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[vwnc] Asian languages in VW?

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Mark Plas

[vwnc] Asian languages in VW?

Hi,

We got a question from a possible customer who wants to know whether our application supports Asian languages, Chinese for instance, but there will also be other languages which I don't know yet what those are. As it is now, our application supports different languages, but all of our current customers are located in Europe and the character sets they use are similar. This would no longer be the case in Asia.

Is it possible to use Asian/Chinese characters in VW? Can they be displayed? Can they be entered via the keyboard? Via copy-paste?

We display text from left to right in our labels and input fields, is this something that's acceptable in Asian countries?

What is a good way to experiment with this? Does it require installing a Chinese version of MS-Windows? Are there other ways to test this?

Currently we're using VW7.4.1 and the applications runs on MS-Windows platforms. Is VW7.4.1 good enough to do this or would upgrading to VW7.7 make this easier?

Thanks in advance,

Mark

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Clemens Hoffmann

Re: [vwnc] Asian languages in VW?

Hello Mark,

> Is it possible to use Asian/Chinese characters in VW? Can they be
displayed?
Yes, VW7.7 supports it by default. VW74.1, 7.5 and 7.6 support it by
using AllEncodings.

>Can they be entered via the keyboard?
Yes, there are several keyboard tools for Chinese and Japanese. You can
use the IME pad für
typing asian characters. AllEncodings comes with a support - separate
parcel - for the IME pad.
Thai, Khmer and Vietnamese and similar Languages have their own
keyboards but can also be
entered using the IME pad.

>We display text from left to right in our labels and input fields, is
this something that's acceptable
> in Asian countries?
Yes, most countries in Asia write from left to right. I guess you will
have some issues with India.
There you have to modify the controllers for writing right to left.

> What is a good way to experiment with this? Does it require installing
a Chinese
> version of MS-Windows? Are there other ways to test this?
You can install the support for asian languages (to get the Unicode
fonts). Then you can
use your standard Windows and the IME pad for typing the characters.

One thing we faced with asian languages is the different layouts. A
dialog (windowSpec) created
for a western language may look pretty ugly in Chinese and the labels
and input fields will not fit
Thai or Khmer. We ended up with individual dialogs for each contry.
Texts in Chinese are much
shorter and may be higher as texts in western languages. Thai or Khmer
texts are longer.
They are also higher as they write consonants into the main line and
vowels above and below.

hope this helps

Clemens

> Hi,
>
>
>
> We got a question from a possible customer who wants to know whether
> our application supports Asian languages, Chinese for instance, but
> there will also be other languages which I don't know yet what those
> are. As it is now, our application supports different languages, but
> all of our current customers are located in Europe and the character
> sets they use are similar. This would no longer be the case in Asia.
>
>
>
> Is it possible to use Asian/Chinese characters in VW? Can they be
> displayed? Can they be entered via the keyboard? Via copy-paste?
>
> We display text from left to right in our labels and input fields, is
> this something that's acceptable in Asian countries?
>
>
>
> What is a good way to experiment with this? Does it require installing
> a Chinese version of MS-Windows? Are there other ways to test this?
>
>
>
> Currently we're using VW7.4.1 and the applications runs on MS-Windows
> platforms. Is VW7.4.1 good enough to do this or would upgrading to
> VW7.7 make this easier?
>
>
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Mark
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> vwnc mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwnc
>

--
Clemens Hoffmann
Senior Consultant

Email: [hidden email]
Tel: +49 231 975 99 31
Fax: +49 231 975 99 20

Georg Heeg eK Dortmund
Handelsregister: Amtsgericht Dortmund A 12812

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Mark Plas

Re: [vwnc] Asian languages in VW?

Hello Clemens,

Thank you for your elaborate answer! I have some more questions.

You say that VW7.7 supports Asian languages by default. What exactly does this mean? For instance, suppose I would start up a VW7.7 image on a computer in Thailand, and I would start typing text on a Thai keyboard connected to that computer, will I see the characters appear correctly in VW7.7, without loading any additional parcel or without doing some magic/hidden Locale&encoding initialization tricks? Just like that? That would be great! (How does it pick the right font to display the Thai characters?)

And another thing: Is the separate parcel that comes with AllEncodings only necessary if you want to use an IME pad, so if you use a 'real' Thai keyboard, you don't need it? And is the IME parcel still necessary in VW7.7, or is it built-in? (If my questions sound as if I know nothing about it: I know nothing about it :^)

Thanks again,
Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: Clemens Hoffmann [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: donderdag 9 juli 2009 14:22
To: Mark Plas
Cc: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [vwnc] Asian languages in VW?

