] I'm speaking about all this at a professional meeting next month
] 
] Could list folks refer me to suitable URLs for Microsoft, Apple, Sun, 
Linux?
] 
] Thanks again, Elaine
] 
] ___
] 
] Free Unlimited Internet Access! Try it now! 
] http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/altavista/index.html
] 
] ___
] 

Re: "Giga Character Set": Anything besides noise

[John Cowan]

Rick McGowan wrote:

> I'm quite, quite certain that claim is especially true for their Klingon
> support, since Unicode is so antique-20th-century and so very linguistically
> lame that it doesn't even support Klingon, despite the fact that (as the
> article claims) Klingon is one of the "12 languages that cover over 75% of
> the world's population".  I mean, how could those Unicode people overlook
> support for Klingon?  Sheesh...

In fact, of course, every extant Klingon text can be written with Unicode,
and indeed with ISO 646:1983.

-- 
There is / one art   || John Cowan <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
no more / no less|| http://www.reutershealth.com
to do / all things   || http://www.ccil.org/~cowan
with art- / lessness \\ -- Piet Hein

Re: "Giga Character Set": Anything besides noise

[Rick McGowan]

> David Starner <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
> There is a document at http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS3271194620.html

After reading this article, I'm quite certain that (to quote the article): "CGS 
coverage of each language is much more comprehensive than Unicode's, and is more 
efficient to use".  I'm quite, quite certain that claim is especially true for their 
Klingon support, since Unicode is so antique-20th-century and so very linguistically 
lame that it doesn't even support Klingon, despite the fact that (as the article 
claims) Klingon is one of the "12 languages that cover over 75% of the world's 
population".  I mean, how could those Unicode people overlook support for Klingon?  
Sheesh...

If I were using Korean a lot, I'd certainly want to gain the speed advantages of CGS, 
which for Korean is "1500 times faster than Unicode"...  And of course, a "patented" 
character set is just what everyone needs for world-wide interoperability!

Has anyone on this list used CGS? How can I can get a demo of their Klingon support?

Sincerely,
iRckie the eGek


-BEGIN GEEK CODE BLOCK-
Version: 3.12
GMU/CS/FA/L$ d+> s-:- a+ !c B X P@? L@? E> W-@ N- ?o K w? O M V- PS? !PE Y? PGP? 
t@ 5? X? R* tv-- b DI+(-) D? G e* h-- r+++ z+++?
--END GEEK CODE BLOCK--

Unicode 3.0 OS implementation URLs?

[Elaine Keown]

Hello, 

I'm still trying to get information on which operating systems have implemented 
Unicode 3.0it's important for Hebrew and Aramaic.

I'm speaking about all this at a professional meeting next month

Could list folks refer me to suitable URLs for Microsoft, Apple, Sun, Linux?

Thanks again, Elaine

___

Free Unlimited Internet Access! Try it now! 
http://www.zdnet.com/downloads/altavista/index.html

___

Re: "Giga Character Set": Anything besides noise

[John H. Jenkins]

At 10:01 AM -0800 10/11/00, David Starner wrote:
>There is a document at http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS3271194620.html
>that describes the Giga Character Set, allegedly a superior character set to
>Unicode. Outside the absurd attacks on Unicode ("Given the limited range
>allocated for each language, . . . Unicode will run out of display codes.",
>"Is it conceivable that the U.S. software industry would adopt a display code
>that could not computerize Shakespeare's Hamlet?"), they claim to have some
>radically new system for character encoding. Has anyone seen this? Is there
>any reality at all behind it, or is it just noise and slander?
>

Considering the fact that they say that CJK is done with a
pictographic writing system, they call ß a "beta," and they know
nothing about surrogates (just after a surface reading), I'd say they
don't know what they're talking about.

