From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Lars Knoll To: Grisha Mokhin , kde-russian@lists.kde.ru Date: Wed, 19 Jun 2002 10:02:44 +0200 User-Agent: KMail/1.4.5 Cc: norbu@t-online.de References: <20020619002153.B28589@bednar.sk> <11447345409.20020619105002@bog.msu.ru> In-Reply-To: <11447345409.20020619105002@bog.msu.ru> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Content-Disposition: inline Message-Id: <200206191002.44778.lars@trolltech.com> Subject: [kde-russian] Re: Re[2]: Tibetan input Sender: kde-russian-admin@lists.kde.ru Errors-To: kde-russian-admin@lists.kde.ru X-BeenThere: kde-russian@lists.kde.ru X-Mailman-Version: 2.0.11 Precedence: bulk Reply-To: kde-russian@lists.kde.ru List-Help: List-Post: List-Subscribe: , List-Id: KDE russian translation mailing list List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: Archived-At: List-Archive: Hi Grisha and Juraj, > JB> we've been consulting these things with Eric Bischoff. Our best > JB> bet is to try to summarize, what Tibetan characters are NOT in > JB> Unicode and try to file a proposal to add them there. Unicode > JB> standard is constantly improving and there should be no problem > JB> with this. Are you sure they are missing in the unicode standard? Arial Unicode does n= ot=20 have all glyphs that are defined in Unicode. You might want to check with t= he=20 glyph tables on www.unicode.org/charts. I had a short look at your font, and it doesn't even seem to have a Unicode= =20 encoding, but uses the latin1 area. I would not advice this, as it will=20 interfere with latin text, ie. you will not be able to render latin at the= =20 same time. After reading through the chapter on tibetian in the Unicode boo= k=20 once again, I had the impression the code points presented are good enough= =20 for rendering tibetian. It seems to me Qt/KDE could already render tibetian quite ok when using the= =20 code points in Unicode, as it has support for attaching characters together. > JB> Would you like to help this? > Yes, definitely. Actually, from lgm.ttf font I can see for sure that > 255 symbols are quite enough for all Tibetan input, including > punctuation and complex Sanskrit stacks for mantras, that are very > common in Tibetan texts. However, most of Tibetan letters are combined > from top to bottom, and sometimes there are four symbols combined to > give a single Tibetan letter, like HUM. > > The existing Tibetan Unicode page was not designed with this feature > in mind, so it is not applicable for real life, and we should modify > it or have another codepage assigned. I think it was. the characters 0x0f90-0x0fbc are for example supposed to be= =20 stacked below. They have a character property that tells (at least the Qt=20 font engine) to stack them below the previous letter. Please read the pages= =20 describing tibetian in the Unicode standard. If you don't have a recent=20 version of the standard (only exists in printed form), tell me and I'll try= =20 to scan in the relevant pages. > We can even try to make an 8 bit codepage for Tibetan, because with > smart design all basic Tibetan characters can be fit into 128 symbols. > > JB> Second thing: as I don't have Windows license, I can't try your > JB> program. Could you please explain how are the characters entered > JB> from keyboard? I believe the Tibetan alphabet is not caligraphical > JB> (like chineese), so there should be only few letter (35?). So each > JB> character is typed with single keystroke or do you need some > JB> combinations? > There are 30 letters in Tibetan alphabet. But they are modified in > their graphic representation depending on their position in a > syllable. They are combined from left to right and from top to bottom. > The standard way to type Tibetan is to use Wylie transliteration, > where Tibetan letters are represented by English transliterated form. > > When I type, for example, a Tibetan syllable "tshan", first I type "t" > and Tibetan "t" is displayed on the screen. Then I type "s", and it > means I have to delete "t" (by sending a backspace simulated > keystroke) and display Tibetan "ts". Same with "tsh" - "ts" should be > deleted and replaced by "tsh". Then I type "a" and nothing happens, > because "a" has no graphical representation in "tshan" glyph, and at > the end - "n", and Tibetan "n" is added to "tsh", forming the final > syllable. Unfortunately the X11 keyboard handling is 20 years old, and rather hard to= =20 get additional keyboard with advanced features implemented. This sounds lik= e=20 it can unfortunately not be done with a standard X11 keyboard layout, but a= s=20 if you need an input method for it. I'd propose to first of all concentrate to get text rendering right and the= n=20 see how one can get input to work. I would very much try to use Unicode, as= =20 it is the standard way all major companies have decided to go for in the=20 future, and more or less the only way to keep things interoperable between= =20 different languages. Lars