Hello Mark,

> Is it possible to use Asian/Chinese characters in VW? Can they be
displayed?
Yes, VW7.7 supports it by default. VW74.1, 7.5 and 7.6 support it by
using AllEncodings.

>Can they be entered via the keyboard?
Yes, there are several keyboard tools for Chinese and Japanese. You can
use the IME pad für
typing asian characters. AllEncodings comes with a support - separate
parcel - for the IME pad.
Thai, Khmer and Vietnamese and similar Languages have their own
keyboards but can also be
entered using the IME pad.

>We display text from left to right in our labels and input fields, is
this something that's acceptable
> in Asian countries?
Yes, most countries in Asia write from left to right. I guess you will
have some issues with India.
There you have to modify the controllers for writing right to left.

> What is a good way to experiment with this? Does it require installing
a Chinese
> version of MS-Windows? Are there other ways to test this?
You can install the support for asian languages (to get the Unicode
fonts). Then you can
use your standard Windows and the IME pad for typing the characters.

One thing we faced with asian languages is the different layouts. A
dialog (windowSpec) created
for a western language may look pretty ugly in Chinese and the labels
and input fields will not fit
Thai or Khmer. We ended up with individual dialogs for each contry.
Texts in Chinese are much
shorter and may be higher as texts in western languages. Thai or Khmer
texts are longer.
They are also higher as they write consonants into the main line and
vowels above and below.

hope this helps

Clemens

Clemens Hoffmann

Re: [vwnc] Asian languages in VW?

Hello Mark,

VW7.7 is the first VW that supports Unicode without additional code. It
simply deals with asian characters
like any other character.

If you have VW7.7 then you can open a workspace and load the file
<VisualWorks>\preview\Unicode\unicode-characters.ws
If you have VW7.4.1, 7.5 or 7.6 they load the parcel
<VisualWorks>\preview\Unicode\AllEncodings.pcl. Then
open a workspace and load the file
<VisualWorks>\preview\Unicode\unicode-characters.ws. This workspace displays
all Unicode 16bit characters.

You also can create a Unicode string like "String with: (Character
value: 16r8FA3) with: (Character value: 16r8DEF)"
for Chinese characters or "String with: (Character value: 16r0E01) with:
(Character value: 16r0E34)
with: (Character value: 16r0E08)" for Thai characters. It displays
nicely in VW. But you have to install the
support for asian characters in Windows to get the Unicode fonts.

The Thai keyboards on a Thai Windows simply creates Unicode character
codes. I guess that should also work with VW.
I did my last project in Thailand on VSE and Dolphin not on VW. I can
ask a Thai friend to check it.

I tested the IME pad on a plain VW7.7 and it works fine. The package
"UnicodeCharacterInput.pcl" is only neccessary
in VW7.6 and older versions. it is not needed in VW7.7.

The first time I worked for a asian partner was way back in 1992 on
Smalltalk/V and later on VSE and Dolphin.
There I had to learn a lot myself. I did't know anything :-) and was
surpried myself. As Bhudda say: "You live to learn".

