[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread] 

List:       kde-i18n-doc
Subject:    Re: hindi gnome & indix project(was Re:hindi)
From:       Lars Knoll <lars () trolltech ! com>
Date:       2002-06-20 11:33:14
[Download RAW message or body]


> Here is the Gnome-Hindi translation team for
> Hindi(http://indlinux.org/hindi/gnome/index.php). You(the person who
> started the tread) can direct your enquiries there.
>
> On Thursday 20 June 2002 01:32 pm, Lars Knoll wrote:
> > I think a solution to this should be based on Xft/freetype, where we can
> > get direct access to the fonts, we should not even try to make it work
> > with non Xft based systems. Getting the glyphs from Xft is not the
> > problem, but knowing which glyphs to use for the ligatures. The best
> > solution would be to implement the open type solution MS uses, as we can
> > then use all indic open type fonts available.
>
> The guys at Indix Project(http://rohini.ncst.ernet.in/indix/) are trying to
> provide support for indic languages right at the X-server level, by
> modifying the X-server itself. Their server(indix) even has support for
> open-type fonts(http://rohini.ncst.ernet.in/indix/technical_details.html).
> But IMHO, it does seem too complicated & whether such a thing is really
> feasible in terms of stability, et al needs to be pondered. -Pramod.

Doing it at the XServer level seems wrong to me. Some people tried this for 
hebrew/arabic, but the result can be at best halfways usable for displaying. 
You will get lots of problems with applications that query font metrics on a 
per character basis and assume these are correct. There is no way at all you 
could get an editor working this way. 

So IMO the work has to be done on the toolkit level that offers displaying and 
editing widgets. In our case this is Qt, and I am very much willing to devote 
time to implement this, once we get the basics in place. This means I would 
need some way to get access to the open type tables from freetype or (best) 
Xft. Once we have that, we are a big step further, as Qt already offers a lot 
of the infrastructure needed.

Cheers,
Lars

[prev in list] [next in list] [prev in thread] [next in thread]