Polish characters in emacs

Polish characters in emacs

[Wojtek]

Could someone point me to an explanation of settings so that Polish
characters are displayed correctly in an emacs buffer and whether this
has to do with the environment outside of emacs.
When I open up a connection to my account and run emacs from Fedora 7
the characters do not show up when viewing a mail message encoded as
utf-8.  However I can toggle the input method to polish-slash and
enter polish characters and they do show up.  When connecting to the
same account from a Windows machine using Cygwin-X, the characters in
the mail message show up without a problem. Since the emacs I am
running is starting up with the same parameters, what controlsl the
display of characters?

Wojciech Komornicki

Re: Polish characters in emacs

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Wojtek <wnkltd@gmail.com>
> Date: Thu, 11 Oct 2007 14:09:57 -0700
> 
> When I open up a connection to my account and run emacs from Fedora 7
> the characters do not show up when viewing a mail message encoded as
> utf-8.  However I can toggle the input method to polish-slash and
> enter polish characters and they do show up.  When connecting to the
> same account from a Windows machine using Cygwin-X, the characters in
> the mail message show up without a problem. Since the emacs I am
> running is starting up with the same parameters, what controlsl the
> display of characters?

Please tell more.  For starters, when you connect from Fedora 7, do
you start Emacs in the GUI mode (i.e. under X) or in text terminal
mode?

Also, what do you mean by ``characters do not show up'', exactly?  Do
you see empty boxes or some other characters?

Finally, what version of Emacs do you run?

Oh, and try "emacs -q --no-site-file" in both cases to see if the
behavior changes.

Re: Polish characters in emacs

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 11.10.2007 um 23:09 schrieb Wojtek:

> Could someone point me to an explanation of settings so that Polish
> characters are displayed correctly in an emacs buffer and whether this
> has to do with the environment outside of emacs.

There are three 8 bit ISO Latin encodings that support Polish: ISO  
8859-2, ISO 8859-13, and ISO 8859-16, the 8 bit MS encoding Code Page  
1250, and finally UTF-8. The all have  
ÓóĄąĆćĘꣳŃńŚśŹźżż.

> When I open up a connection to my account and run emacs from Fedora 7
> the characters do not show up when viewing a mail message encoded as
> utf-8.

*How* does this happen? Does it happen that you only see empty boxes?  
Then you're using a font that does not have the Polish characters.  
Change, for example, to Lucida Sans Typewriter from Java SDK!

> However I can toggle the input method to polish-slash and
> enter polish characters and they do show up.

This can be something completely different. (I never use an "input  
method." At least not by conscience.) And it's no proof, except that  
this GNU Emacs can display the chosen item properly. So their might  
be some mis-understanding come from the eMail client used to retrieve  
the input data for that buffer.

> When connecting to the same account from a Windows machine using  
> Cygwin-X, the characters in
> the mail message show up without a problem.

Ahh! So you are writing the whole time about eMails and their textual  
presentation? Which eMail client do you use to read the eMails? Can  
you make some of the header lines of the eMails appear in your eMail  
client, particularly those that describe the way the message was  
encoded for the transport through the Internet? The eMail client can  
have its own ideas of representing an eMail's contents ...

> Since the emacs I am running is starting up with the same  
> parameters, what controlsl the display of characters?

It's definitely the encoding used in the buffer. It's indicated at  
the beginning of the mode-line (left-most characters).

	-*: for MS CP1250 or CP1252
	-2: for ISO 8859-2   (Latin  2)
	-l: for ISO 8859-13  (Latin  7)
	-r: for ISO 8859-16  (Latin 10)
	-u: for UTF-8

BTW, with the mouse cursor you can select that character and a *Help*  
buffer with explanation opens.


A good method to check where the error can come from is to use a  
"neutral" simple and pure text file like this one:

;;; -*- mode: Text; coding: iso-8859-2; -*-
;
;	Time-stamp: <2005-05-11 23:52:49 pete>
;
;   Central and Eastern European Glyphs (Latin 2)
;
;   oct   dec   hex    UCS2    UTF-8
;=====================================
   = 240 = 160 = A0 = U+00A0 =    C2 A0 : NO-BREAK SPACE
Ą = 241 = 161 = A1 = U+0104 =    C4 84 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH  
OGONEK
˘ = 242 = 162 = A2 = U+02D8 =    CB 98 : BREVE
Ł = 243 = 163 = A3 = U+0141 =    C5 81 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER L WITH  
STROKE
¤ = 244 = 164 = A4 = U+00A4 =    C2 A4 : CURRENCY SIGN
Ľ = 245 = 165 = A5 = U+013D =    C4 BD : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER L WITH  
CARON
Ś = 246 = 166 = A6 = U+015A =    C5 9A : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S WITH  
ACUTE
§ = 247 = 167 = A7 = U+00A7 =    C2 A7 : SECTION SIGN
¨ = 250 = 168 = A8 = U+00A8 =    C2 A8 : DIAERESIS
Š = 251 = 169 = A9 = U+0160 =    C5 A0 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S WITH  
CARON
Ş = 252 = 170 = AA = U+015E =    C5 9E : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER S WITH  
CEDILLA
Ť = 253 = 171 = AB = U+0164 =    C5 A4 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T WITH  
CARON
Ź = 254 = 172 = AC = U+0179 =    C5 B9 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z WITH  
ACUTE
- = 255 = 173 = AD = U+00AD =    C2 AD : HYPHEN-MINUS
Ž = 256 = 174 = AE = U+017D =    C5 BD : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z WITH  
CARON
Ż = 257 = 175 = AF = U+017B =    C5 BB : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Z WITH  
DOT ABOVE
° = 260 = 176 = B0 = U+00B0 =    C2 B0 : DEGREE SIGN
ą = 261 = 177 = B1 = U+0105 =    C4 85 : LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH  
OGONEK
˛ = 262 = 178 = B2 = U+02DB =    CB 9B : OGONEK
ł = 263 = 179 = B3 = U+0142 =    C5 82 : LATIN SMALL LETTER L WITH  
STROKE
´ = 264 = 180 = B4 = U+00B4 =    C2 B4 : ACUTE ACCENT
ľ = 265 = 181 = B5 = U+013E =    C4 BE : LATIN SMALL LETTER L WITH  
CARON
ś = 266 = 182 = B6 = U+015B =    C5 9B : LATIN SMALL LETTER S WITH  
ACUTE
ˇ = 267 = 183 = B7 = U+02C7 =    CB 87 : CARON
¸ = 270 = 184 = B8 = U+00B8 =    C2 B8 : CEDILLA
š = 271 = 185 = B9 = U+0161 =    C5 A1 : LATIN SMALL LETTER S WITH  
CARON
ş = 272 = 186 = BA = U+015F =    C5 9F : LATIN SMALL LETTER S WITH  
CEDILLA
ť = 273 = 187 = BB = U+0165 =    C5 A5 : LATIN SMALL LETTER T WITH  
CARON
ź = 274 = 188 = BC = U+017A =    C5 BA : LATIN SMALL LETTER Z WITH  
ACUTE
˝ = 275 = 189 = BD = U+02DD =    CB 9D : DOUBLE ACUTE ACCENT
ž = 276 = 190 = BE = U+017E =    C5 BE : LATIN SMALL LETTER Z WITH  
CARON
ż = 277 = 191 = BF = U+017C =    C5 BC : LATIN SMALL LETTER Z WITH  
DOT ABOVE
Ŕ = 300 = 192 = C0 = U+0154 =    C5 94 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R WITH  
ACUTE
Á = 301 = 193 = C1 = U+00C1 =    C3 81 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH  
ACUTE
 = 302 = 194 = C2 = U+00C2 =    C3 82 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH  
CIRCUMFLEX
Ă = 303 = 195 = C3 = U+0102 =    C4 82 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH  
BREVE
Ä = 304 = 196 = C4 = U+00C4 =    C3 84 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER A WITH  
DIAERESIS
Ĺ = 305 = 197 = C5 = U+0139 =    C4 B9 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER L WITH  
ACUTE
Ć = 306 = 198 = C6 = U+0106 =    C4 86 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C WITH  
ACUTE
Ç = 307 = 199 = C7 = U+00C7 =    C3 87 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C WITH  
CEDILLA
Č = 310 = 200 = C8 = U+010C =    C4 8C : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER C WITH  
CARON
É = 311 = 201 = C9 = U+00C9 =    C3 89 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH  
ACUTE
Ę = 312 = 202 = CA = U+0118 =    C4 98 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH  
OGONEK
Ë = 313 = 203 = CB = U+00CB =    C3 8B : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH  
DIAERESIS
Ě = 314 = 204 = CC = U+011A =    C4 9A : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER E WITH  
CARON
Í = 315 = 205 = CD = U+00CD =    C3 8D : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH  
ACUTE
Î = 316 = 206 = CE = U+00CE =    C3 8E : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER I WITH  
CIRCUMFLEX
Ď = 317 = 207 = CF = U+010E =    C4 8E : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D WITH  