greetings

Clemens

> Hello Clemens,
>
> Thank you for your elaborate answer! I have some more questions.
>
> You say that VW7.7 supports Asian languages by default. What exactly does this mean? For instance, suppose I would start up a VW7.7 image on a computer in Thailand, and I would start typing text on a Thai keyboard connected to that computer, will I see the characters appear correctly in VW7.7, without loading any additional parcel or without doing some magic/hidden Locale&encoding initialization tricks? Just like that? That would be great! (How does it pick the right font to display the Thai characters?)
>
> And another thing: Is the separate parcel that comes with AllEncodings only necessary if you want to use an IME pad, so if you use a 'real' Thai keyboard, you don't need it? And is the IME parcel still necessary in VW7.7, or is it built-in? (If my questions sound as if I know nothing about it: I know nothing about it :^)
>
> Thanks again,
> Mark
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Clemens Hoffmann [mailto:[hidden email]]
> Sent: donderdag 9 juli 2009 14:22
> To: Mark Plas
> Cc: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: [vwnc] Asian languages in VW?
>
> Hello Mark,
>
>
>> Is it possible to use Asian/Chinese characters in VW? Can they be
>>
> displayed?
> Yes, VW7.7 supports it by default. VW74.1, 7.5 and 7.6 support it by
> using AllEncodings.
>
>
>> Can they be entered via the keyboard?
>>
> Yes, there are several keyboard tools for Chinese and Japanese. You can
> use the IME pad für
> typing asian characters. AllEncodings comes with a support - separate
> parcel - for the IME pad.
> Thai, Khmer and Vietnamese and similar Languages have their own
> keyboards but can also be
> entered using the IME pad.
>
>
>> We display text from left to right in our labels and input fields, is
>>
> this something that's acceptable
>
>> in Asian countries?
>>
> Yes, most countries in Asia write from left to right. I guess you will
> have some issues with India.
> There you have to modify the controllers for writing right to left.
>
>
>> What is a good way to experiment with this? Does it require installing
>>
> a Chinese
>
>> version of MS-Windows? Are there other ways to test this?
>>
> You can install the support for asian languages (to get the Unicode
> fonts). Then you can
> use your standard Windows and the IME pad for typing the characters.
>
> One thing we faced with asian languages is the different layouts. A
> dialog (windowSpec) created
> for a western language may look pretty ugly in Chinese and the labels
> and input fields will not fit
> Thai or Khmer. We ended up with individual dialogs for each contry.
> Texts in Chinese are much
> shorter and may be higher as texts in western languages. Thai or Khmer
> texts are longer.
> They are also higher as they write consonants into the main line and
> vowels above and below.
>
> hope this helps
>
> Clemens
>
>
>> Hi,
>>
>>
>>
>> We got a question from a possible customer who wants to know whether
>> our application supports Asian languages, Chinese for instance, but
>> there will also be other languages which I don't know yet what those
>> are. As it is now, our application supports different languages, but
>> all of our current customers are located in Europe and the character
>> sets they use are similar. This would no longer be the case in Asia.
>>
>>
>>
>> Is it possible to use Asian/Chinese characters in VW? Can they be
>> displayed? Can they be entered via the keyboard? Via copy-paste?
>>
>> We display text from left to right in our labels and input fields, is
>> this something that's acceptable in Asian countries?
>>
>>
>>
>> What is a good way to experiment with this? Does it require installing
>> a Chinese version of MS-Windows? Are there other ways to test this?
>>
>>
>>
>> Currently we're using VW7.4.1 and the applications runs on MS-Windows
>> platforms. Is VW7.4.1 good enough to do this or would upgrading to
>> VW7.7 make this easier?
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> vwnc mailing list
>> [hidden email]
>> http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwnc
>>
>>
>
>
>

Mark Plas

Re: [vwnc] Asian languages in VW?

Thanks again Clemens, I think I know enough for the time being.

I'll have to download VW7.7 to get an idea of what is possible. It certainly sounds promising!

Best regards,
Mark
-----Original Message-----
From: Clemens Hoffmann [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: donderdag 9 juli 2009 16:33
To: Mark Plas
Cc: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [vwnc] Asian languages in VW?

Hello Mark,

VW7.7 is the first VW that supports Unicode without additional code. It
simply deals with asian characters
like any other character.

If you have VW7.7 then you can open a workspace and load the file
<VisualWorks>\preview\Unicode\unicode-characters.ws
If you have VW7.4.1, 7.5 or 7.6 they load the parcel
<VisualWorks>\preview\Unicode\AllEncodings.pcl. Then
open a workspace and load the file
<VisualWorks>\preview\Unicode\unicode-characters.ws. This workspace displays
all Unicode 16bit characters.

You also can create a Unicode string like "String with: (Character
value: 16r8FA3) with: (Character value: 16r8DEF)"
for Chinese characters or "String with: (Character value: 16r0E01) with:
(Character value: 16r0E34)
with: (Character value: 16r0E08)" for Thai characters. It displays
nicely in VW. But you have to install the
support for asian characters in Windows to get the Unicode fonts.

The Thai keyboards on a Thai Windows simply creates Unicode character
codes. I guess that should also work with VW.
I did my last project in Thailand on VSE and Dolphin not on VW. I can
ask a Thai friend to check it.

I tested the IME pad on a plain VW7.7 and it works fine. The package
"UnicodeCharacterInput.pcl" is only neccessary
in VW7.6 and older versions. it is not needed in VW7.7.

