Date: Wed, 31 Oct 2001 12:18:36 +0100
From: leif halvard silli <lhs@russisk.no>
Subject: Re: Mac Norwegian&Russian
To: CyrTeX-en@vsu.ru
Message-ID: <3087375516.Leif_Halvard_Silli0003@192.168.0.1>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
In-Reply-To: <list-4112878@vsu.ru>
References: <list-4112878@vsu.ru>

Laurent wrote:

=2E..=20
>This linking is real progress; it was not available a couple =
of=20
>years back because the KCHR change was a global system issue
>not necessarily accessible from within an arbitrary application.

I must say that with Language Kit it has been there since 7.1. Though th=
ings have improved. Though you are probably right that it has become mor=
e accessible, for scripting, macros etc.

>Nisus Writer 6.03 costs about $100-$130 and BBEdit something similar.

Let me then quote last NISUS newsletter:
>we are offering Nisus Writer=20
>for as little as $41.95 for the upgra=
de, or $84.95 for the full version.=20
>While I am at it, those of you =
who have the free Nisus Writer 4.1.6=20
>can upgrade to the latest vers=
ion of Nisus Writer for only $59.95

If you are smart you register your free version of NW 4.1.6 and upgrade.=


>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 ;).

BBEdit lite do not have unicode. Another pal however, Pepper, from hekke=
lmannprogrammatur (I probably misspelled the name...), has Unicode. It a=
lso support TeX. At least TeX syntax. And then we have latest version(s)=
 of Style. Full unicode support.

>Does BBEdit or Nisus offer all manner of conversions between the=20
>v=
arious unicode variants including UTF8, UTF16, ... ??
>I hear they are virtually readymade in recent Mac OSs.

BBEdit can save in UTF-8. NW is included with apple-scripts which lets y=
ou convert text, with help of Text Encoding Converter in Systemfolder, t=
o all the encodings TEC support, which also includes Unicode/UTF-7,-8. T=
he NW-solution is not perfect though, of course.=20

=2E...
>> >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.
>>=20
>> But as I said above: it is possible with a Cyrillic QWERTY key=
board
>> 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.

Ok. But you need cyrillic kit to make use of it.

>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 bu=
t
>with any editor that supports one arbitrarily selected 256 character
>font. Just free FOND,NFNT, and KCHR resources (from me)  are needed plu=
s a list of
>active character definitions.  Maybe 40K max in all. $0. Certainly
>affordable to poor students of Russian.

When they have tutor not too far away I am sure they can get it to work =
also  :-) Most mac-users will gasp when they hear of FOND, NFNT and KCHR=
=2E..

>The greatest weakness was the need for one KCHR per national
>keyboard and per "West_European_and_Russian" encoding.

In the Cyrillic Lang Kit that comes wiht OS 9 and 9.1 there is both Germ=
an-Russian-QWERTZ and French-Russian AZERTY phonetic keyboard layout res=
ources. But, alas, no similar Norwegian keyboards...

>When we have broader Mac unicode support this last dependency will=20
=
>disappear while dependence on national keyboard will remain.
>
>But you are no poor student, so naturally you should have less
>trouble!

You remind me about me when I was about to buy a super-filter to my vacu=
um cleaner recently. I remembered how expensive it was some years ago...=
 I in fact dismissed buying it for a few years because of that... I just=
 found out that it had been for no reason... (Now I also managed to tell=
 how rich I am...)

>What you probably need for typing with your brand new Nisus Writer
>with its nice unicode features,

No unicode features yet there, alaos. See above.

> 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).

I give you as many hours you need... I am a TeX novice. If I follow your=
 prescription I might learn some things. And then I can reapply it for m=
y own needs...

>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=20
=
>software, it looks like I am in a position to be of real help.

:-) Well, yes :-)
--=20
leif