CARON
Đ = 320 = 208 = D0 = U+0110 =    C4 90 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER D WITH  
STROKE
Ń = 321 = 209 = D1 = U+0143 =    C5 83 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N WITH  
ACUTE
Ň = 322 = 210 = D2 = U+0147 =    C5 87 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER N WITH  
CARON
Ó = 323 = 211 = D3 = U+00D3 =    C3 93 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH  
ACUTE
Ô = 324 = 212 = D4 = U+00D4 =    C3 94 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH  
CIRCUMFLEX
Ő = 325 = 213 = D5 = U+0150 =    C5 90 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH  
DOUBLE ACUTE
Ö = 326 = 214 = D6 = U+00D6 =    C3 96 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER O WITH  
DIAERESIS
× = 327 = 215 = D7 = U+00D7 =    C3 97 : MULTIPLICATION SIGN
Ř = 330 = 216 = D8 = U+0158 =    C5 98 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER R WITH  
CARON
Ů = 331 = 217 = D9 = U+016E =    C5 AE : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH  
RING ABOVE
Ú = 332 = 218 = DA = U+00DA =    C3 9A : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH  
ACUTE
Ű = 333 = 219 = DB = U+0170 =    C5 B0 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH  
DOUBLE ACUTE
Ü = 334 = 220 = DC = U+00DC =    C3 9C : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER U WITH  
DIAERESIS
Ý = 335 = 221 = DD = U+00DD =    C3 9D : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER Y WITH  
ACUTE
Ţ = 336 = 222 = DE = U+0162 =    C5 A2 : LATIN CAPITAL LETTER T WITH  
CEDILLA
ß = 337 = 223 = DF = U+00DF =    C3 9F : LATIN SMALL LETTER SHARP S
ŕ = 340 = 224 = E0 = U+0155 =    C5 95 : LATIN SMALL LETTER R WITH  
ACUTE
á = 341 = 225 = E1 = U+00E1 =    C3 A1 : LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH  
ACUTE
â = 342 = 226 = E2 = U+00E2 =    C3 A2 : LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH  
CIRCUMFLEX
ă = 343 = 227 = E3 = U+0103 =    C4 83 : LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH  
BREVE
ä = 344 = 228 = E4 = U+00E4 =    C3 A4 : LATIN SMALL LETTER A WITH  
DIAERESIS
ĺ = 345 = 229 = E5 = U+013A =    C4 BA : LATIN SMALL LETTER L WITH  
ACUTE
ć = 346 = 230 = E6 = U+0107 =    C4 87 : LATIN SMALL LETTER C WITH  
ACUTE
ç = 347 = 231 = E7 = U+00E7 =    C3 A7 : LATIN SMALL LETTER C WITH  
CEDILLA
č = 350 = 232 = E8 = U+010D =    C4 8D : LATIN SMALL LETTER C WITH  
CARON
é = 351 = 233 = E9 = U+00E9 =    C3 A9 : LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH  
ACUTE
ę = 352 = 234 = EA = U+0119 =    C4 99 : LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH  
OGONEK
ë = 353 = 235 = EB = U+00EB =    C3 AB : LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH  
DIAERESIS
ě = 354 = 236 = EC = U+011B =    C4 9B : LATIN SMALL LETTER E WITH  
CARON
í = 355 = 237 = ED = U+00ED =    C3 AD : LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH  
ACUTE
î = 356 = 238 = EE = U+00EE =    C3 AE : LATIN SMALL LETTER I WITH  
CIRCUMFLEX
ď = 357 = 239 = EF = U+010F =    C4 8F : LATIN SMALL LETTER D WITH  
CARON
đ = 360 = 240 = F0 = U+0111 =    C4 91 : LATIN SMALL LETTER D WITH  
STROKE
ń = 361 = 241 = F1 = U+0144 =    C5 84 : LATIN SMALL LETTER N WITH  
ACUTE
ň = 362 = 242 = F2 = U+0148 =    C5 88 : LATIN SMALL LETTER N WITH  
CARON
ó = 363 = 243 = F3 = U+00F3 =    C3 B3 : LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH  
ACUTE
ô = 364 = 244 = F4 = U+00F4 =    C3 B4 : LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH  
CIRCUMFLEX
ő = 365 = 245 = F5 = U+0151 =    C5 91 : LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH  
DOUBLE ACUTE
ö = 366 = 246 = F6 = U+00F6 =    C3 B6 : LATIN SMALL LETTER O WITH  
DIAERESIS
÷ = 367 = 247 = F7 = U+00F7 =    C3 B7 : DIVISION SIGN
ř = 370 = 248 = F8 = U+0159 =    C5 99 : LATIN SMALL LETTER R WITH  
CARON
ů = 371 = 249 = F9 = U+016F =    C5 AF : LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH  
RING ABOVE
ú = 372 = 250 = FA = U+00FA =    C3 BA : LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH  
ACUTE
ű = 373 = 251 = FB = U+0171 =    C5 B1 : LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH  
DOUBLE ACUTE
ü = 374 = 252 = FC = U+00FC =    C3 BC : LATIN SMALL LETTER U WITH  
DIAERESIS
ý = 375 = 253 = FD = U+00FD =    C3 BD : LATIN SMALL LETTER Y WITH  
ACUTE
ţ = 376 = 254 = FE = U+0163 =    C5 A3 : LATIN SMALL LETTER T WITH  
CEDILLA
˙ = 377 = 255 = FF = U+02D9 =    CB 99 : DOT ABOVE