The first time I worked for a asian partner was way back in 1992 on
Smalltalk/V and later on VSE and Dolphin.
There I had to learn a lot myself. I did't know anything :-) and was
surpried myself. As Bhudda say: "You live to learn".

greetings

Clemens

> Hello Clemens,
>
> Thank you for your elaborate answer! I have some more questions.
>
> You say that VW7.7 supports Asian languages by default. What exactly does this mean? For instance, suppose I would start up a VW7.7 image on a computer in Thailand, and I would start typing text on a Thai keyboard connected to that computer, will I see the characters appear correctly in VW7.7, without loading any additional parcel or without doing some magic/hidden Locale&encoding initialization tricks? Just like that? That would be great! (How does it pick the right font to display the Thai characters?)

>
> And another thing: Is the separate parcel that comes with AllEncodings only necessary if you want to use an IME pad, so if you use a 'real' Thai keyboard, you don't need it? And is the IME parcel still necessary in VW7.7, or is it built-in? (If my questions sound as if I know nothing about it: I know nothing about it :^)
>
> Thanks again,
> Mark
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Clemens Hoffmann [mailto:[hidden email]]
> Sent: donderdag 9 juli 2009 14:22
> To: Mark Plas
> Cc: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: [vwnc] Asian languages in VW?
>
> Hello Mark,
>
>
>> Is it possible to use Asian/Chinese characters in VW? Can they be
>>
> displayed?
> Yes, VW7.7 supports it by default. VW74.1, 7.5 and 7.6 support it by
> using AllEncodings.
>
>
>> Can they be entered via the keyboard?
>>
> Yes, there are several keyboard tools for Chinese and Japanese. You can
> use the IME pad für
> typing asian characters. AllEncodings comes with a support - separate
> parcel - for the IME pad.
> Thai, Khmer and Vietnamese and similar Languages have their own
> keyboards but can also be
> entered using the IME pad.
>
>
>> We display text from left to right in our labels and input fields, is
>>
> this something that's acceptable
>
>> in Asian countries?
>>
> Yes, most countries in Asia write from left to right. I guess you will
> have some issues with India.
> There you have to modify the controllers for writing right to left.
>
>
>> What is a good way to experiment with this? Does it require installing
>>
> a Chinese
>
>> version of MS-Windows? Are there other ways to test this?
>>
> You can install the support for asian languages (to get the Unicode
> fonts). Then you can
> use your standard Windows and the IME pad for typing the characters.
>
> One thing we faced with asian languages is the different layouts. A
> dialog (windowSpec) created
> for a western language may look pretty ugly in Chinese and the labels
> and input fields will not fit
> Thai or Khmer. We ended up with individual dialogs for each contry.
> Texts in Chinese are much
> shorter and may be higher as texts in western languages. Thai or Khmer
> texts are longer.
> They are also higher as they write consonants into the main line and
> vowels above and below.
>
> hope this helps
>
> Clemens
>
>
>> Hi,
>>
>>
>>
>> We got a question from a possible customer who wants to know whether
>> our application supports Asian languages, Chinese for instance, but
>> there will also be other languages which I don't know yet what those
>> are. As it is now, our application supports different languages, but
>> all of our current customers are located in Europe and the character
>> sets they use are similar. This would no longer be the case in Asia.
>>
>>
>>
>> Is it possible to use Asian/Chinese characters in VW? Can they be
>> displayed? Can they be entered via the keyboard? Via copy-paste?
>>
>> We display text from left to right in our labels and input fields, is
>> this something that's acceptable in Asian countries?
>>
>>
>>
>> What is a good way to experiment with this? Does it require installing
>> a Chinese version of MS-Windows? Are there other ways to test this?
>>
>>
>>
>> Currently we're using VW7.4.1 and the applications runs on MS-Windows
>> platforms. Is VW7.4.1 good enough to do this or would upgrading to
>> VW7.7 make this easier?
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>>
>> Mark
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> vwnc mailing list
>> [hidden email]
>> http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwnc
>>
>>
>
>
>

bernhardHoefner

Re: [vwnc] Asian languages in VW?

In reply to this post by Mark Plas

Another subject that may be important for creating front ends for
countries having characters like China has. Because the letters are very
iconic themselves, those countries would not like icons. At least this
was the result of a survey that was presented at a conference about
ergonomy of user interfaces in intercultural context. If you are
interested, I could grub in my papers.