--
=
John H. Jenkins
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.blueneptune.com/~tseng

Re: A binary that runs on Win9X and WinNT

[Michael \(michka\) Kaplan]

Yep, MSO means Microsoft Office and many a company has used the
MsoExtTextOutW function in the mso97rt.dll (the Microsoft Office runtime
library), which can be redistributed if you own the ODE 97. They wrote it
way back last version some time... maybe even in 95, not sure?

michka

a new book on internationalization in VB at
http://www.i18nWithVB.com/

- Original Message -
From: "Erik van der Poel" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Michael (michka) Kaplan" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: "Unicode List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2000 2:10 PM
Subject: Re: A binary that runs on Win9X and WinNT


> Michael (michka) Kaplan wrote:
>
> >
> > My impression has been that different groups have
> > solved the problem in different ways, some externally famous (such as
the
> > MSO fixes to ExtTextOutW on Japanese Win95)
>
> MSO means Microsoft Office? Did they come up with patches to fix the OS,
> or is it just Office's own workaround (for Office itself to run OK)?
>
> (We also bumped into that problem, and came up with our own workaround
> in Mozilla...)
>
> Erik
>
>

Re: A binary that runs on Win9X and WinNT

[Erik van der Poel]

Michael (michka) Kaplan wrote:

>
> My impression has been that different groups have
> solved the problem in different ways, some externally famous (such as the
> MSO fixes to ExtTextOutW on Japanese Win95)

MSO means Microsoft Office? Did they come up with patches to fix the OS, 
or is it just Office's own workaround (for Office itself to run OK)?

(We also bumped into that problem, and came up with our own workaround 
in Mozilla...)

Erik

Re: A binary that runs on Win9X and WinNT

[Michael \(michka\) Kaplan]

From: "Lars Marius Garshol" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Unicode List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2000 1:19 PM
Subject: Re: A binary that runs on Win9X and WinNT



> | Microsoft has a white paper on writing a Unicode app for all
> | platforms, see the articles section on
> | http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/ for details.
>
> This white paper describes the solution that we have already
> considered and are hoping to avoid.  Such a set of hand-written
> wrapper functions around the Win32 API functions must have been
> written dozens of times already?  Doesn't someone offer this as a
> product somewhere?

I believe I saw a product at the Unicode conference, from BASIC Technology
(www.basistech.com) called Cheops.

> (Of course, since Microsoft themselves must have solved this problem
> for their own applications, why on earth do they not make the solution
> available?)

Yes, they certainly must. My impression has been that different groups have
solved the problem in different ways, some externally famous (such as the
MSO fixes to ExtTextOutW on Japanese Win95) and some very obscure and
unknown externally (I have only a fuzzy idea what SQL Server does on Win9x,
for example).

What they will do is probably best left to others for overt speculation. :-)

michka

a new book on internationalization in VB at
http://www.i18nWithVB.com/

RE: "Giga Character Set": Anything besides noise

[Carl W. Brown]

David,

I have not but it seems like they are hawking it because they own the
patents on it and want to make money.  But with "A different algorithm is
developed for each language" reminding me of the horror of codepages and
"GCS 'calculates' or derives the correct character and font" brings to mind
a glyph oriented system, it seems that GCS will be another DOA idea.

Carl

-Original Message-
From: David Starner [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2000 11:02 AM
To: Unicode List
Subject: "Giga Character Set": Anything besides noise


There is a document at http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS3271194620.html
that describes the Giga Character Set, allegedly a superior character set to
Unicode. Outside the absurd attacks on Unicode ("Given the limited range
allocated for each language, . . . Unicode will run out of display codes.",
"Is it conceivable that the U.S. software industry would adopt a display
code
that could not computerize Shakespeare's Hamlet?"), they claim to have some
radically new system for character encoding. Has anyone seen this? Is there
any reality at all behind it, or is it just noise and slander?

--
David Starner - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http/ftp: dvdeug.dhis.org
And crawling, on the planet's face, some insects called the human race.
Lost in space, lost in time, and meaning.
-- RHPS

Re: SGML (or XML) Unicode-enabled publishing tools

[Tony Graham]

At 11 Oct 2000 03:25 -0800, Patrick Andries wrote:
 > I'm currently looking for SGML (or XML) publishing tools that are
 > Unicode-enabled, support Arabic layout and can produce PostScript or Pdf
 > files for CJK, European and bidi languages.
 > 
 > Would FrameMaker+SGML (I doubt it) or Arbortext fit the bill ? Any other
 > tools ?