and it in both Emacsen. Run them at the same time and compare mode- 
lines and other details (encodings, fonts used: C-u C-x = on a  
glyph, ...). In your user init file you can prepare sections  for  
emacs-major-version or window-system variables.


If you want to have some fun, then change this files first line from  
iso-8859-2 to, let's say, iso-8859-16 *outside* of GNU Emacs, by for  
example, cat <file> | sed -e s/iso-8859-2/iso-8859-16/ > <other  
file>. This will only change exactly *one* byte (the 2 will become  
16), but the first column will be totally different in GNU Emacs –  
and the descriptional text will become untrue for most characters.  
Just to learn that there is contents somewhere below and you only get  
some *presentation* of this contents. (As in real life you can't see  
the reality outside your head.)

--
Greetings

   Pete

Time flies like an error -- but fruit flies like a banana!
                              (almost Groucho Marx)

Re: Polish characters in emacs

[Wojtek]

Thank you Pete for all of the explanation.
Here is a bit more info and some progress I have made.
    1) The machine to which my monitor and keyboard are attached is
running Fedora 7
    2) I connect via ssh tunneling to a machine that is running Fedora
5 and open up a gui emacs
        The command is
            ssh ... "/usr/bin/emacs -fn lucidasanstypewriter-12"
    3) In older versions of emacs (when running on various flavors of
UNIX or in Windows) I used
        the mule package which has input modes and the polish-slash
mode was such that
        /a produced ą, /e produced ę etc
     4) On the Federa 7 box, I have enabled the polish keyboard and
thus produce "ogonki" in
         any application
     5) When I open up firefox on the Fedora 5 box via ssh tuneling I
can produce "ogonki" in the
         same way
      6) I cannot produce polish characters in emacs on the Fedora 5
machine.

My IT people are going to take away the Fedora 5 machine so this may
be a mute point but I would
like to learn what is going on.

Wojtek

On Oct 12, 5:20 am, Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyba...@Web.DE> wrote:
> Am 11.10.2007 um 23:09 schrieb Wojtek:
>
> > Could someone point me to an explanation of settings so that Polish
> > characters are displayed correctly in an emacs buffer and whether this
> > has to do with the environment outside of emacs.
>
> There are three 8 bit ISO Latin encodings that support Polish: ISO
> 8859-2, ISO 8859-13, and ISO 8859-16, the 8 bit MS encoding Code Page
> 1250, and finally UTF-8. The all have
> ÓóĄąĆćĘꣳŃńŚśŹźżż.
[..snip..]  (for the fulll text see the previous message in this
thread)

Re: Polish characters in emacs

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 12.10.2007 um 21:03 schrieb Wojtek:

> My IT people are going to take away the Fedora 5 machine so this may
> be a mute point but I would
> like to learn what is going on.

What is the version of GNU Emacs on Fedora Core 5? Probably some  
early version 21.