Bernhard

Mark Plas schrieb:

> Hi,
>
>
>
> We got a question from a possible customer who wants to know whether our
> application supports Asian languages, Chinese for instance, but there
> will also be other languages which I don't know yet what those are. As
> it is now, our application supports different languages, but all of our
> current customers are located in Europe and the character sets they use
> are similar. This would no longer be the case in Asia.
>
>
>
> Is it possible to use Asian/Chinese characters in VW? Can they be
> displayed? Can they be entered via the keyboard? Via copy-paste?
>
> We display text from left to right in our labels and input fields, is
> this something that's acceptable in Asian countries?
>
>
>
> What is a good way to experiment with this? Does it require installing a
> Chinese version of MS-Windows? Are there other ways to test this?
>
>
>
> Currently we're using VW7.4.1 and the applications runs on MS-Windows
> platforms. Is VW7.4.1 good enough to do this or would upgrading to VW7.7
> make this easier?
>
>
>
> Thanks in advance,
>
> Mark
>
>
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> _______________________________________________
> vwnc mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwnc

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Antony Blakey-2

Re: [vwnc] Asian languages in VW?

On 10/07/2009, at 4:58 AM, Bernhard Hoefner wrote:

> Another subject that may be important for creating front ends for
> countries having characters like China has. Because the letters are
> very
> iconic themselves, those countries would not like icons. At least this
> was the result of a survey that was presented at a conference about
> ergonomy of user interfaces in intercultural context. If you are
> interested, I could grub in my papers.

I would be very interested in a reference to that finding.

Thanks,

Antony Blakey
-------------
CTO, Linkuistics Pty Ltd
Ph: 0438 840 787

One should respect public opinion insofar as is necessary to avoid
starvation and keep out of prison, but anything that goes beyond this
is voluntary submission to an unnecessary tyranny.
-- Bertrand Russell

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Mark Plas

Re: [vwnc] Asian languages in VW?

In reply to this post by bernhardHoefner

Hi Bernhard,

If you could dig this up, I would be interested. We show lots of icons in our application.

Thanks,
Mark

-----Original Message-----
From: Bernhard Hoefner [mailto:[hidden email]]
Sent: donderdag 9 juli 2009 21:28
To: Mark Plas
Cc: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [vwnc] Asian languages in VW?

Another subject that may be important for creating front ends for
countries having characters like China has. Because the letters are very
iconic themselves, those countries would not like icons. At least this
was the result of a survey that was presented at a conference about
ergonomy of user interfaces in intercultural context. If you are
interested, I could grub in my papers.

Bernhard

Mark Plas schrieb:

_______________________________________________
vwnc mailing list
[hidden email]
http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwnc

Simon Peter-2

Re: [vwnc] Asian languages in VW?

In reply to this post by Clemens Hoffmann

Hello Mark,

I am not much experienced with Languages and fonts used in VW.
Also i am unable to comment on Asian languages as a whole.
I will try to give some inputs regarding Indian languages, may be useful for
you.
You can have some information from the following links(not as authorised
reference but just for an initial reading).

1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_languages
2) http://www.mahesh.com/2009/04/29/indian-language-keyboard-options

Most of the languages used in India are written from left to right,
exceptions are for Arabic based languages like Urdu and Farsi.

But generally you will have to handle the problem of writing consonants into
the main line and vowels above and below.

If you can point out some exact languages, i will try to collect more
information on them

Regards,

Simon

----- Original Message -----
From: "Clemens Hoffmann" <[hidden email]>
To: "Mark Plas" <[hidden email]>
Cc: <[hidden email]>
Sent: Thursday, July 09, 2009 5:52 PM
Subject: Re: [vwnc] Asian languages in VW?

Hello Mark,

> Is it possible to use Asian/Chinese characters in VW? Can they be
displayed?
Yes, VW7.7 supports it by default. VW74.1, 7.5 and 7.6 support it by
using AllEncodings.

>Can they be entered via the keyboard?
Yes, there are several keyboard tools for Chinese and Japanese. You can
use the IME pad für
typing asian characters. AllEncodings comes with a support - separate
parcel - for the IME pad.
Thai, Khmer and Vietnamese and similar Languages have their own
keyboards but can also be
entered using the IME pad.

>We display text from left to right in our labels and input fields, is
this something that's acceptable
> in Asian countries?
Yes, most countries in Asia write from left to right. I guess you will
have some issues with India.
There you have to modify the controllers for writing right to left.

