Internationalization

Internationalization

[Girish Kulkarni]

Using GNU Emacs 22.1.1 on Ubuntu 7.04. I have a limited understanding
of fonts related issues in Linux, and three possibly naive questions:

 0. I installed the Intlfonts distribution today, to try out the
Devanagari font support in Emacs. The installation was okay, and I
also added the installation directory to the font path. The README
file that came with the distribution then says something like, "The
file Emacs.ap contains X resource setting of fontsets for various size
fonts (14, 16, 18, and 24 dots)." Could somebody explain this to me?

 1. I tried entering some Devanagari characters in an empty buffer
using a Devanagari ITRANS keyboard and found that now Emacs could
render them, but not quite correctly -- the ligatures do not form at
all. Devanagari ligatures is usually a hard issue everywhere; how has
Emacs solved it?

 2. Although my Emacs could render these few Devanagari characters
that I entered, it only showed  empty boxes in the HELLO file. Why did
this happen?

Maybe I should spend some more time with the Info pages on
internationalization. But it would be nice if somebody bothers to
explain.

--
Girish Kulkarni - Allahabad, India - http://girish.50webs.com

Re: Internationalization

[Eli Zaretskii]

> From: Girish Kulkarni <geeree@gmail.com>
> Date: Sun, 30 Sep 2007 15:31:52 -0000
> 
>  1. I tried entering some Devanagari characters in an empty buffer
> using a Devanagari ITRANS keyboard and found that now Emacs could
> render them, but not quite correctly -- the ligatures do not form at
> all. Devanagari ligatures is usually a hard issue everywhere; how has
> Emacs solved it?
> 
>  2. Although my Emacs could render these few Devanagari characters
> that I entered, it only showed  empty boxes in the HELLO file. Why did
> this happen?

I suggest to post these questions on emacs-devel@gnu.org, not here.
Most, if not all, Emacs developers who understand something about the
Devanagari support read emacs-devel, but not this forum.

Re: Internationalization

[Mirko]

On Sep 30, 11:31 am, Girish Kulkarni <geeree@gmail.com> wrote:
> Using GNU Emacs 22.1.1 on Ubuntu 7.04. I have a limited understanding
> of fonts related issues in Linux, and three possibly naive questions:
>
>  0. I installed theIntlfontsdistribution today, to try out the
> Devanagari font support in Emacs. Theinstallationwas okay, and I
> also added theinstallationdirectory to the font path. The README
> file that came with the distribution then says something like, "The
> file Emacs.ap contains X resource setting of fontsets for various size
> fonts (14, 16, 18, and 24 dots)." Could somebody explain this to me?
>
>  1. I tried entering some Devanagari characters in an empty buffer
> using a Devanagari ITRANS keyboard and found that now Emacs could
> render them, but not quite correctly -- the ligatures do not form at
> all. Devanagari ligatures is usually a hard issue everywhere; how has
> Emacs solved it?
>
>  2. Although my Emacs could render these few Devanagari characters
> that I entered, it only showed  empty boxes in the HELLO file. Why did
> this happen?
>
> Maybe I should spend some more time with the Info pages on
> internationalization. But it would be nice if somebody bothers to
> explain.
>
> --
> Girish Kulkarni - Allahabad, India -http://girish.50webs.com

This is how I solved it:

I am installing emacs 22.1 on RedHat Enterprise Linux 5, and I could
not find
rpm file.

For the Intlfonts I followed the instructions to the letter.  I placed
the Emacs.ap file into
/usr/lib64/X11/app-defaults/Emacs.

To explain:
 - I guessed the directory after searching the filesystem for /X11
directories.
 - I am on a 64-bit machine, and I that is why I went to /usr/lib64
instead of /usr/lib
 - I had to create the app-defaults directory as there was none there.
 - I did not need to inform the X server.  But I had to restart
emacs.

HTH,

Mirko

Re: Internationalization

[Peter Dyballa]

On Sep 30, 11:31 am, Girish Kulkarni wrote:
> Using GNU Emacs 22.1.1 on Ubuntu 7.04. I have a limited understanding
> of fonts related issues in Linux, and three possibly naive questions:
>
>  0. ... The README
> file that came with the distribution then says something like, "The
> file Emacs.ap contains X resource setting of fontsets for various size
> fonts (14, 16, 18, and 24 dots)." Could somebody explain this to me?

This file is an ASCII text. It sets X resources that GNU Emacs reads  
and applies at launch time. The file needs to have a particular name  
and it needs to be found in certain places.

