Subject: Re: Dog Food.
From: Martin Sevior (msevior@mccubbin.ph.unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Wed Mar 22 2000 - 17:37:06 CST
On Wed, 22 Mar 2000, Oliver Doepner wrote:
> On Wed, 22 Mar 2000, Martin Sevior wrote:
>
> > I've just used abiword to write my annual report. I found my patches to
> > be extremely helpful.
> > I used the "Insert Symbol" dialog to put in all the strange symbols
> > Physicists use to describe sub-atomic particles. In addition I used it
> > to insert the funny European characters that make up the names of some
> > of my European collegues and to insert bullets (from the "Standard
> > Symbols" font) into hand made lists.
>
> Hi,
> I just wanted to know whether these patches would fit into the utf8
> encoding concept. I use utf8 to work with many symbols you mentioned
> (That could be basically everything that's available in UTF8-unicode and
> is included in the selected TTF-font. I currently use the "Lucida Sans
> Unicode" font but would be happier with the Cyberbit Bitstream TTF that
> is also installed on the winnt that I have to use.)
> (I haven't installed the linux version of AbiWord on my Suse 6.3 yet.)
The "Insert Symbol" dialog gives you the choice of all the fonts
with 256 characters available on the Unix build. You choose a font, then
choose a character. It implicitly assumes that each character is 8 bits
wide. The dialog remembers the font and character you chose between
invocations and the default font and character presented when you ask for
"Insert Symbol" was the one you last chose.
>
> Do the scientific symbols match with symbols in unicode 3.0 ?? Then there
> should be a proper mapping between utf8 and the other encodings.
>
I've never tried to work out how utf8 maps to 16 bit unicode but on the
other hand I just used standard abiword calls to change the font and
insert the character. Abiword is so well designed that it might "Just
Work". Try it and see! You'll be the second person who has used "Insert
Symbol" on abiword :-)
> > The new underline code made overlining subscripted text come out right and
> > the bug fixes to the font changing code limited my invocation of strong
> > language.
>
> You might want to take a look at "Unicode Normalization Forms"
> (Unicode Technical Report #15) at:
>
> http://www.unicode.org/unicode/reports/tr15/tr15-18.html
>
This sounds like a good reference. I guess I have to add unicode to the
list of things I have to learn. Hacking on Abiword has been a very
educational experience. It gives me more sympathy to all the students I
lecture Physics to!
Cheers
Martin
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