> What is a good way to experiment with this? Does it require installing
a Chinese
> version of MS-Windows? Are there other ways to test this?
You can install the support for asian languages (to get the Unicode
fonts). Then you can
use your standard Windows and the IME pad for typing the characters.

One thing we faced with asian languages is the different layouts. A
dialog (windowSpec) created
for a western language may look pretty ugly in Chinese and the labels
and input fields will not fit
Thai or Khmer. We ended up with individual dialogs for each contry.
Texts in Chinese are much
shorter and may be higher as texts in western languages. Thai or Khmer
texts are longer.
They are also higher as they write consonants into the main line and
vowels above and below.

hope this helps

Clemens

Steven Kelly

Re: [vwnc] Asian languages in VW?

In reply to this post by Mark Plas

My experience in 7.4.1 differs from Clemens's, but then we're not doing the same things as he is. We use VW's Japanese parcels in the #{VISUALWORKS}\japanese directory (only present in the commercial VW version). These change the default FontDescriptions to refer to the correct Windows fonts (Gothic, Mincho etc.), add some Asian encodings, and also make quite a few little changes elsewhere in places where the normal VW code presumably forgot to take double-byte characters into account.

This approach has worked well for us. The placement of the IME window is off by a few pixels, and the font it shows is fixed, rather than being the same as that of the input field it is opened from. It only works for Japanese - Chinese etc. don't work.

In Windows XP's Control Panel | Regional and Language Options, you can choose the main locale on the Regional Options page. Changes here don't require a reboot. On the Languages page you should choose to "Install files for East Asian languages" (Chinese, Japanese, Korean). Those settings plus the Japanese parcels should be enough to get VW to display Japanese correctly. To be able to input it, you also need to choose Japanese as the non-Unicode language on the Advanced page (which will require a reboot).

My experience is that without explicit changes to the default FontDescriptions and new Locales, e.g. as made by the Japanese parcels, characters will not display correctly in VW. For instance, even with AllEncodings loaded, and Windows set to use Polish, Polish characters display as black rectangles. The problem is that VW only defines a few Locales, and since Polish isn't found, VW uses the C locale (roughly ISO 8859-1) rather than 8859-2. 8859-1 doesn't contain slots for the special Polish characters (or then the platform font VW chooses is forced to be 8859-1), so they show up as black rectangles.

Does AllEncodings just work out of the box for others in 7.4.1 - 7.6, e.g. for Eastern European and Eastern Asian languages?