What is the phenomenon by which you judge that GNU Emacs can't  
display ÓóĄąĆćĘꣳŃńŚśŹźżż? I don't have more  
guesses ...

Have you checked lucidasanstypewriter-12 font with xfd? You can use a  
bigger size to see the glyphs more clearly. (I was writing of the  
TrueType fonts, which are not restricted to some ISO Latin encoding.)  
Have you checked with xfontsel or xlsfonts which fonts exist on  
*your* local Fedora Core 7 system that support Polish characters? Can  
you pass such a font's name to GNU Emacs? (Since the DISPLAY variable  
on the Fedora Core 5 system is set to your local Fedora Core 7  
system, remote GNU Emacs uses your local fonts. So the chances are  
excellent that Unicode fonts exist – although they might not be  
installed. And from these, ISO Latin or MS sub-encodings are  
automatically derived, so you can make GNU Emacs' memory use small.)  
Check X11's Font Path (xset -q) and correct it if necessary, i.e.  
there are more directories with fonts than the X server knows.

You can do the same in Cygwin ...

Which encoding is displayed in mode-line?


If you want some help you have to give the answers we ask for.  
They're not meant to waste your (leisure) time.

--
Greetings
                                  <]
    Pete      o        __o         |__    o           recumbo
     ___o    /I       -\<,         |o \  -\),-%       ergo sum!
___/\ /\___./ \___...O/ O____.....`-O-'-()--o_________________

Re: Polish characters in emacs

[Wojtek]

[-- Warning: decoded text below may be mangled, UTF-8 assumed --]
[-- Attachment #1: Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii", Size: 2726 bytes --]

On Oct 12, 3:44 pm, Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyba...@Web.DE> wrote:
> Am 12.10.2007 um 21:03 schrieb Wojtek:
>
> > My IT people are going to take away the Fedora 5 machine so this may
> > be a mute point but I would
> > like to learn what is going on.
>
> What is the version of GNU Emacs on Fedora Core 5? Probably some
> early version 21.
>
> What is the phenomenon by which you judge that GNU Emacs can't
> display Óó                ? I don't have more
> guesses ...

When I enter letters with diacritic marks on the Fedora 5 emacs, I
just see black
boxes instead of the letters.  When I enter   on the Fedora 5 emacs
and then use
C-x = to examine the character, it is character 331813 (0x51025).
However on the
Fedora 7 machine it is character 2353 (0x931).  Clearly(?) the same
keyboard message
is not being transmitted to the Fedora 5 emacs.

> Have you checked lucidasanstypewriter-12 font with xfd? You can use a
> bigger size to see the glyphs more clearly. (I was writing of the
> TrueType fonts, which are not restricted to some ISO Latin encoding.)
> Have you checked with xfontsel or xlsfonts which fonts exist on
> *your* local Fedora Core 7 system that support Polish characters? Can
> you pass such a font's name to GNU Emacs? (Since the DISPLAY variable
> on the Fedora Core 5 system is set to your local Fedora Core 7
> system, remote GNU Emacs uses your local fonts. So the chances are
> excellent that Unicode fonts exist - although they might not be
> installed. And from these, ISO Latin or MS sub-encodings are
> automatically derived, so you can make GNU Emacs' memory use small.)
> Check X11's Font Path (xset -q) and correct it if necessary, i.e.
> there are more directories with fonts than the X server knows.

I have tried various fonts when launching emacs with no change.

> You can do the same in Cygwin ...

When I connect to each machine from Cygwin I get the same behaviour.

> Which encoding is displayed in mode-line?

I have two dashes at the beginning of my mode line in both emacses

> If you want some help you have to give the answers we ask for.
> They're not meant to waste your (leisure) time.

I should add that I am running emacs 21.4 on Fedora 5 and emacs 22.1
on Fedora 7.  The reason that the behaviour puzzles me is that I
understand that both of the emacses are getting their fonts from the
same place and hence it is (based on my understanding) a matter of
emacs displaying the font.
When I ask emacs to describe-coding-system I get that it is utf-8 for
terminal output in both emacses.

I have used xfd to look at the font and there I can see the required
diacritical marks.

Thank you for your comments.
Wojtek

Re: Polish characters in emacs

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 19.10.2007 um 18:36 schrieb Wojtek:

> I should add that I am running emacs 21.4 on Fedora 5 and emacs 22.1
> on Fedora 7.