Try 3B2 (http://www.3b2.com/).  I've seen 3B2 do Arabic, and I've seen
3B2 do Japanese, but I don't know whether it's Unicode-enabled.

Regards,


Tony Graham
==
Tony Grahammailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Mulberry Technologies, Inc.http://www.mulberrytech.com
17 West Jefferson StreetDirect Phone: 301/315-9632
Suite 207  Phone: 301/315-9631
Rockville, MD  20850 Fax: 301/315-8285
--
  Mulberry Technologies: A Consultancy Specializing in SGML and XML
==

Re: A binary that runs on Win9X and WinNT

[Lars Marius Garshol]

* Lars Marius Garshol
|
| We have considered implementing compatibility versions of the
| wide-string functions that basically map to code-paged text, but
| this seems like an awful lot of work and in any case it seems
| basically incredible that nobody has done this before.

* Michael Kaplan
|
| Microsoft has a white paper on writing a Unicode app for all
| platforms, see the articles section on
| http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/ for details.

This white paper describes the solution that we have already
considered and are hoping to avoid.  Such a set of hand-written
wrapper functions around the Win32 API functions must have been
written dozens of times already?  Doesn't someone offer this as a
product somewhere?  

(Of course, since Microsoft themselves must have solved this problem
for their own applications, why on earth do they not make the solution
available?)

--Lars M.

(no subject)

[John H. Jenkins]

Somebody has been playing with the wires in the room where the server 
is housed and so the server is technically up but inaccessible 
outside the server room. I'm in the process of trying to straighten 
out this tangled affair.

Meanwhile, the PDF charts are still accessible via their new home 
URL, http://www.unicode.org/charts/.

-- 
=
John H. Jenkins
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.blueneptune.com/~tseng

"Giga Character Set": Anything besides noise

[David Starner]

There is a document at http://www.linuxdevices.com/news/NS3271194620.html 
that describes the Giga Character Set, allegedly a superior character set to 
Unicode. Outside the absurd attacks on Unicode ("Given the limited range 
allocated for each language, . . . Unicode will run out of display codes.", 
"Is it conceivable that the U.S. software industry would adopt a display code 
that could not computerize Shakespeare's Hamlet?"), they claim to have some
radically new system for character encoding. Has anyone seen this? Is there
any reality at all behind it, or is it just noise and slander?

-- 
David Starner - [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http/ftp: dvdeug.dhis.org
And crawling, on the planet's face, some insects called the human race.
Lost in space, lost in time, and meaning.
-- RHPS

The votes are in!

[Sarasvati]

Well, Darlings --

The first wave of subscriber votes has arrived,
and 11 Digit Boy is trailing by a large margin
in the popularity poll.  Here is a breakdown of
specific voter attitudes from our survey:

11 Digit Boy is AOK: 4
11 Digit Boy needs his eyes washed out with soap: 27

Shortcomings of Accusplit pedometers...
Should not be mentioned in signatures: 23
Should be in everyone's signature: 2

11 Digit Boy is hereby directed to visit:
http://www.ivory.com
where he can scrub up before lighting a stick of
incense and banging his head against the wall three times.

Cheery regards from your ever-vigilant
Bubble Queen of the River Ganga,

-- Sarasvati

Re: Microsoft Office 2001 Mac

[Mark H. David]

> Word 2001 seems to be better than Word 98 was in this regard, but it 
> still has some problems.  So far as I can tell, it handles 
> WorldScript I scripts OK (Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arabic, Indic scripts), 

If it's true that Word 2001 supports WorldScript I, that's a welcome
and unexpected development indeed, especailly for Hebrew/Arabic users,
and I hope Microsoft will then update their support document titled
"Word for Macintosh does not support WorldScript".

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q94/8/84.ASP

which is excerpted below, taken from MS's web site. 