Steve

> -----Original Message-----
> From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On
> Behalf Of Mark Plas
> Sent: 09 July 2009 16:07
> To: Clemens Hoffmann
> Cc: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: [vwnc] Asian languages in VW?
>
> Hello Clemens,
>
> Thank you for your elaborate answer! I have some more questions.
>
> You say that VW7.7 supports Asian languages by default. What exactly
> does this mean? For instance, suppose I would start up a VW7.7 image on
> a computer in Thailand, and I would start typing text on a Thai
> keyboard connected to that computer, will I see the characters appear
> correctly in VW7.7, without loading any additional parcel or without
> doing some magic/hidden Locale&encoding initialization tricks? Just
> like that? That would be great! (How does it pick the right font to
> display the Thai characters?)
>
> And another thing: Is the separate parcel that comes with AllEncodings
> only necessary if you want to use an IME pad, so if you use a 'real'
> Thai keyboard, you don't need it? And is the IME parcel still necessary
> in VW7.7, or is it built-in? (If my questions sound as if I know
> nothing about it: I know nothing about it :^)
>
> Thanks again,
> Mark
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Clemens Hoffmann [mailto:[hidden email]]
> Sent: donderdag 9 juli 2009 14:22
> To: Mark Plas
> Cc: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: [vwnc] Asian languages in VW?
>
> Hello Mark,
>
> > Is it possible to use Asian/Chinese characters in VW? Can they be
> displayed?
> Yes, VW7.7 supports it by default. VW74.1, 7.5 and 7.6 support it by
> using AllEncodings.
>
> >Can they be entered via the keyboard?
> Yes, there are several keyboard tools for Chinese and Japanese. You can
> use the IME pad für
> typing asian characters. AllEncodings comes with a support - separate
> parcel - for the IME pad.
> Thai, Khmer and Vietnamese and similar Languages have their own
> keyboards but can also be
> entered using the IME pad.
>
> >We display text from left to right in our labels and input fields, is
> this something that's acceptable
> > in Asian countries?
> Yes, most countries in Asia write from left to right. I guess you will
> have some issues with India.
> There you have to modify the controllers for writing right to left.
>
> > What is a good way to experiment with this? Does it require
> installing
> a Chinese
> > version of MS-Windows? Are there other ways to test this?
> You can install the support for asian languages (to get the Unicode
> fonts). Then you can
> use your standard Windows and the IME pad for typing the characters.
>
> One thing we faced with asian languages is the different layouts. A
> dialog (windowSpec) created
> for a western language may look pretty ugly in Chinese and the labels
> and input fields will not fit
> Thai or Khmer. We ended up with individual dialogs for each contry.
> Texts in Chinese are much
> shorter and may be higher as texts in western languages. Thai or Khmer
> texts are longer.
> They are also higher as they write consonants into the main line and
> vowels above and below.
>
> hope this helps
>
> Clemens
>
> > Hi,
> >
> >
> >
> > We got a question from a possible customer who wants to know whether
> > our application supports Asian languages, Chinese for instance, but
> > there will also be other languages which I don't know yet what those
> > are. As it is now, our application supports different languages, but
> > all of our current customers are located in Europe and the character
> > sets they use are similar. This would no longer be the case in Asia.
> >
> >
> >
> > Is it possible to use Asian/Chinese characters in VW? Can they be
> > displayed? Can they be entered via the keyboard? Via copy-paste?
> >
> > We display text from left to right in our labels and input fields, is
> > this something that's acceptable in Asian countries?
> >
> >
> >
> > What is a good way to experiment with this? Does it require
> installing
> > a Chinese version of MS-Windows? Are there other ways to test this?
> >
> >
> >
> > Currently we're using VW7.4.1 and the applications runs on MS-Windows
> > platforms. Is VW7.4.1 good enough to do this or would upgrading to
> > VW7.7 make this easier?
> >
> >
> >
> > Thanks in advance,
> >
> > Mark
> >
> > ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> ---
> >
> > _______________________________________________
> > vwnc mailing list
> > [hidden email]
> > http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwnc
> >
>
>
> --
> Clemens Hoffmann
> Senior Consultant
>
> Email: [hidden email]
> Tel: +49 231 975 99 31
> Fax: +49 231 975 99 20
>
> Georg Heeg eK Dortmund
> Handelsregister: Amtsgericht Dortmund A 12812
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> vwnc mailing list
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Carl Gundel

[vwnc] Headless drawing graphics

I get a runtime error when my headless Seaside application tries to
draw graphics. How do I fix this?

-Carl Gundel
Liberty BASIC for Windows - http://www.libertybasic.com
Run BASIC, easy web programming - http://www.runbasic.com
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Boris Popov, DeepCove Labs (SNN)

Re: [vwnc] Headless drawing graphics

Carl,

We had to switch to Cairo for our drawing as you can't use regular
graphics contexts while headless.

-Boris

--
+1.604.689.0322
DeepCove Labs Ltd.
4th floor 595 Howe Street
Vancouver, Canada V6C 2T5
http://tinyurl.com/r7uw4

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-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On
Behalf Of Carl Gundel
Sent: Monday, July 13, 2009 12:33 PM
To: [hidden email]
Subject: [vwnc] Headless drawing graphics

I get a runtime error when my headless Seaside application tries to
draw graphics. How do I fix this?

-Carl Gundel
Liberty BASIC for Windows - http://www.libertybasic.com
Run BASIC, easy web programming - http://www.runbasic.com
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Michael Lucas-Smith-2

Re: [vwnc] Headless drawing graphics

In reply to this post by Carl Gundel

What's the error? You need to run the headful VM in headless mode to use
graphics context.

Carl Gundel wrote:

> I get a runtime error when my headless Seaside application tries to
> draw graphics. How do I fix this?
>
> -Carl Gundel
> Liberty BASIC for Windows - http://www.libertybasic.com
> Run BASIC, easy web programming - http://www.runbasic.com
> _______________________________________________
> vwnc mailing list
> [hidden email]
> http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwnc
>
>

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Carl Gundel

Re: [vwnc] Headless drawing graphics

On Jul 13, 2009, at 3:53 PM, Michael Lucas-Smith <[hidden email]> wrote:

What's the error?

Oh, I think it is "a primitive has failed"

You need to run the headful VM in headless mode to use graphics context.

