Re: Chinese Simplified appearance

["Edward H. Trager" <ehtrager umich edu>]

Hi, John,

On Thursday 2005.09.01 10:50:06 -0500, Boncek, John wrote:
> Thanks to all who responded.  The responses were very informative.
> 
> I used pango_context_set_language in this case and got very good-looking,
> uniform display.
> 
> It does seem that this dependency on a language setting goes against the
> overall thrust of Unicode/Pango and really complicates development.
> Previous to this, I had thought that having the proper Unicode characters
> was all that should be needed.

You are right.  On further reflection on this issue, IMHO, you should 
*not* have to declare a language setting to Pango at all.

If you have your system set up with the correct settings in /etc/fonts.conf
(or a user's ~/.fonts.conf) (see: http://eyegene.ophthy.med.umich.edu/iuc27/html/img19.html ),
and you have installed the right fonts (as mentioned in previous email), 
then everything should work nicely.

The only case I can think of is that Japanese users like to see Kanji displayed
using a Japanese font for Japanese language, whereas Chinese users
want to see a Chinese font for probably both Chinese and Japanese.  In reality,
only a very small set of characters have different-looking glyphs between Chinese
and Japanese.  It is a very small issue.  If Chinese Linux users have /etc/fonts.conf
set to default to fonts like AR PL ShanHeiSun (for Serif) and ZenKai (for Sans),
they should be happy when using software localized to Chinese on Linux.  If
Japanese users have /etc/fonts.conf set to use fonts like Sazanami Mincho, they
should likewise be happy when using software localized to Japanese on Linux.
 
I don't see the need for the developer to specify extra language settings anywhere
(i.e., in Pango or anywhere else).
The only thing the developer should have to do, in general is to just use gettext() 
and remember to make GUI elements wide enough (or use "liquid" layouts) to support
localized strings which tend to require wider display widths than the English labels.
If you also have to localize for RTL languages, then there may be some additional
issues to deal with (mirroring layouts -- I believe Gnome and other toolkits
provide for this).

So, I guess I'd like to know why even Owen Taylor is saying that "you'll get
this sort of ugly mix" unless you tell the system *which* language.  But you
won't get an ugly mix if /etc/fonts.conf is set as it should be for a Chinese
user, (or for a multilingual user as shown in 
http://eyegene.ophthy.med.umich.edu/iuc27/html/img19.html) will you?  

- Ed Trager

> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Owen Taylor [mailto:otaylor redhat com] 
> Sent: Wednesday, August 31, 2005 8:47 PM
> To: Boncek, John
> Cc: gtk-i18n-list gnome org
> Subject: Re: Chinese Simplified appearance
> 
> On Wed, 2005-08-31 at 15:26 -0500, Boncek, John wrote:
> > Attached is a screen shot of a screen we are generating using Pango
> > with GTK 2.2.4.  It is a print preview screen with the printout mostly
> > in Chinese Simplified.  Does the Chinese look correct?  It looks to us
> > like Pango may have selected different sizes or boldness of fonts for
> > different characters in the same line in many cases.  Does it do this
> > automatically when the selected font size doesn't have all the
> > characters, or is there some other problem?
> 
> To get good looking display of East Asian languages, you generally have
> to let the system know *which* language the text is. Otherwise, it will
> select a font character by character and unless your lucky and the
> right font happens to be first, you'll get this sort of ugly mix.
> 
> You can do that various ways:
> 
>  - Use the LANG environment variable
> 
>  - Use pango_context_set_language()
> 
>  - Use a language PangoAttribute 
> 
>  - Use <span lang='zh-cn'>[blah]</span> PangoMarkup
> 
> Regards,
> 					Owen
> 
> 
> 
> 
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