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*** for Macintosh users only ***
Hi Lief,
It seems you have some "dernier cri" Mac software that
is just on my horizon:
> > (d) in the font menu switch between the Mac-Latin
> >and Mac-Russian screen fonts.
>
> This is *usually* taken care of automatically when switching Keyboard
> layout [see (b) above]. It happens in BBEdit now (as it supports
> UNICODE). But Alpha does not support it yet.
> >VARIANT (1)
> >A real pro would be tempted to pay for some programming to
> >condense steps (b),c),(d) into s single function key.
>
> I agree. I use Nisus Writer 6.03 myself, and there is no problem
> automating this with NW. It is as simple as making a macro which
> change font and at the same time insert the language switching macro.
> Then the keyboard switching will follow automatically. One could also
> let the macro change keyboard instead. Then the font will also change.
> (Yes, it is possible to turn of the font/keyboard syncronisation.)
This linking is real progress; it was not available a couple of
years back because the KCHR change was a global system issue
not necessarily accessible from within an arbitrary application.
Nisus Writer 6.03 costs about $100-$130 and BBEdit something similar.
Does the free (still?) BBEdit_Lite_6.1 of 2001 have the mentioned
UNICODE features? (I have been waiting for some compelling reason to
unwrap it ;).
Does BBEdit or Nisus offer all manner of conversions between the
various unicode variants including UTF8, UTF16, ... ??
I hear they are virtually readymade in recent Mac OSs.
> >VARIANT (2
> >Another possible improvement of this "off-the-shelf" setup is
> >to set aside the Norwegian keyboard and type Norwegian on the
> >Russian keyboard in ASCII characters as Knuth's TeXbook
> >recommends (the Russian Mac keyboard offers good access to
> >ASCII but not to any latin accented characters).
> > This allows
> > one to use Alpha with any single Mac-Russian encoded font. Steps
> > (a),(b),(d) vanish.
>
> Yes, I think it sounds pretty elegant. This would mean typing cyrillic
> in 8-bit and norwegian letters as macros (to use the langugage of
> Vladimir).
Yes, there are moderately elegant macros like Knuth's.
And also very elegant macros like "u for 'u-umlaut' in german.sty.
As with automobiles this extra elegance goes along with some extra
fragility. You could type /Oersted at similar cost.
> >But what about casual students of Russian in Norway who
> >lack the resources to acquire a Russian keyboard? They will
> >surely want to make do with their Norweigan Mac keyboard.
> >I'll address that problem in another post explaining the
> >solution I have devised.
>
> But as I said above: it is possible with a Cyrillic QWERTY keyboard
> layout also, right?
As explained elsewhere, if this means the Mac KCHR resource for Russia,
then it will give satisfactory service *only* if you suitably label 33
or more physical keys. Even then it will be "hunt-and-peck" for a long
time. The labeling is painful enough that it has not been a "done
thing" for decades. But send this "Cyrillic QWERTY keyboard layout" to
me so I can be sure I understand.
I tend to look around for a keyboarding system that requires a minimum
of prerequisites so that absolutely everyone is equipped to use it.
What I went on to recommend yesterday had zero prerequisites inasmuch
as it works *not* just with a superb wordprocessor like Nisus Writer but
with any editor that supports one arbitrarily selected 256 character
font. Just free FOND,NFNT, and KCHR resources (from me) are needed plus a list of
active character definitions. Maybe 40K max in all. $0. Certainly
affordable to poor students of Russian.
The greatest weakness was the need for one KCHR per national
keyboard and per "West_European_and_Russian" encoding.
When we have broader Mac unicode support this last dependency will
disappear while dependence on national keyboard will remain.
But you are no poor student, so naturally you should have less
trouble!
What you probably need for typing with your brand new Nisus Writer
with its nice unicode features, is probably nothing more than my poor
student's KCHR for the very special case of the US QWERTY physical
keyboard and the Macintosh Cyrillic 256 char encoding, rather than
for the Norwegian physical keyboard and an exotic 256 character
encoding. That KCHR will be used only when typing Russian and will be
switched out when typing Norwegian. This Cyrillic keyboarding setup
for Nisus will work because the *physical* Norwegian keyboard is
QWERTY where the ASCII letters are concerned. (And it won't work with
the physical French AZERTY keyboard!.)
In summary you need just:
-- one new QWERTY-Cyrillic KCHR (from me; give me 24 hours)
-- list of active character definitions > 127
(from Vladimir if you use LaTeX; I could supply it for Plain TeX).
and you will use the Mac encoded Russian fonts that you already have.
No Shift-Lock keystroke is involved in shifting between Norwegian and
Russian. Nisus will be required for one-key language-switching while
typing. (On the other hand, the poor student's solution would be
available system-wide.)
Thanks to your excellent description of your desires and available
software, it looks like I am in a position to be of real help.
Cheers
Laurent S.
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