This explains why C-u C-x = returns different "numbers." They really  
don't mean a thing for us users. They are some kind of representation  
of the way GNU Emacs stores these characters in the buffer you're  
visiting. Of importance is the last value, U+<four hex digits>. This  
corresponds to the position of the character in Unicode. So it's not  
true that different "key codes" are transmitted. See below!

Have you found the lines in which the font is named from which the  
glyph is taken to display the character?


>   The reason that the behaviour puzzles me is that I
> understand that both of the emacses are getting their fonts from the
> same place and hence it is (based on my understanding) a matter of
> emacs displaying the font.

Right. IMO much progress happened between 21.4 and 22.1, GNU Emacs  
learned some encodings, what-cursor-position gives much more and  
valuable information. You can press the mode-line in many places and  
you get information instead of errors. Many tool-tips appear ...

> When I ask emacs to describe-coding-system I get that it is utf-8 for
> terminal output in both emacses.

OK, but then your tests are incorrect. To test what is input to GNU  
Emacs just type in *scratch* buffer or such:

	C-q <some key press event on the keyboard>

(This is quite nice when you press a function or cursor key!) This  
*input* problem is one area, which probably works without fault.

You won't believe this because you don't *see* it. So your problem is  
merely an *output* problem. When you write that the mode-line starts  
with ``--:´´ then you could have already found that this stands for  
an undecided encoding (by pressing the second - in mode-line). Or:  
what you see is not what you've got. So make precise tests. For  
example with the test file I sent to the list. Its first line *will*  
set the buffer's encoding to the proper value to see the characters  
as described. Then it's up to you and your system to find the  
adequate fonts or fontsets. For this latter purpose you might write  
an ELisp file that lets you choose another font (or fontset) from  
those (monospaced) fonts (S-mouse-1) (you can, of course, leave out  
completely uninteresting font encodings):

(if (fboundp 'new-fontset)
   (progn
     (create-fontset-from-fontset-spec "-b&h-lucidatypewriter-medium- 
r-*-*-10-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-10pt_lucidatypewriter" t 'noerror)
       (set-fontset-font "fontset-10pt_lucidatypewriter"	      'latin- 
iso8859-1  '("lucidatypewriter" . "iso8859-1"))
       (set-fontset-font "fontset-10pt_lucidatypewriter"	      'latin- 
iso8859-2  '("lucidatypewriter" . "iso8859-2"))
       (set-fontset-font "fontset-10pt_lucidatypewriter"	      'latin- 
iso8859-3  '("lucidatypewriter" . "iso8859-3"))
       (set-fontset-font "fontset-10pt_lucidatypewriter"	      'latin- 
iso8859-4  '("lucidatypewriter" . "iso8859-4"))
       (set-fontset-font "fontset-10pt_lucidatypewriter"	   'cyrillic- 
iso8859-5  '("lucidatypewriter" . "iso8859-5"))
       (set-fontset-font "fontset-10pt_lucidatypewriter"	     'arabic- 
iso8859-6  '("lucidatypewriter" . "iso8859-6"))
       (set-fontset-font "fontset-10pt_lucidatypewriter"	      'greek- 
iso8859-7  '("lucidatypewriter" . "iso8859-7"))
       (set-fontset-font "fontset-10pt_lucidatypewriter"	     'hebrew- 
iso8859-8  '("lucidatypewriter" . "iso8859-8"))
       (set-fontset-font "fontset-10pt_lucidatypewriter"	      'latin- 
iso8859-9  '("lucidatypewriter" . "iso8859-9"))
       (set-fontset-font "fontset-10pt_lucidatypewriter"	      'latin- 
iso8859-10 '("lucidatypewriter" . "iso8859-10"))
       (set-fontset-font "fontset-10pt_lucidatypewriter"	      'latin- 
iso8859-13 '("lucidatypewriter" . "iso8859-13"))
       (set-fontset-font "fontset-10pt_lucidatypewriter"	      'latin- 
iso8859-15 '("lucidatypewriter" . "iso8859-15"))
       (set-fontset-font "fontset-10pt_lucidatypewriter" 'mule- 
unicode-0100-24ff '("lucidatypewriter" . "iso10646-1"))
       (set-fontset-font "fontset-10pt_lucidatypewriter" 'mule- 
unicode-2500-33ff '("lucidatypewriter" . "iso10646-1"))
       (set-fontset-font "fontset-10pt_lucidatypewriter" 'mule- 
unicode-e000-ffff '("lucidatypewriter" . "iso10646-1"))
       (set-fontset-font  
"fontset-10pt_lucidatypewriter"                  'ascii  
'("lucidatypewriter" . "iso10646-1"))
       (set-fontset-font "fontset-10pt_lucidatypewriter"              
'iso10646-1 '("lucidatypewriter" . "iso10646-1"))
))
(provide 'site-fontsets-x11)

or (again, you can leave out variants and sizes and concentrate on  
those encodings that have ÓóĄąĆćĘꣳŃńŚśŹźŻż):

