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From: leonardr@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: A Programmer Praises the Mac
Message-ID: <46100130@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu>
Date: 21 Apr 88 16:48:00 GMT
References: <2658@polya.STANFORD.EDU>
Lines: 65
Nf-ID: #R:polya.STANFORD.EDU:2658:uxe.cso.uiuc.edu:46100130:000:4120
Nf-From: uxe.cso.uiuc.edu!leonardr    Apr 21 10:48:00 1988


jellinghaus-robe@CS.YALE.EDU writes in comp.sys.mac

>>And while other operating systems struggle to come out with a french or
>>a german version, the Mac has always had that, and is now multi-lingual:
>>Japanese, Arabic, Turkish, and Icelandic, each with its own date formats,
>>and sorting rules, all in the machine, (all even in a single document)
>>at once. (click in the Japanese part of the line, and the keyboard remaps
>>to kanji. click in the arabic part and text inserts from right to left, and
>>letters change their shape automatically depending on whether they are at
>>the beginning, middle or end of the word.)
>
>Yow!  Show me a real Mac program that can do this.  I sure
>haven't seen one yet.  And what about the menu bar?  Does it
>change, too, depending on what part of the line you're in?
>
>Agreed, all this is *possible* with the Mac OS, but I have
>yet to see any application with *all* the necessary resources
>in *all* the above-mentioned languages.  Most applications
>will exist in one version for each language; writing one that
>can deal with multiple scripts at once would be *really* hard.
>I know I haven't seen or heard of anything like what you
>describe.
>
	You're missing the WHOLE POINT of the Script Manager and Internationalization
What you want (and are able to achieve using the Script Manager properly (which
mind you very few program do, but I'll get to that later!)) is a program that
CAN operate in whatever script is current, be it Roman (normal), Hebrew, Arabic
Japanese, or any of the the other ~30 scripts that Apple has defined.  That is 
the wonderful thing (amazing too, mind you, and my hat goes off to Mark Davis
and the International Development Group for it!) about the Script Manager - one
set of routines allows you code to work with ANY of the foreign Interfaces,
rather than having MANY different pieces of code for each possible option.
	What you are asking for is that ALL resources also change when the script
changes...That's an interesting concept, (implementable if you REALLY wanted 
too) but not really practical.  If the person using the foreign Interface System
wants all of his dialogs/menus, etc in the language of his choice, then he can
either purchase a localized version or do it himself, but most (to my knowledge)
of the people using the Script Interfaces use them only part time to include
foreign language text in their English documents, and may not (do not?) want
all their resources in the foreign language (let along changing scripts
everytime they do!!!)
	You are right in one thing that you mention, and that is that there are VERY
few products currently available that support (REALLY SUPPORT!!) the script
Manager and the foreign scripts.  There are two word processors that are being
sold as Script Manager Word Processors (as they were designed with this in mind)
but they are very basic in function (like a MacWrite level) and are therefore
of limited use for many things (such as papers requiring footnotes for example).
And what about Draw Packages, Desktop Presentations, Desktop Publishing??
Actually Letraset and Aldus are working on (Letraset has them available now)
international versions of thier products (ReadySetGo4 and PageMaker respectively
) and they are supposed to be compatable.....
	Well, I've ranted enough...I'll turn off my International Flame Thrower now
and get on with my work.....


+---------------------------------+-----------------------------------+
+                                 +  Any thing I say may be taken as  +
+   Leonard Rosenthol             +  fact, then again you might decide+
+   President, LazerWare, inc.    +  that it really isn't, so you     +
+                                 +  never know, do you??             +
+   leonardr@uxe.cso.uiuc.edu     +                                   +
+   GEnie:  MACgician             +                                   +
+   Delphi: MACgician             +                                   +
+                                 +                                   +
+---------------------------------+-----------------------------------+