Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!snorkelwacker!bloom-beacon!SHAMASH.MCRCIM.MCGILL.EDU!mouse
From: mouse@SHAMASH.MCRCIM.MCGILL.EDU (der Mouse)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re:  Chinese User Interface in X
Message-ID: <9006100105.AA16716@shamash.McRCIM.McGill.EDU>
Date: 10 Jun 90 01:05:06 GMT
Sender: root@athena.mit.edu (Wizard A. Root)
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 52

> I would like to know from those of you with infinite knowledge and
> experience with X and access to R4...

Hm, well, perhaps I'll do instead....

> 1) Does X11R4 have Chinese fonts? Please note that this is NOT the
>    same as the Japanese Katakana characters.

R4 has a Japanese font which includes hiragana, katakana, and kanji.
Obviously Chinese characters are not the same as Japanese kana, but
would a kanji font do, or did you mean to write "kanji" where you wrote
"katakana"?

> 2) If the fonts are not part of the standard distribution, are they
>    avaiable anywhere else?

The font of which I speak is on the R4 tape, in
mit/fonts/bdf/misc/k14.bdf.

> 3) Is there any support anywhere for the input of Chinese characters
>    under X?

There is kterm, a terminal emulator designed for use with Japanese.
Obviously, it has to have some way of typing kanji on a keyboard
labeled with a basically Latin alphabet.  I don't know details, though
from what I've seen written about such systems I would expect the user
to type romaji and then the system will effectively generate a menu of
the likely kanji, with some sort of escape for entering the unlikely
ones.  I don't know enough about the various transcription methods of
Chinese into alphabetic writing systems, but presumably something
similar could be done for Chinese, given a well-defined romanization.

I'm not certain where to get kterm; presumably it can be gotten from
expo with ftp, though I must admit I haven't tried doing so.

> 4) Has anyone had any experience with the load on the server when
>    using languages with large character sets (such as Chinese or
>    Japanese)?

Not me, though I would like to get kterm working here soon.

> Please reply by mail since I'll be back on the road shortly.  Mail
> will be forwared to me, but news won't.

Unfortunately you didn't sign with an address.  I'll try to mail to an
address derived from the header, but I'm also posting in the hope that
it will do some good.

					der Mouse

			old: mcgill-vision!mouse
			new: mouse@larry.mcrcim.mcgill.edu