Thanks, Mark



Article ID: Q94884

Last Reviewed:
November 13, 1999 
 
Word for Macintosh Does Not Support WorldScript
The information in this article applies to:

Microsoft Word for the Macintosh, versions 3.0, 3.01, 3.02, 4.0, 5.0, 5.1, 6.0, 6.0.1, 
6.0.1a 
Microsoft Word 98 Macintosh Edition


SUMMARY
Microsoft Word does not support Apple's WorldScript technology. 

WorldScript makes it possible for one version of an application to work with multiple 
language systems (for example, English, Japanese, or Arabic). This technology can be 
used as a localization tool for many applications. However, WorldScript does not 
address certain aspects of text such as line layout, printing double-byte characters, 
or right-to-left text flow. Because these are important aspects of a word processor, 
the performance- level of Microsoft Word would be reduced if it were used with 
WorldScript. 

Microsoft believes that localizing our products is the best way to provide the best 
possible product to our foreign markets. 

NOTE: Localization is the term used to refer to the process of adapting an application 
to a foreign language so that it is optimized for that language. 

Localized versions of Microsoft Word for the Macintosh are currently available in the 
following languages: ... [doesn't include Hebrew or Arabic. -mhd]

Re: Microsoft Office 2001 Mac

[John H. Jenkins]

At 7:15 AM -0800 10/10/00, Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote:
>Has anyone tried Microsoft Office 2001 for the Mac yet? Can anyone 
>comment on whether it brings the Mac version of Office up to parity 
>with the Windows version for handling Unicode and text in multiple 
>non-Western character sets like Arabic, Chinese, and Devanagari? 
>MacOS 9 includes support and fonts for all this, but so far Word 98 
>can't take advantage of it.

Word 2001 seems to be better than Word 98 was in this regard, but it 
still has some problems.  So far as I can tell, it handles 
WorldScript I scripts OK (Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arabic, Indic scripts), 
but it *still* has problems with the metrics for Chinese.  Some of my 
ad hoc "scripts" work and some don't, which is better than was the 
case for Word '98.

-- 
=
John H. Jenkins
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www.blueneptune.com/~tseng

problem with shift_jis

[Raghu Kolluru]

My email delivery programs works with most of the charsets but not with
shift_jis.
Here are the steps that I do,
1) I get a text file from Japan which as the content in the encoded charset.
2) I paste this content in web based UI and store it in SQL server
3) Then I send it out with appropriate content header.

This works fine with big5,euc-jp, etc but not with shift_jis.
Maybe this is got to do with encoding, I also tried to read the content from
the file instead of pasting and sending via http. It didnt work but looked
better(I dont know why it should). 

Any help?
RK

Re: Microsoft Office 2001 Mac

[John Jenkins]

On Tuesday, October 10, 2000, at 11:54 PM, Edward Cherlin wrote:

Extended Roman
Unicode Hex

Are you sure about these two?  You should only be able to get to them if you're TSM-savvy and ask for Unicode input, which Word does not do.

Re: Character properties

[Mark Davis]

Here is my take on the way Unicode general categories should be mapped to
POSIX ones.

1. As a reminder, the Unicode General Categories are:

L* (letters): Lu, Ll, Lt , Lm, Lo
M* (marks): Mn, Mc, Me
N* (numbers): Nd, Nl, No
P* (punctuation): Pc, Pd, Ps, Pe, Pi, Pf, Po
S* (symbols): Sm, Sc, Sk, So
Z* (separators): Zs, Zl, Zp
C* (others): Cc, Cf, Cs, Co, Cn

(short descriptions are on
http://www.unicode.org/Public/UNIDATA/UnicodeData.html#General Category;
longer ones in The Unicode Standard, Version 3.0)


2. TAB, CR, LF, FF, NL (0085) are assigned Cc in the Unicode Character
Database. For our purposes, treat them as separate (new) values:

Zt TAB
Zb CR, LF, FF, NL

For a full discussion of newline characters, see
http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr13/


3. Co is Private Use. Depending on the conventions for private use
characters active in the current system, these would be remapped to other
values appropriately. If they are clearly unassigned, they should be treated
as Cn. If their status is simply unknown, then probably the safest is to
treat them as Lo.


