Re: Thoughts and questions about input

[Pablo Saratxaga <pablo mandrakesoft com>]

Kaixo!

On Mon, Mar 13, 2000 at 01:19:54AM -0500, Shahbaz A Chaudhary wrote:

> Now switching between multilingual typing modes is different from
> switching between overall gui translation.  By that I mean an Urdu user
> may be using english version of X-windows, but just need the ability to
> type a few lines in Urdu--which is when we need quick and simple mode
> switching.

The correct way of doing that in the current X11 framework is to set
the locale to Urdu, then force menus to English; eg:

LC_ALL=ur
LANGUAGE=en

As the LC_ALL (LC_CTYPE in fact) will determine the usable fontsets,
but also will determine wether a given eyboard layout will be fully usable
or not.

> If the user wants his/her whole gnome environment to switch
> from displaying menus etc. in english to urdu, then I don't see a great
> need for quick changes (but then again I don't think Pango needs to worry
> about this anyway).

The problem for languages written right to left is that no current gtk+
widget provides support for them.
Once Gtk+ text widgets provides support for it (trough pango probably);
then it will as easy to translate any programe to Urdu than to any other
language.
In fact the translations could be done right now; it is simply that it
will be wasted work; as they cannot be *displayed* currently.

> Shahbaz C.
> chaudhar@umich.edu

-- 
Ki ça vos våye bén,
Pablo Saratxaga

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