(setq x-fixed-font-alist
    '("X11 Font Menu"
       ("Test fixed"
       ("Courier @ 75 DPI"
;; For these, we specify the point height and the DPIs.
        ( "8" 	      	"-adobe-courier-medium-r-normal--*-80-75-75-m-*- 
iso10646-1"   "8")
        ("10" 	      	"-adobe-courier-medium-r-normal--*-100-75-75-m- 
*-iso10646-1" "10")
        ("12" 	      	"-adobe-courier-medium-r-normal--*-120-75-75-m- 
*-iso10646-1" "12")
        ( "8 bold"       "-adobe-courier-bold-r-normal--*-80-75-75-m- 
*-iso10646-1"   "8 bold")
        ("10 bold"       "-adobe-courier-bold-r-normal--*-100-75-75-m- 
*-iso10646-1" "10 bold")
        ("12 bold"       "-adobe-courier-bold-r-normal--*-120-75-75-m- 
*-iso10646-1" "12 bold")
        ( "8 slant"      "-adobe-courier-medium-o-normal--*-80-75-75- 
m-*-iso10646-1"   "8 slant")
        ("10 slant"      "-adobe-courier-medium-o-normal--*-100-75-75- 
m-*-iso10646-1" "10 slant")
        ("12 slant"      "-adobe-courier-medium-o-normal--*-120-75-75- 
m-*-iso10646-1" "12 slant")
        ( "8 bold slant" "-adobe-courier-bold-o-normal--*-80-75-75-m- 
*-iso10646-1"   "8 bold slant")
        ("10 bold slant" "-adobe-courier-bold-o-normal--*-100-75-75-m- 
*-iso10646-1" "10 bold slant")
        ("12 bold slant" "-adobe-courier-bold-o-normal--*-120-75-75-m- 
*-iso10646-1" "12 bold slant")
       )
       ("ISO 8859-15 medium"
        ("B&H LucidaSans Typewriter med" "-*-lucida sans typewriter- 
medium-r-*--0-0-0-0-m-0-iso8859-15")
        ("B&H Luxi Mono med"             "-*-luxi mono-medium-r- 
*--0-0-0-0-m-0-iso8859-15")
        ("Bitstream Vera Sans Mono med"  "-*-bitstream vera sans mono- 
medium-r-*--0-0-0-0-m-0-iso8859-15")
        ("ProFont med"                   "-misc-profontwindows-medium- 
r-*--0-0-0-0-m-0-iso8859-15")
        ("Monotype Andale Mono med" 	"-monotype-andale mono-medium-r- 
*--0-0-0-0-m-0-iso8859-15")
        ("Monotype Courier New med" 	"-monotype-courier new-medium-r- 
*--0-0-0-0-m-0-iso8859-15")
        ("urw++ Courier med"         	"-urw-courier-medium-r- 
*--0-0-0-0-m-0-iso8859-15")
        ("urw++ Nimbus Mono l med"   	"-urw-nimbus mono l-medium-r- 
*--0-0-0-0-m-0-iso8859-15")
        )
))
(provide 'site-fonts-x11)

In an init file you can load these extra font definitions via:

	(require 'site-fontsets-x11)

or

	(require 'site-fonts-x11)

and use them for the tests: in one window my test file is open and  
you switch through all the fonts to see whether at some time you see  
the Polish characters. Of course you can sort the 18 or 20 lines to  
become one Polish character block.

Once you've accomplished to see the the right shapes from the test  
file, you can start to enter yourself Polish characters into this  
test file (and kill the buffer without saving your changes).  
Remember: only in the right encoding you can see the right characters  
because one byte value represents dozens of different characters in  
dozens of different encodings.


BTW, what diacritic did you enter on Fedora 5? I can't see anything.

--
Greetings
   Pete

One-Shot Case Study, n.:
         The scientific equivalent of the four-leaf clover, from
         which it is concluded all clovers possess four leaves
         and are sometimes green.