4. We then get the following POSIX assignments (notes below).

Uppercase: Lu, Lt
Lowercase: Ll
Alpha: L*, M*
Graph: L*, M*, N*, P*, S*
Print: Graph, Zs
Space: Z*
Blank: Zs, Zt
Control: Cc, Cf
Punctuation: P*, S*
Digit: Nd
Xdigit 0-9, A-F, a-f

Notes:
a. The POSIX categories don’t make fine enough distinctions.
a.   The recommendations here are based on the expected usage patterns
for the functions based on these categories.

b. It is probably better in POSIX to treat Lt as if it were Lu. They are
cased letters, and closer to Lu than Ll.

c. isAlpha is most likely used to determine words. If combining marks are
excluded, then perfectly valid words would look like they were broken in
two. For example, clients wouldn’t want the Arabic word “يونِكود” broken
into two, just because of the KASRA. Generally, combining marks should take
on the characteristics of the preceding base character. Since the majority
of the time they are applied to letters, the best treatment in POSIX would
be as isAlpha.


Mark

- Original Message -
From: "Kenneth Whistler" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Unicode List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Cc: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 04, 2000 18:33
Subject: Re: Character properties


> Marcin Kowalczyk asked about character properties, in a thread that
> wandered off into a discussion of digits in particular.
>
> > I am trying to improve character properties handling in the language
> > Haskell. What should the following functions return, i.e. what is
> > most standard/natural/preferred mapping between Unicode character
> > categories and predicates like isalpha etc.? What else should be
> > provided?
>
> My suggestion is that you also look at the informative data file,
> PropList.txt, which provides a number of suggestions regarding some
> class definitions for these character property predicates.
>
> It is quite clear that many important character properties cannot
> be deduced from the General Category values in UnicodeData.txt alone.
> And that is why I provided further suggestions, based upon Sybase
> implementations of Unicode character properties, in PropList.txt.
>
> > Here are definitions that I use currently:
> >
> > isControl  = c < ' ' || c >= '\x7F' && c <= '\x9F'
>
> This is fine if isControl is aimed at the ISO control codes associated
> with the ISO 2022 framework. However, Unicode introduces a number
> of other control functions encoded with characters, and it depends
> on what you want the property API to be sensitive to. An obvious
> example is the set of bidirectional format control characters.
>
> > isPrint= category is other than [Zl,Zp,Cc,Cf,Cs,Co,Cn]
>
> It probably isn't a good idea to include Co (Other, private use) in
> the exclusion set for isPrint. In most typical usage, if a user-defined
> character is assigned, it will be a printable character.
>
> > isSpace= one of "\t\n\r\f\v" || category is one of [Zs,Zl,Zp]
>
> You need to decide whether this is for space per se or for whitespace
> (as you have defined it). Depending on your system, you may have to
> add U+0085 as well.
>
> > isGraph= isPrint c && not (isSpace c)
> > isPunct= isGraph c && not (isAlphaNum c)
>
> This is closer to a definition of something like isSymbol, rather
> than isPunct. It depends on what you want the isPunct function to be
> doing for you.
>
> > isAlphaNum = category is one of [Lu,Ll,Lt,Nd,Nl,No,Lm,Lo]
>
> This is definitely wrong. See isAlpha below, which has the same problem.
> The issue is that many scripts have combining characters which are fully
> alphabetic. Their General Category is typically Mc. You cannot omit those
> from an isAlpha or isAlphaNum and get the right results.
>
> > isHexDigit = isDigit c || c >= 'A' && c <= 'F' || c >= 'a' && c <= 'f'
> > isDigit= c >= '0' && c <= '9'
>
> Others pointed out the problem with this: isASCIIDigit <> isDigit.
>
> > isO

Re: .bdf file format

[Mark Leisher]

williaMM> Hello, Can anybody on this list give me (or point me to) a
williaMM> documentation in which I can find the structure details of a
williaMM> .bdf file?

williaMM> The structure of the .bdf file itself is quite self explanatory
williaMM> but I feel unsatisfied to see around the existing optionsonly;
williaMM> Can I add or remove and/or customize something out of that??