Oh, I'm not sure. Is that the same as specifying Build headless image in the runtime packager? What are the pros and cons of either approach?

-Carl Gundel
Liberty BASIC for Windows - http://www.libertybasic.com
Run BASIC, easy web programming - http://www.runbasic.com

Carl Gundel wrote:
I get a runtime error when my headless Seaside application tries to draw graphics. How do I fix this?

-Carl Gundel
Liberty BASIC for Windows - http://www.libertybasic.com
Run BASIC, easy web programming - http://www.runbasic.com
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Boris Popov, DeepCove Labs (SNN)

Re: [vwnc] Headless drawing graphics

In reply to this post by Michael Lucas-Smith-2

Really? I don't even think you can create masks while headless, try

Mask extent: 1@1

-Boris

-----Original Message-----
From: [hidden email] [mailto:[hidden email]] On
Behalf Of Michael Lucas-Smith
Sent: Monday, July 13, 2009 12:53 PM
To: Carl Gundel
Cc: [hidden email]
Subject: Re: [vwnc] Headless drawing graphics

What's the error? You need to run the headful VM in headless mode to use

graphics context.

Carl Gundel wrote:

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bernhardHoefner

Re: [vwnc] Asian languages in VW?

In reply to this post by Mark Plas

Hello Mark and Antony,
it seems that I dumped the conference paper, but yesterday I received a
paper from that conference that concerns the subject. It describes it
vice versa: the mainland Chinese can interpret "picture" faster than
text labels (USA: text-labels are faster to interpret), Y.Y.Chong writes
as explanation: „English is an alphabetic language in which the graphic
unit represents phonemes; Chinese is a morphemic language in which the
graphical unit (a character) almost always presents a morpheme” [4].
Below you find hints for further information.

Mark and Antony, I will send you the (german) lecture paper by separate
email.

Regards, Bernhard

[3] Choong, Y.-Y.: Design of Computer Interfaces for the Chinese
Population. Doctor Thesis at Purdue University, USA, 1996.
[4] Choong, Y.-Y.; Salvendy; G.: Designs of icons for use by Chinese in
mainland China. In: Interacting with Computers, The interdisciplinary
Journal of Human-Computer-Interaction, (Vol.9) February 1998, Amsterdam:
Elsevier, S. 417-430.
[5] Choong, Y-Y.; Salvendy; G.: Design of Computer Interfaces for the
Chinese Population. In: Ergonomics (21), Design of computing systems,
Amsterdam: Elsevier, 1997, S. 173-176.

Mark Plas schrieb:

> Hi Bernhard,
>
> If you could dig this up, I would be interested. We show lots of icons in our application.
>
> Thanks,
> Mark
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bernhard Hoefner [mailto:[hidden email]]
> Sent: donderdag 9 juli 2009 21:28
> To: Mark Plas
> Cc: [hidden email]
> Subject: Re: [vwnc] Asian languages in VW?
>
> Another subject that may be important for creating front ends for
> countries having characters like China has. Because the letters are very
> iconic themselves, those countries would not like icons. At least this
> was the result of a survey that was presented at a conference about
> ergonomy of user interfaces in intercultural context. If you are
> interested, I could grub in my papers.
>
> Bernhard
>
> Mark Plas schrieb:
>> Hi,
>>
>>
>>
>> We got a question from a possible customer who wants to know whether our
>> application supports Asian languages, Chinese for instance, but there
>> will also be other languages which I don't know yet what those are. As
>> it is now, our application supports different languages, but all of our
>> current customers are located in Europe and the character sets they use
>> are similar. This would no longer be the case in Asia.
>>
>>
>>
>> Is it possible to use Asian/Chinese characters in VW? Can they be
>> displayed? Can they be entered via the keyboard? Via copy-paste?
>>
>> We display text from left to right in our labels and input fields, is
>> this something that's acceptable in Asian countries?
>>
>>
>>
>> What is a good way to experiment with this? Does it require installing a
>> Chinese version of MS-Windows? Are there other ways to test this?
>>
>>
>>
>> Currently we're using VW7.4.1 and the applications runs on MS-Windows
>> platforms. Is VW7.4.1 good enough to do this or would upgrading to VW7.7
>> make this easier?
>>
>>
>>
>> Thanks in advance,
>>
>> Mark
>>
>>
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> vwnc mailing list
>> [hidden email]
>> http://lists.cs.uiuc.edu/mailman/listinfo/vwnc
>

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