Subject: Re: Other natural languages
From: Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail@yahoo.com)
Date: Mon Dec 24 2001 - 02:48:17 CST
--- Savant shanti <info2mein@yahoo.com> wrote: > Hi
Mr. Andrew,
> Thanx a lot for a brief analysis of the complex
> scripts.
> I'm interested in adding 'Assamese' language.
> This
> language is very much similar to 'Hindi'(Devnagiri).
> I
> have the full knowledge of the language and would be
> interested in how to implement the things in
> AbiWord.
>
> I have programming knowledge of C, C++, Java,
> Perl.
> And as such AbiWord is written in C++, I shouldn't
> find problem in developing something for it. Thence
> please guide me how to start work with it.
> Hoping for quick response.
Hi again. I'm forwarding this to the AbiWord
developer list for maximum exposure. I think it would
be incredibly good to be able to add an Assamese
language developer to our team! As for where to
start, I'm not sure which OS you are using. But you
want to get the latest version of the AbiWord source
via cvs. There are instructions at
http://www.abisource.com if you are not already
familiar with cvs. If you are on Linux/Unix you will
need to learn how to get TrueType fonts working and
you will need to locate an Assamese keymap. Windows
2000/XP should just work if you install Indic support.
Then you can start experimenting with AbiWord to find
where it has specific problems with Assamese. I
think ISCII file format supports Assamese but my
importer/exporter does not yet. This might be one of
the easiest places to start looking at the code for
you. I'm searching the web now for more info on
Assamese support in Windows and Mac OSX. I will try
to add Assamese to the "Select Language" dialog.
You probably want to subscribe to the AbiWord
developer list if you have not already and start
asking questions there as you need.
Hope I've helped. Andrew Dunbar.
> --- Andrew Dunbar <hippietrail@yahoo.com> wrote:
> > --- Savant shanti <info2mein@yahoo.com> wrote: >
> > Hello Developers,
> > > I went through the list of available
> languages
> > in
> > > AbiWord but couldn't find my language. I find
> > > AbiWord
> > > to be an excellent word processor and want to
> > > include
> > > my language support into it.
> > > Please tell me how to start with it. Also I
> see
> > > in
> > > "Set Language" options 'Hindi' as one of the
> > > language
> > > but when I choose that an error comes up 'Some
> > > dictionary cannot be opened'.
> > > Please reply soon.
> >
> > I'm one of the AbiWord "language guys" so I'll try
> > to
> > help. There's a few places where languages are
> > integrated into AbiWord. The most basic place is
> > the
> > "document language" which usually comes from your
> > computer's locale setting but can be overriden for
> > any
> > section of a document by the "Set Language"
> option.
> > The error you see is because Abi does on-the-fly
> > spellchecking but we have no spellchecking
> > dictionary.
> > If somebody can tell us where to find one we will
> > surely use it. Or anybody can create their own if
> > they know how to do so for ispell or pspell, both
> of
> > which Abi can use. Separate from Abi itself, you
> > will
> > need a keymap or input method for your language.
> > For
> > Hindi I know Windows 2000 and up come with such
> > keymaps and Abi worked with them some months back.
> > You will also need fonts for your language and you
> > will need to know how to set up your OS for these
> > fonts. Windows 2000 and up also come with Hindi
> > fonts
> > but on *nix I bet this is not easy. The final
> thing
> > I can think of is the ability to render your
> > language's script system. There are four major
> > classes of these: Western, BiDi, CJK, and complex
> > script. Abi's Western script support (English
> etc)
> > is very good. Our CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean)
> > support is quite good but we have issues from time
> > to
> > time. Our BiDi (Hebrew, Arabic, etc) support is
> > being
> > actively worked on by a small dedicated group but
> I
> > believe Hebrew works better than Arabic. Our
> > complex
> > script support (Thai, Hindi, Indic languages) is
> not
> > very good. We don't have anybody working on this
> as
> > far as I know but some of the BiDi work is
> probably
> > quite useful in this regard. We also intend
> to/hope
> > to make use of PanGo at some point after Abi 1.0
> > which
> > should do wonders for complex scripts but that's
> not
> > any time soon.
> >
> > Hope this helps. I've probably left some things
> > out.
> > What language are you interested in adding?
> >
> > Andrew Dunbar.
> >
> > =====
> > http://linguaphile.sourceforge.net
> >
> > __________________________________________________
> > Do You Yahoo!?
> > Everything you'll ever need on one web page
> > from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts
> > http://uk.my.yahoo.com
> >
>
>
> __________________________________________________
> Do You Yahoo!?
> Send your FREE holiday greetings online!
> http://greetings.yahoo.com
=====
http://linguaphile.sourceforge.net
__________________________________________________
Do You Yahoo!?
Everything you'll ever need on one web page
from News and Sport to Email and Music Charts
http://uk.my.yahoo.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b25 : Mon Dec 24 2001 - 02:48:22 CST