Get the following three documents:

  http://partners.adobe.com/asn/developer/PDFS/TN/5005.BDF_Spec.pdf
  ftp://ftp.x.org/pub/R6.5.1/xc/doc/hardcopy/BDF/bdf.PS.gz
  ftp://ftp.x.org/pub/R6.5.1/xc/doc/hardcopy/XLFD/xlfd.PS.gz
-
Mark Leisher
Computing Research LabCinema, radio, television, magazines are a
New Mexico State University   school of inattention: people look without
Box 30001, Dept. 3CRL seeing, listen without hearing.
Las Cruces, NM  88003-- Robert Bresson

Re: .bdf file format

[Behnam Tabatabai]

>From: "Myanmar Triumph International Ltd." <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>To: "Unicode List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
>Subject: .bdf file format
>Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2000 06:39:06 -0800 (GMT-0800)
>
>Hello,
>
>Can anybody on this list give me (or point me to) a documentation in which 
>I can find the structure details of a .bdf file?
>

Look at http://www.wotsit.org/ under "fonts".
Behnam

_
Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com.

Share information about yourself, create your own public profile at 
http://profiles.msn.com.

.bdf file format

[Myanmar Triumph International Ltd.]

Hello,

Can anybody on this list give me (or point me to) a documentation in which I can find 
the structure details of a .bdf file?

The structure of the .bdf file itself is quite self explanatory but I feel unsatisfied 
to see around the existing optionsonly; Can I add or remove and/or customize something 
out of that??

I appreciate your reply.

Regards,
williaMM

SGML (or XML) Unicode-enabled publishing tools

[Patrick Andries]

I'm currently looking for SGML (or XML) publishing tools that are
Unicode-enabled, support Arabic layout and can produce PostScript or Pdf
files for CJK, European and bidi languages.

Would FrameMaker+SGML (I doubt it) or Arbortext fit the bill ? Any other
tools ?

Patrick Andries

Re: A binary that runs on Win9X and WinNT

[Michael \(michka\) Kaplan]

Microsoft has a white paper on writing a Unicode app for all platforms, see
the articles section on http://www.microsoft.com/globaldev/ for details.

Note that applications such as Word, Excel, and Access in Office 2000 use
such a model.

michka

a new book on internationalization in VB at
http://www.i18nWithVB.com/

- Original Message -
From: "Lars Marius Garshol" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Unicode List" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2000 1:53 AM
Subject: A binary that runs on Win9X and WinNT


>
> Nearly all functions in the Win32 API that use strings have
> wide-string and 8-bit-string versions, but hardly any of the
> wide-string versions are implemented on Win9X.
>
> When a program uses UTF-16 internally for all text and makes heavy use
> of the Win32 API, how can one make a single binary run on both Win9X
> and WinNT?
>
> We have considered implementing compatibility versions of the
> wide-string functions that basically map to code-paged text, but this
> seems like an awful lot of work and in any case it seems basically
> incredible that nobody has done this before.
>
> What is the usual approach to this problem?
>
> --Lars M.
>
>

Re: Microsoft Office 2001 Mac

[Kevin Bracey]

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
  Elliotte Rusty Harold <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

> Has anyone tried Microsoft Office 2001 for the Mac yet? Can anyone 
> comment on whether it brings the Mac version of Office up to parity 
> with the Windows version for handling Unicode and text in multiple 
> non-Western character sets like Arabic, Chinese, and Devanagari? 
> MacOS 9 includes support and fonts for all this, but so far Word 98 
> can't take advantage of it.

But I bet it has a talking paperclip.

