Re: SL-5500 and i18n

Greetings,

In mail on SL-5500 and i18n, Ulrich Plate (plate_at_gol.com) wrote:
> ... Up front, an apology:
> I'm mostly concerned with things probably not very high up on your priority
> list... Thanks for listening to me anyway. :-)

They're fairly high on my list too, so you're not alone.

>The reason I'm popping up all
> of a sudden is that I'm going to make a demonstration of the SL-5500 next
> week here in Tokyo, and I'd like to get some internationalisation issues
> sorted out before I confront my audience.

Sorted out? That WOULD be nice. Hacked around is more likely in
that time-frame.

>...

> I'm sure many other applications can use the unifont, too, but despite the
> font I'm using originally was from Trolltech, why, pray tell, can't I use it
> with the Qtopia PIM suite?

Good question. We need a dialog box to change the default small /
med/ large font in Qtopia PIM apps and overall. Perhaps that's an
item in the Appearance styles, but I couldn't find anything.

Opie / Tkc folks, is a change the default font dialog something
that's been done in your apps? Or maybe a small / med / large /
[User configurable with default unifont ] choice?

>I managed to sync my Japanese ...
> data with the Zaurus, but all the Japanese characters in addresses and
> appointments are garbled, needless to say. Are there any patches to fix
> that?

Here's a workaround which may or may not be worth it for you.
Eliminate all non-Unicode fonts. Qtopia will then fall back to
unifont. For instance, to make the Large font option in the PIM's
display unifont, in terminal do:
# mkdir ~/LocalFontBak
# cd /opt/QtPalmtop/lib/fonts/
# mv helv* fixed_120_50_t10.qpf smoothtimes_1* ~/LocalFontBak

[BTW, name completion via tab key is your friend.]

Now when you look in addressbook, and choose the Large Font, your
Japanese items should be displayed as something other than boxes.

A less than optimal solution, but maybe one you'll want to use for
your own usage and for the presentation.

> My other issue is handwriting recognition for Japanese characters.

Currently no Qtopia-wide entry methods. Someone was rumored to be
working on a Chinese input method, but I haven't seen any results.

Here come some design idea ramblings.

> Nunome is far from being
> perfect, but what would one have to do to make it (or something like it) run
> as a general IME for applications on the Zaurus?

Convert it from it's protocol (XIM?) to a Qtopia input-method
plugin. I've no idea how hard this would be.

> Or could Japanese simply be
> added to the existing handwriting tool?

Perhaps? I imagine Troll Tech took Asian languages into account
when designing it. Just have to find out how to create and use
.qpt files... Anybody have any documentation pointers?

But I want to type using the keyboard using romanji. So what
keyboard options do I have? If Qtopia can be hacked to accept
XIM, many (huge) choices will exist.

> I'd be really grateful if anybody here had some suggestions for me!

Yeah. Knock them dead at the PDA presentation! ;)

                Later,

                        Howard Abbey
Received on Sat Jun 01 2002 - 00:26:25 EDT