>
>  1. I tried entering some Devanagari characters in an empty buffer
> using a Devanagari ITRANS keyboard and found that now Emacs could
> render them, but not quite correctly -- the ligatures do not form at
> all. Devanagari ligatures is usually a hard issue everywhere; how has
> Emacs solved it?

Not at all – it's no text processor

>
>  2. Although my Emacs could render these few Devanagari characters
> that I entered, it only showed  empty boxes in the HELLO file. Why did
> this happen?

I wonder too! It might have to do with the strange encoding of this  
file.

--
Greetings

   Pete

With Capitalism man exploits man. With communism it's the exact  
opposite.

Re: Internationalization

[Girish Kulkarni]

Hi Pete,

On Oct 25, 1:59 am, Peter Dyballa <Peter_Dyba...@Web.DE> wrote:
> > file that came with the distribution then says something like, "The
> > file Emacs.ap contains X resource setting of fontsets for various size
> > fonts (14, 16, 18, and 24 dots)." Could somebody explain this to me?
>
> This file is an ASCII text. It sets X resources that GNU Emacs reads
> and applies at launch time. The file needs to have a particular name
> and it needs to be found in certain places.

Thanks for the explanation. But I do not know where to *obtain*
Emacs.ap from. It doesn't seem to come with the distribution.

> >  1. I tried entering some Devanagari characters in an empty buffer
> > using a Devanagari ITRANS keyboard and found that now Emacs could
> > render them, but not quite correctly -- the ligatures do not form at
> > all. Devanagari ligatures is usually a hard issue everywhere; how has
> > Emacs solved it?
>
> Not at all - it's no text processor

Devanagari ligatures are different from Latin ligatures in that
Devanagari becomes unreadable if the ligatures are not rendered
correctly. This is something a Devanagari reader would expect not only
from text processors but from any place where Devanagari is written. I
hope somebody on emacs-devel has taken note of this. Devanagari
support without ligatures is no Devanagari support at all.

--
Girish Kulkarni - Allahabad, India - http://girish.50webs.com

Re: Internationalization

[Peter Dyballa]

Am 26.10.2007 um 15:44 schrieb Girish Kulkarni:

>> This file is an ASCII text. It sets X resources that GNU Emacs reads
>> and applies at launch time. The file needs to have a particular name
>> and it needs to be found in certain places.
>
> Thanks for the explanation. But I do not know where to *obtain*
> Emacs.ap from. It doesn't seem to come with the distribution.

Could be it's this one:

!! BEGIN intlfonts setup
!! By default, use 16 dots fonts
Emacs.Font: fontset-16
!! For small screen users (eg. 640x480 or 800x600)
Emacs.Fontset-0: -etl-*-medium-r-normal-*-14-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-14
!! For meidum screen users (eg. 1024x780)
Emacs.Fontset-1: -etl-*-medium-r-normal-*-16-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-16
!! For meidum screen users (eg. 1024x780) suitable for Thai characters
Emacs.Fontset-2: -etl-*-medium-r-normal-*-18-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-18
!! For large screen users (eg. 1280x1024 or larger)
Emacs.Fontset-3: -etl-*-medium-r-normal-*-24-*-*-*-*-*-fontset-24
!! END intlfonts setup

More entries are possible, look at the X Resources node in GNU  
Emacs's info node.

>>>
>> Not at all - it's no text processor
>
> Devanagari ligatures are different from Latin ligatures in that
> Devanagari becomes unreadable if the ligatures are not rendered
> correctly. This is something a Devanagari reader would expect not only
> from text processors but from any place where Devanagari is written. I
> hope somebody on emacs-devel has taken note of this. Devanagari
> support without ligatures is no Devanagari support at all.

You *might* get better rendering when using GNU Emacs 23.0.60, the  
unicode-2 branch from CVS, with libotf. Then GNU Emacs will have  
knowledge about ligatures and such from the OpenType font. Then it's  
still a second issue whether this knowledge is applied ... Again  
emacs-devel might explain more and better!

--
Greetings

   Pete

Build a man a fire and he'll be warm for a night, but set a man on  
fire and he'll be warm for the rest of his life.

Re: Internationalization

[Dmitri Minaev]

On 10/26/07, Girish Kulkarni <geeree@gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks for the explanation. But I do not know where to *obtain*
> Emacs.ap from. It doesn't seem to come with the distribution.

This file is a part of intlfonts distribution.

-- 
With best regards,
Dmitri Minaev

Russian history blog: http://minaev.blogspot.com