-- 
Kevin Bracey, Principal Software Engineer
Pace Micro Technology plc Tel: +44 (0) 1223 518566
645 Newmarket RoadFax: +44 (0) 1223 518526
Cambridge, CB5 8PB, United KingdomWWW: http://www.pace.co.uk/

A binary that runs on Win9X and WinNT

[Lars Marius Garshol]

Nearly all functions in the Win32 API that use strings have
wide-string and 8-bit-string versions, but hardly any of the
wide-string versions are implemented on Win9X.

When a program uses UTF-16 internally for all text and makes heavy use
of the Win32 API, how can one make a single binary run on both Win9X
and WinNT?

We have considered implementing compatibility versions of the
wide-string functions that basically map to code-paged text, but this
seems like an awful lot of work and in any case it seems basically
incredible that nobody has done this before.

What is the usual approach to this problem?

--Lars M.

More on 1456 object code and its applications now available

[William Overington]

I have now added two more documents to the collection of documents about
1456 object code and its applications on
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo which is our family webspace here in
England.  1456 object code allows users who may not have Java knowledge or
Java facilities to obtain Java quality graphic output by programming in 1456
object code in 7 bit ascii printing characters using a text editor in an
HTML file.

These two latest documents are about a 1456 applet landscape called
Dual1456.  The working program may be accessed directly from the web using
http://www.users.globalnet.co.uk/~ngo/Dual1456.htm and there are also notes
about the system available from the index.  It is an applet on a web page
and thus safe to run with confidence.

This program at start up looks the same as does the previously published
demo7.htm customization of the Softboard1456.htm program.  However, there is
the additional facility that one can switch between two softboard toolbars.
One starts with a softboard toolbar that has the characters for English and
Esperanto and one can switch, by clicking near the top left corner of the
background area of the applet, to a softboard toolbar that has Greek
characters.  One can return to the original English and Esperanto softboard
toolbar by clicking again near the top left corner of the background area of
the applet   The resulting display can include characters obtained from both
softboard toolbars.  At start up the screen display looks exactly like the
display from the demo7.htm file.  A different 1456 applet landscape is used
to support this process and it uses two 1456 engines, one for each of the
two softboard toolbars, though this use of two 1456 engines, or even the use
of 1456 object code at all, is not apparent to someone who is simply using
the program.

I have used English, Esperanto and Greek characters.  The system is designed
to be customizable using a text editor and using any printing unicode
characters that can be expressed with four hexadecimal characters and for
which the locally available fonts make provision.

William Overington

11 October 2000

Re: Microsoft Office 2001 Mac

[Edward Cherlin]

At 7:15 AM -0800 10/10/00, Elliotte Rusty Harold wrote:
>Has anyone tried Microsoft Office 2001 for the Mac yet? Can anyone 
>comment on whether it brings the Mac version of Office up to parity 
>with the Windows version for handling Unicode and text in multiple 
>non-Western character sets like Arabic, Chinese, and Devanagari? 
>MacOS 9 includes support and fonts for all this, but so far Word 98 
>can't take advantage of it.
>--

Eh? I can type in all of the Apple Language kits I have installed in 
Word 6.0.1 (and Eudora 4.7, but I'll spare you this time) under OS 9.

That means

CE
Cyrillic
Arabic RTL
Hebrew RTL
Devanagari
Gurmukhi
Gujarati
Chinese T
Chinese S
Japanese
Korean
Extended Roman
Unicode Hex

I suppose I should install some more...

>+---++---+
>| Elliotte Rusty Harold | [EMAIL PROTECTED] | Writer/Programmer |
>+---++---+
>|  The XML Bible (IDG Books, 1999)   |
>|  http://metalab.unc.edu/xml/books/bible/   |
>|   http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ISBN=0764532367/cafeaulaitA/   |
>+--+-+
>|  Read Cafe au Lait for Java News:  http://metalab.unc.edu/javafaq/ |
>|  Read Cafe con Leche for XML News: http://metalab.unc.edu/xml/ |
>+--+-+

-- 

Edward Cherlin, Spamfighter 
"It isn't what you don't know that hurts you, it's
what you know that ain't so."--Mark Twain, or else
some other prominent 19th century humorist and wit