Date: Tue, 30 Oct 2001 11:33:05 +0100
From: leif halvard silli <lhs@russisk.no>
Subject: Re: Typing Norwegian&Russian
To: CyrTeX-en@vsu.ru
Message-ID: <3087286385.Leif_Halvard_Silli0001@192.168.0.1>
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Laurent wrote:
=2E...
> -- Obtain from me a single "West_European_and_Russian"
>8-bit Mac screen font and drop it on your Mac System
>folder.

Feel free to send it to me or show me from were I can downlod it :-)

> -- Obtain from me a single "Norwegian-Russian" KCHR
>keyboard resource and drop it on the Mac System file. You
>or I would have to build it on analogy with my
>"French-Russian" KCHR resource (not difficult using the
>ResEdit a tool delivered with most Mac systems).

I would like to do this also. Perhaps if you send me your french-russian=
 keyboard I can see what must be done? I have used ResEdit a little.

> -- Input (into TeX before typesetting) a table telling
>TeX how to interpret the characters >128 in the
>"West_European_and_Russian" 8-bit screen font.

I assume you have this table also? ;-)

In fact, the ParaType (russian) font company sells Russian-Finnish fonts=
/keyboards. It is a very smart thing, so that one can use the same font =
for both russian and finnish. But the norwegian =E6=F8=E5 is not in the =
finnish alphabet so...

>At this point the language switching reduces to
>
>  (c)  type a language switch macro
>  (e)  hit the Shift-Lock key

The problem with this is that the Shift-Lock key is not programmable. On=
e could think that it must be possible to design the KCHR so that one ca=
n have one version that belongs to cyrillic script (as understood by Mac=
OS) and one that belong to Latin script. That way one could switch betwe=
en the two keyboards via the 'Flag-menu', or with Command + Space (which=
 is the short cut to switch between writing systems on the Mac). If you =
made the keyboard like this (you would have to make two keybaords), on c=
ould make macros that performed languages switch and keyboard switch at =
the sime time.

>You have to use a new way to type Russian on ASCII=20
>keyboards, one =
that I consider superior to any other ---=20
>perhaps because I concoct=
ed it myself but perhaps because=20
>it has more internal coherence tha=
n rivals I have seen.
>
>To get the 33 letters of the Russian alphabet one types
>respectively:
>
>     a b v g d e 'o 'z z i j k l m n o p r
>     s t u f x 't 'c w 'w q y h 'e 'u 'a   =20

Ok, this reminds me about using Cyrillic QWERTY KCHR for typing (8-bit) =
russian with Cyrillic Language kit.=20

>The Russian Cyrillic letters \cyra, \cyrb, \cyrv, ... ,=20
>\cyrya app=
ear on the screen.

Cyrillic letter? This is TeX/LaTeX ascii representations... I suppose I =
will see the real letters on screen (referring to what you write below)?=


>  The eight "doublets" 'o 'z 't=20
>'c 'e 'u 'a  each produce *one* Cy=
rillic character via the=20
>Mac's official "dead-key" mechanism --- wh=
ich all West=20
>Europeans employ in typing some or all accented charac=
ters;=20
>the "Norwegian-Russian" KCHR resource configures this=20
>me=
chanism.=20

Interesting.

>Those of you who followed my postings in year 2000
>will recognize some of the conventions that I call=20
>ASCII-Cyrillic =
-- it's a scheme for faithfully=20
>representing Russian in ASCII; but =
you need not=20
>care about that here; the above is rather for efficien=
t
>8-bit typing of mixed Cyrillic&Latin text with
>Cyrillic&Latin characters appearing on screen.

So we see the cyrillic letters as real cyrillic letters instead of \cyra=
? (Same question as above.)

>There remains a technical problem: how should one communicate
>such typescripts between russists using differents sort of
>computer.  One good answer is obvious:- by conversion using TeX
>to (and from) to the UTF8 encoding.  The conversion=20
>
>  "West_European_and_Russian" =3D=3D> UTF8
>
>can be supplied by CV a converter by me and Bernd Raichle,
>modulo (addition of one more encoding table).  The reverse
>will require some revision of CV.

You may as well send me this also. Though I have a slight feeling I woul=
d prefer the the Cyrillic QWERTY-(or if you wish: "two-physical-keyboard=
s") method.

--=20
leif